‘When’s that?’
‘On the twenty-third of December, sir. I know it’s very close to Christmas—’
He silenced her with a wave of his hand. ‘Si.I can fit that in before I fly out to Switzerland,’ he observed, almost thoughtfully.
Flora sat up straight, because maybe he would value initiative as well as honesty. ‘Or you could always send the CFO in your place?’ she suggested.
‘That isn’t going to happen because I’ve sacked him too.’ He gave another wolfish smile. ‘So I’ll be going to Scotland and you will be coming with me.’
‘Me, sir?’
‘Si.And don’t call me sir,’ he instructed testily. ‘My name is Vito. Got that?’ He gave a dismissive nod of his head. ‘You can go now.’
He plucked a vibrating cell phone from his suit jacket and flicked it a quick glance, replacing it without answering it, and she had just reached the door when his next silken words halted her. ‘Oh, and, Flora?’
She turned around, wondering what else he was going to ask of her. ‘Yes…Vito?’
His handsome face had darkened with irritation and he was jabbing an accusing finger towards the sapphire tinsel which was draped extravagantly around the front of the desk. ‘Get rid of these damned decorations, will you?’
CHAPTER TWO
‘IDON’T WANTto go,’ Flora said stubbornly.
‘Why not?’ Perched on the bar-stool in the cramped kitchen of their Ealing flat, Amy swung her thick blond plait over her shoulder and looked at her sister incredulously. ‘A trip to Scotland with your hot, billionaire boss on his private jet. What’s not to like?’
Flora was about to blurt out that the thought of being incarcerated with an arrogant man like Vito Monticello for any amount of time was horrific, but she quickly clamped her lips shut. Amy might worry and it had always been her default setting to keep her little sister free from care.
And anyway, it wasn’t strictly true, was it? Mostly her aversion was more to do with her own feelings and her inexplicable reaction to someone who was so far out of her orbit that he might as well have hailed from a completely different universe. What had happened today had felt crazy. And weird. He made her aware of her body in a way that had never happened before.
‘I don’t particularly want to get on a private jet with him,’ she told her sister calmly. ‘For a start, it’s right before the holidays.’
‘And?’ Amy drummed her fingernails on the kitchen counter impatiently. ‘You’ll be back in time for Christmas Day, won’t you?’
Well, yes, of course she would be—but that wasn’t the point. Flora felt flustered as she tried to hold back a sudden rush of emotion, not wanting to swamp the baby chick she’d cared for ever since their mother had fallen to her death while rock climbing, a sport she had pursued to the exclusion of everything else—even her own children. Amy had been only ten and Flora a mere eight years older when they’d been brutally orphaned, and it had been a tough battle to convince social services she was capable of being a stand-in mum. But she’d done it. Somehow. She’d managed to create a warm and cosy little nest on a shoestring budget. She’d fitted her life around the grieving little girl and had nurtured her, fiercely contradicting anyone who ever praised her for making ‘sacrifices’. Because that word hadn’t even figured on her radar.
She’d done it out of love.
Yet sometimes the fear which had underpinned that love had terrified her.
It still did.
She was so proud of her younger sister. The way she’d entered nursing at eighteen and shown a real aptitude for the caring profession. Meeting an Aussie doctor and getting engaged just before she qualified hadn’t been part of anyone’s vision, and though Flora was delighted that Amy had found love, that didn’t stop her fretting. She was soyoung—just twenty-one. And she was going such a long way away. But thoughts like that were selfish and she mustn’t allow them head space.
‘I was hoping to be here in the run-up to the holidays to do all the prep,’ she husked. ‘It’s going to be your last one here, after all.’
‘Rubbish!’ negated her sister. ‘I’m only going to be a plane ride away. And you’ll be coming out to Brisbane for turkey on the beach next year, remember? Anyway, Brett and I can do Christmas foryoufor a change! We’d love to.’ She beamed. ‘And when you get back from Scotland you won’t have to lift a finger.’
Flora did her best to appear happy, especially as Amy seemed to be so excited about the prospect. Perhaps she and Brett would welcome a bit of personal space in the cramped Ealing apartment for once. Did they sometimes think that three was a crowd—and that she was a bit of a gooseberry who cramped their style?
And wasn’t she?
It seemed to go even further downhill from there. Usually, Flora loved the run-up to Christmas—but this year it seemed to pass her by and there was only one person responsible. Vito Monticello’s killjoy attitude had extended far beyond his own vast office and, during his first few days of prowling around his London empire, had demanded the removal of every single Christmas decoration in the Verdenergia building. The tall conifer tree which decorated the shiny marble foyer had been the only thing which had been allowed to remain and even that had been after a battle, when Flora had explained that sometimes she saw little children stopping to look at it, their noses pressed against the window.
‘Oh, very well,’ he had conceded, with an impatient sigh. ‘But everything else goes, understand?’
‘If you insist. But people won’t be very happy about it.’
His jet brows had been elevated in arrogant query as he awaited an explanation.
