‘We’ll talk after you’ve been checked out.’ Her old friend sounded so defeated but, Ashley realised, also something else: something that made her feel even uneasier. She needed to figure out what was going on, why Nico Galletti had targeted her company…and then decide what she could do about it.
Fifteen minutes later, having had all her vitals taken by the efficient EMT and choked down an energy drink and a granola bar, Ashley slipped out of her office, determined to get the bottom of whatever mystery she’d stumbled on, figure out how her father had hurt Nico Galletti and then convince the man that destroying her company was not the right kind of revenge. Simple. Although, when she remembered that fierce look in Nico’s eyes, maybe not…
As Ashley came out to the open-plan office, she felt as if she’d come upon a funeral. All her employees sat slumped at their desks, looking shell-shocked. A couple of them were crying quietly.
‘Let me guess,’ she said heavily. ‘Nico Galletti…’
‘Just fired us all,’ Tom, one of her recent hires, said, sounding despondent. ‘We have ten minutes to clear out our desks.’
‘He only gave me five,’ Ashley told him, trying for a wry note but, she feared, only sounding bitter.Howcould Galletti be so cruel? These people had done nothing wrong. Didn’t he care about due process, severance packages, a sense ofdecency? Nico Galletti didn’t seem to concern himself with any of those kinds of things, and certainly not the last.
Fury spiked through her. The man really was a monster.
‘Where is he?’ she asked her employees, and Tom shrugged.
‘He left.’
‘Left?’So he’d lobbed a grenade into her office, her wholelife, and then just strolled away from the wreckage? Typical.
‘Just a few minutes ago,’ Denise add, an administrative assistant and single mum of two. ‘He said his staff would make sure we were gone.’
Ashley shook her head in despair. These people needed their jobs, or at the very least some kind of severance. She could not let Galletti treat them this way.
Fired by both outrage and a desperate sense of purpose, she whirled around and strode back towards the hall.
‘Where are you going?’ Tom called.
‘After him,’ Ashley shouted over her shoulder with grim determination. She’d taken too many things in her life lying down to let this one pass. Nico Galletti was going to know the full force of her anger.
Knowing the lift would be too slow, Ashley made for the stairs, clattering down twelve fights in a way that left her breathless but even more determined. Down in the foyer, she sprinted for the front doors—just to glimpse Nico Galletti stepping into a limousine.
‘Stop!’The word came out in a roar that had the security guard startling. Ashley raced for the doors, hurling them open and hurtling through, stumbling once in her pumps so that pain blazed through her ankle, and then half-sprinting, half-limping to the car door that was just about to close.
‘You can’t do this!’ she burst out as she yanked open the door, and then, her ankle giving out in another blaze of pain, she pitched forward with a yelp of surprise…landing right on top of Nico Galletti.
Chapter Four
FOR SEVERAL STUNNED SECONDS, Ashley couldn’t think. Her ankle was a blaze of pain, her mind a haze of…awareness.
Awareness of the long, lean body, warm and taut, lying under hers, thighs moulded to hers. Her breasts squashed against a hard, muscled chest that made them both ache and tingle. She felt the heat of him, touching every pressure point in a way that was exquisite and incredibly unsettling, especially considering she’d raced after him for an angry confrontation, not for…this. Whatever this was.
After what felt far too long, Ashley lifted her startled gaze to meet Nico Galletti’s.
Instinctively, she braced herself for whatever expression she expected to find in those silvery-grey depths—bemusement, derision, fury or some combination of all three. What she hadn’t expected to see was desire, making his pupils dilate and his irises flare. From a distance they looked grey, or even silver, but from this close she saw they were rimmed in gold, like little sparks of fire. And those eyes, those magnificent eyes, were filled with heat and locked on hers.
The moment, which was already unsettling, suddenly turned fiercely electric. Ashley felt as if she could practically see the sparks in the air, hear the vibrating hum of energy; every breath was charged as they simply stared at each other.
Silently, without breaking her gaze, Nico half-rose from where he was sprawled on the seat and slowly, almost languorously, shifted Ashley higher up on his body. Her legs slid along his, her hips settling into his as a sizzling sense of awareness raced through her veins at every point of contact. Then, with one hand, Nico closed the limo door, rapped once on the tinted screen that separated them from the driver and they sped away from the kerb. And all the while Ashley couldn’t break his gaze. She couldn’t even move; as the car cut through traffic, she realised she wasstilllying on top of him, with far too many agonizing points of contact between their two bodies, each ragged breath a loud rasp in the quiet confines of the limo.
Then Nico put his hands on her hips and adjusted her, so she was cradled between his thighs in a way that felt evenmoreintimate—and exposing. Her breasts were flat against his chest, her mouth inches from the lean, brown column of his throat. Everything in her felt sluggish, hazy and yet at the same agonizingly sensitised and aware. How she could feel both at the same time, Ashley had no idea, and yet she did.
She was achingly conscious of every part of him: the warm skin beneath her body, the smooth cotton of his shirt under her palms. She could feel his heartbeat thud against her hand—slow, steady beats that increased in speed as the moment stretched on and spun out—and still neither of them had spoken. He was as affected as she was, she realised with a thrill of wonder as she kept staring at his throat, too overwhelmed to lift her gaze to his face once more.
She realised Nico’s hands were still on her hips, and Ashley wasn’t so much of an innocent that she couldn’t feel the evidence of his desire beneath her own aching thighs. It sent another pulse of longing through her, like liquid fire racing through her veins. How had this happened so fast? How had this happened atall?
And it should stop, it should definitely stop, because she had people depending on her, and a company to save, and…
Nico lifted one hand to the back of her neck, his long fingers tangled in her hair as he drew up her head, so she was forced to look at him once more. His eyes blazed into hers. For a second, Ashley thought he was going to say something. His lips parted, and his gaze, still locked with hers, turned fierce, almost desperate. Everything in her tensed—and yearned. She didn’t know what she wanted him to do, and yet she did. Oh, how she did.
