The Disobedient Mistress. LYNNE GRAHAM

me when I know for a fact that you’re behind with the rent on your business premises, behind with your bank loan and up to your pretty throat in debt—’

      ‘Leave my throat…pretty or otherwise…out of this, please.’ Misty rose to her feet, no longer able to tolerate being looked down on by him. How dared he speak to her in such a way? How dared he? It was bad enough learning that the contract on which she had placed all her hopes was to be awarded elsewhere, but that he should add insult to injury by enumerating what he deemed to be her mistakes was more than flesh and blood could bear.

      ‘And losing your temper with me will impress me even less,’ Leone informed her with a derisive look at her aggressive stance. She might be around five feet ten tall, but she was as slender as a willow wand. What on earth was the matter with her? She was useless at bluffing. Her eyes gave her away every time. Did she really expect him to waste time listening to her trying to convince him that she wasn’t on the edge of a financial abyss?

      In the space of a second, rage almost ate Misty alive. The temper that she had long since mastered threatened to overflow like lava. She wanted to take a swing at him. She wanted to wipe that derisive slant off his lean, strong face with a well-placed fist and that simple awareness disconcerted her enough to put a brake on her anger.

      ‘You’ve brought me in here, given me the bad news, but you didn’t need to personalise the issue,’ Misty stated with curt dignity. ‘So why would you think I want to impress you now?’

      An ebony brow elevated. ‘I could be thinking of throwing you a lifeline.’

      A shaken and involuntary laugh escaped Misty. She was grateful that he had not given her an opening in which to beg. She was even grateful that he had made her furious. For if she were forced to stop and consider the appalling consequences of losing that contract, she might well come apart at the seams and embarrass herself. He liked playing games with people, she decided. Or maybe it was only women he liked toying with.

      ‘Is that really a possibility?’ The tip of her tongue came out to moisten her dry lower lip as she wondered if it was remotely likely that, in spite of what he had so far said about her business acumen, he might have some other job to offer her.

      The silence hummed like a circular saw on her straining nerves. His attention had dropped to her lips, the too wide, too full mouth she hated. No doubt he was noticing that it was out of proportion to her face. Men were supposed to think about sex, what was it…at least once every five minutes? She reckoned he would be challenged to keep his mind clean for sixty seconds. He had an aura of potent virility that no woman could avoid noticing. She studied him, the lush black lashes screening his gleaming scrutiny, and her lips actually tingled with her awareness of him, her rebellious body stirring with the sensations she had grown to fiercely resent experiencing in his vicinity. The sudden tense, full sensation lifting her breasts inside her cotton bra cups, the utterly demeaning throb of her nipples tightening.

      Never had Misty been so grateful for the concealment of her jacket. Imagine him seeing that physical evidence, imagine him knowing that he could make her stupid body react like that with one charged glance! Ever since she had met him, she had recognised that cruel Old Mother nature was reminding her that she had hormones, but it meant nothing. She had been hurt too much to risk herself again with any man and she need hardly worry that this particular male was likely to make a pass, for Leone Andracchi was just doing what came naturally to a sexual animal of his appetites: considering every passing woman of a certain age on her merits. And she knew her merits to be few and far between.

      ‘Anything’s possible. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?’ Leone murmured, smooth as velvet.

      Flash had told her that when he’d been trying to talk her into his bed. Try it, you might find you like it. Not the seduction line of the century, but another week or two of his determined siege and she might have succumbed out of gratitude and love, for she did love him, would always love him, only not the way he had wanted her to love him. But sometimes in low moments she would think that she should have snatched at his offer and made the best of it.

      ‘It’s my motto.’ Misty was careful to keep Leone Andracchi out of focus, determined to blank him out as a man, get her foolish physical self back under control and let those taunting sensations subside.

      ‘Sit down,’ Leone Andracchi told her.

      Obviously something was in the offing. She dropped back down into the seat, thought that maybe, after all, it had been worth staying up half the night to produce those wretched Sicilian recipes for his benefit. Major egos liked being stroked. Honey went far further than vinegar, she reminded herself doggedly. What had happened to her belief that she could make herself beg? Why did the prospect of speaking even one humble word to Leone Andracchi clog up her throat like a threatened dose of poison?

      ‘I have a role that I would like you to fulfil for me over the next two months.’ Leone surveyed her steadily. ‘In return I would rescue your business, and at the end of our agreement I would ensure that you had sufficient work to survive. What do you think?’

      ‘The last time I looked there wasn’t two blue moons hanging out there in that sky,’ Misty quipped with helpless bluntness.

      CHAPTER TWO

      LEONE ANDRACCHI dealt Misty a look of hauteur, his wide mouth tightening with perceptible exasperation.

      Having immediately recognised her mistake in making such a facetious response, Misty had turned hot pink with discomfiture. She could not work out where those inappropriate words of doubt had emerged from. It was the effect of him again, she decided. He spooked her, put her on edge, knocked her out of the cautious business mode which she had no problem maintaining around other clients.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Misty said flatly, ‘but what you just said sounded too good to be true.’

      ‘So you’re now willing to concede that you’re facing bankruptcy?’ Leone probed.

      A chill at the very sound of that terrifying word sank into Misty’s bones and she shifted uneasily in her chair. ‘Mr Andracchi—’

      ‘Until you admit that reality, I will go no further,’ he warned her.

      Her earlier argument to the contrary had evidently offended. She would have loved to have known what he would have done in the same position. Announced to his one last hope that his back was up against the wall? No way, he was far too clever for that, so why was he judging her for her attempt to regain his confidence? Just because he refused to credit that she could have fulfilled that contract for a year! But she knew she could have, had done the figures over and over again, had been ready to go on living like a church mouse to have done so.

      ‘Or leave my office,’ Leone Andracchi added with lethal cool.

      ‘I’m…facing…bankruptcy,’ Misty framed like a clockwork toy with a battery about to run flat. The admission hurt, made real what she had until then refused to contemplate and she hated him all the more for forcing her to that brink.

      ‘Thank you. As I said I have a promising proposition to offer you. It’s nothing to do with catering, although if you find yourself overcome with the urge to cook Sicilian cuisine in your spare time, I will have no objection,’ Leone imparted with a sardonic smile.

      The offer had nothing to do with catering? Nothing? She hoped that swallowing his sarcasm in silence would prove to be worth her while.

      ‘First, I want your assurance that nothing I now say will be repeated beyond this office.’

      Since the first rule of any business was respecting client confidentiality, Misty bridled at that statement. ‘Of course. I’m no gossip and I’d be a fool if I was.’

      ‘I need a woman to pretend that she’s my mistress.’

      She heard an imaginary crash as her jaw metaphorically hit the floor. She waited on the punchline, certain he was mocking her in some way and determined not to rise prematurely to the bait.

      ‘You will note that word,