The Italian Boss's Mistress. LYNNE GRAHAM

about to say went clean out of her mind again.

      It was rare for Pippa to be forced to look up at a man. But what sent her brain into free fall was the sheer dazzling effect of this particular male animal up close. From the bronzed skin enhancing the lean, hard, elegant planes of his proud cheekbones to the stubborn masculine angularity of his jawbone, he was strikingly handsome. His mouth was wide and firm, his brows level and dark to match the gleaming luxuriance of his cropped black hair. But it was the piercing quality of eyes dark as ebony and accentuated by a frame of lush inky lashes that entrapped her.

      ‘Or…?’ Andreo collided with her turquoise gaze and found his annoyance mysteriously evaporating beneath the onslaught of those spectacular eyes. She was staring up at him in the most uncool way, her response to his sexual magnetism patent in her dilated pupils, and amused satisfaction gripped him.

      She really didn’t know who he was. She really had mistaken Sal Rissone for him. She was not teasing him or trying to capture his interest with a novel approach. Perhaps he was at risk of turning into one of those painful guys who took himself much too seriously, Andreo reflected abruptly. He decided that he ought to be challenged rather than antagonised by the unusual experience of hearing himself criticised. It certainly made a change from the fawning flattery that had been his lot throughout the evening.

      ‘Or…?’ Pippa was magnetised by his proximity and inexplicably feeling very short of breath.

      ‘You were saying that people talk up Andreo D’Alessio because he is wealthy and because…?’

      ‘His reputation scares them half to death,’ Pippa filled in jerkily.

      ‘What have you got against Andreo?’

      ‘You’re an Italian, aren’t you?’ Somewhat belatedly, Pippa connected his delicious growling accent to his likely nationality. Delicious? The dark timbre of his deep, low-pitched drawl was impossibly sexy. Thrown by the strange emergence of thoughts that seemed to have no direct input from her brain, she shifted off one foot onto the other. Without the smallest warning, she felt her nipples snap tight into stiff little buttons inside her bodice and her cheeks burned hot while she wondered what on earth was happening to her.

      ‘I am.’ Andreo continued to study her. No matter how hard or how long he studied her, her colouring was a source of continual fascination to him: that glowing cinnamon hair and those turquoise eyes enhanced by skin that had initially been pale as milk but that was now flaring a soft rose pink. It had been a long time since he had seen a woman blush and he was intrigued. ‘You work for Venstar?’

      Pippa nodded but she was extremely tense. ‘You referred to Andreo D’Alessio as if you know him personally…’

      He was Italian, Pippa was thinking in dismay. He had to work for D’Alessio and, if he was part of the initial wave of imported employees, he was unlikely to be a junior member of the team. Her tongue darted out in a nervous flicker over the soft underside of her lower lip.

      Andreo found himself imagining that moist pink tip tracing an erotic path of exploration over his bared skin. The sudden throb of his aroused sex startled him for he was long past the teenage years when self-control in the radius of a beautiful woman had often been a challenge. ‘Perhaps I’m just curious to know what you have against a man you’ve never met,’ he breathed almost harshly.

      Pippa tossed her head, cinnamon tresses spilling back against her slim white shoulders. Cautious as she was trying to be, it was already too late because the alcohol in her bloodstream was firing her every response with an unfamiliar aggression. ‘How do you know I’ve never met him?’

      Andreo elevated a fine black brow. ‘You…have?’

      ‘No, I haven’t, but I don’t need to meet him in the flesh to know that he’s a sexist dinosaur, who discriminates against women to make himself feel more powerful!’ Pippa slung bitterly.

       CHAPTER TWO

       D ISCONCERTED , Andreo frowned down at the woman maligning his reputation as a fair employer. His ebony eyes glinted with golden highlights. He stifled an instinctive urge to slap her down so hard verbally that she would never again dare to make such an unjust charge against him. ‘ Dio mio… That’s a loaded accusation to make against a man whom you can know virtually nothing about.’

      Pale as death and almost as taken aback as she could see he was by her angry outburst, Pippa dropped her head and muttered, ‘Excuse me…’

      As she began to move away Andreo swung round to effectively bar her passage. ‘Don’t rush away,’ he urged.

      What the heck had come over her? Pippa was asking herself in consternation. Only a mad woman would hurl an accusation like that about the boss at a work function! That wretched brandy had gone to her foolish head and loosened her tongue. Naturally she was bitter about the reasons why she had been passed over for promotion but, if she had no intention of making a formal complaint, she needed to keep her lips sealed for her own protection. ‘Look, I—’

      ‘You haven’t even told me your name,’ Andreo incised, noting the slight tremor of the pale slender hand she had braced against the wall.

      After that crazy bout of outspokenness, only a suicidal idiot would gave a truthful response to a name, rank and number request that would identify her, Pippa conceded in dismay. Her head was beginning to pound in response to the increasing level of her stress. What was she to tell him? Pippa Plain? Pride brought up her head again as she remembered what her late mother had often called her. ‘It’s Philly…’

      ‘Philly,’ Andreo sounded out, rolling the syllables huskily together. ‘I like it. Let me buy you a drink and convince you that Venstar’s new owner walks on water even in his spare time—’

      ‘Is he really that full of himself?’ Pippa interrupted with aghast turquoise eyes.

      ‘You have a problem with confident men?’ In the act of frowning, Andreo again found himself questioning his own self-image.

      ‘If by confident you mean arrogant, yes, I have a problem—’

      ‘Andreo isn’t arrogant. He is secure in himself and assertive,’ Andreo pronounced with approval, ushering her in the direction of the quiet bar by dint of a light hand that only momentarily brushed her spine. ‘But you must tell me why you referred to Andreo D’Alessio as sexist—’

      Eager to avoid that controversial subject, Pippa murmured hurriedly, ‘You haven’t even told me your name yet…’

      As if he already knew how much he off-balanced her, Andreo sent her a slanting grin.

      Her heart hammered so hard and fast that she felt momentarily faint.

      ‘It’s Andreo, I’m afraid,’ he supplied.

      ‘Is that like…a common name in Italy?’

      ‘Very much…every other guy is called Andreo,’ Andreo groaned with silken mockery, surveying her from below the deceptively sleepy fringe of his black lashes, dark golden eyes vibrant with concealed amusement.

      Pippa was fascinated, exhilarated and scared all at one and the same time. She had not even noticed him ordering a drink for her and when a waiter offered her a cocktail in a tall, thin glass she accepted it without comment and let the sparkling liquid moisten her throat.

      ‘Are you married?’ Pippa heard herself ask Andreo with all the effortless cool of a giant weight dropping from the sky. Having heard other women talk, she knew it was the one question that a sensible woman should always ask when she met a man for the first time.

      He laughed out loud. ‘You’re so subtle…of course I’m not married. Tell me why you think Andreo D’Alessio is a dinosaur—’

      ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

      ‘I do.’ Andreo stared down at her with the daunting force of will that came as naturally to his domineering nature as the need to breathe.

      ‘I