She’d just have to make a great impression in her muddy jeans.
‘I’ll come with you…’ she started.
The impatient man interrupted her. ‘Signor Lorenti only wishes to speak with the estate manager. You must direct me to him immediately.’
Him?Seriously?
So Lorenti had never evenreadher emails.
‘You’re looking at him. Or rather her.I’mthe estate manager,’ she said.
The man’s eyebrows rose as his gaze flicked over her. Heat blitzed her cheeks.
But then he nodded. ‘Let us go. Signor Lorenti has been waiting long enough.’
Tali allowed a spurt of irritation to cover the sting of hurt as she followed Lorenti’s judgy minion into Westwick Hall and up to the Hall’s library on the second floor, where Lorenti had been waiting to speak to her…for all of ten minutes. While she had been waiting for years tofinallyspeak to him.
Chapter Two
WHILELORENTI’S ASSISTANTknocked on the library door and waited for a reply, Tali brushed off her clothing, tied her long hair into a knot at the back of her head and swallowed the lump of panic.
She was young for her position at twenty-two and not looking her best at the minute. But there was nothing she didn’t know about the estate. She’d lived here almost as long as she could remember, ever since her mum had taken the job of housekeeper after her dad had deserted them both—the winter before Lorenti’s accident.
She just hoped she didn’t have any horse manure on her face.
‘Entrare.’
The lump pushed into her throat at the harsh demand delivered from behind the door.
The assistant opened the door and introduced her in Italian.
Tali plastered what she hoped was a professional smile on her face as she stepped into the room.
She inhaled the smell of old leather and lemon polish, comforting and familiar, as the assistant excused himself and closed the door behind him on his way out.
She’d always loved the library—the rows and rows of books, many of them first editions, displayed on shelves that rose two storeys and included a mezzanine level accessed by a wrought iron spiral staircase. At the far end of the room was the old Lord’s mahogany desk. Behind it stood Lorenti, with his back to her, as he gazed out of the large, mullioned window, which looked out over Westwick’s circular driveway and the fishing lake beyond.
Lorenti’s silhouette in the light cast by the mid-morning sunshine made him seem incredibly tall, his muscular shoulders and lean waist displayed to perfection in a steel grey designer suit. His stance was tense, making the usually soothing atmosphere in the library bristle with energy…
The lump of panic expanded. Should she alert him to her presence?
He raked his fingers through his hair, the waves cropped close to his head. His hair was much shorter than she remembered it being that summer, when it had grown long enough to hit his collar.
She shook her head to dispel the distant memory. And gave herself a mental kick.
He’s not that wounded, angry teenager anymore. He isn’t going to remember you, and you don’t want him to. Because you’re already at enough of a disadvantage…first-impressions-wise.
In fact, he seemed to have forgotten she was there, transfixed by who-knew-what in the driveway… She hoped it wasn’t the potholes they’d been unable to afford to fill in this spring.
The moments ticked past, the grandfather clock by the door keeping time with the hammer thuds of her pulse—and increasing the tension which hovered around him like an aura.
She cleared her throat. ‘Mr Lorenti, you wished to speak to me…urgently.’
He stiffened as if he’d been woken from a trance, then turned. Even in the half-light she could sense his gaze on her. The energy emanating from him seemed to stroke her skin, then sank into her abdomen. The heat in her cheeks blasted to her hairline.
‘Vieni qui… Come into the light,’ he demanded. The brittle tone made her shiver.
She stepped forward with as much courage as she could muster under that penetrating stare—which seemed to look through her without seeing her.
