He’d confessed that he was in perpetual mourning for the sixty-something-year-old lady who’d worked for him for years before inconsiderately inconveniencing him by emigrating to New Zealand to be with her daughter and grandchildren.
Erin had stepped in, killed his curiosity about her personal life before it could really take root, and now they couldn’t have had a more harmonious working relationship.
Except for the times when she’d had to grit her teeth and remind herself of the size of her pay cheque.
Like now.
Except this evening, she was going to do a little bit more than grit her teeth.
‘What are you doing after this?’
‘Huh?’ Eric blinked and looked at Colin with surprise. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Fancy coming to a bar with me? Or we could go have a proper meal somewhere? These canapés are amazing, but I could eat ten times what I’ve already eaten and still be hungry.’
‘Colin, that’s very nice of you…’
‘I can sense abutcoming after that.’ He smiled at her. ‘Can I add abutof my own?’
‘Of course.’ Erin could feel herself blushing.
‘Okay,butif you do change your mind and ever fancy having a date with a lawyer two floors down, promise me you’ll get in touch.’
‘I will,’ Erin said warmly, still pink. She drained her glass, only her second for the evening. She was still all hot and bothered as Colin gave her a little half salute, then headed away to join everyone else who hunting around for bags and jackets.
Raffaele’s cocktail parties were always lavish and always brief. He opened his house in a show of generosity but there was always the unspoken understanding that no one outstay their welcome.
Erin watched the gradual exodus of people but remained where she was, standing by the bay window with the empty glass in her hand.
Her boss’s house was magnificent, an exquisite, vast Georgian mansion in one of the best postcodes in London, with grand Corinthian columns and ironwork balconies as intricate as lace. The floor-to-ceiling windows that they guarded were impressive from the outside and even more impressive inside because of the light they let in.
They had all been ushered through to the largest sitting room in the house, whose marble floors with handmade inlays oozed opulence. Lots of pale colours everywhere and an abundance of paintings, all vaguely recognisable and all priceless originals.
Erin had only ever been into a couple of rooms on the ground floor but she imagined that the rest of the magnificent house was the same—cold, elegant and luxurious. Not her thing, if she was honest. She thought of where she had grown up and stifled a smile.Definitelynot her thing.
She blinked her thoughts away and found that Raffaele was seeing out the last of the fast-departing crowd. Then he turned, lounged indolently against the wall and looked at her with raised eyebrows.
The man was stupidly beautiful.
Six foot two inches of pure, sexy alpha male. His Italian heritage was evident in his classically beautiful features, in the dark hair which he wore slightly too long and in his Mediterranean colouring. Only his eyes, a deep navy blue, suggested other roots. Those eyes were fixed on her now in a lingering, amused stare.
He began strolling towards her.
‘Why are you still here?’ was the first thing he asked when he was towering over her. ‘Shouldn’t you have been at the front of the queue when everyone started leaving? You’re usually the first to go. Plus…is that an empty glass I see you holding?’ He looked at it with an unduly shocked expression.
‘I’m not teetotal, Raffaele. Why wouldn’t I be holding an empty glass?’
‘You didn’t drink at the last do I had. I noticed.’
‘Younoticed?’
‘It’s my job to notice what my employees are getting up to. You didn’t touch a drop—although, in fairness, you had a cold and spent most of the evening trying not to cough. I notice things like that. It’s why I’m so successful and such an amazing boss.’
‘That’s very modest of you.’
‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you the last to leave? No, before you answer, let’s get out of here. Let’s have a drink in the blue room. I want to talk to you about something interesting that came up in one of my discussions with Archer.’
Typically, he didn’t give Erin time to answer. He spun around on his heels and headed to the door, grabbing a bottle of champagne on his way ‘I’m taking it that you’re not in your usual rush to leave?’
