Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals. Cathy Williams

      When he had told her that he didn’t know every person working in the law firm, he hadn’t been lying, just as he didn’t personally know every single person working in the legal department of his own company, but he knew enough to suspect that the majority of them had not had to struggle to get where they were.

      They would mostly be the products of comfortable middle-class families, put through private schools or excellent state schools, brought up on a diet of holidays abroad and generous pocket-money allowances, more than enough to ensure that they didn’t have to hold down an extra job in a restaurant to pay the bills.

      So what was he to do with this information?

      The bottom line was that he fancied her but alongside that elemental physical reaction was the sobering thought that she wasn’t like the other women he dated. That, in itself, was inherently disconcerting. Add the relationship she had with his daughter and things moved from disconcerting to downright dangerously foolhardy.

      But the more he saw, the more he wanted...

      And would she go out with him at all anyway? Was she even interested? Was this physical urge that was making a mockery of his common sense even reciprocated?

      She didn’t give off all the usual signals. There were no coy looks or glances held for slightly too long or little-girl helplessness designed to bring out his protective instinct. He didn’t know any other woman who would have gone into detail about a miserable, deprived childhood because no one would have seen that as the sort of light-hearted chit-chat which formed part and parcel of verbal foreplay.

      And the way she always looked as though she couldn’t escape his company fast enough...

      She wasn’t playing hard to get.

      But she blushed...and there were times when there was the ghost of a vibe, some electrical current that he could feel passing between them...soft, subtle, barely there but there enough to make his blood run hot...

      Was that why he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head? He’d wrapped up his work as quickly as he could earlier today, had delegated a great portion of it to Bob Coombes, one of his CEOs...and he knew he had done that because not only had he wanted to take advantage of the thaw in relations with his daughter, but because he had also wanted to see Sunny.

      It was a weakness he didn’t care to acknowledge because he allowed himself no weaknesses when it came to women. It didn’t matter how sexy a woman was or how much he was interested in bedding her, there was always a part of him that knew he could, in the end, take it or leave it.

      He’d never rushed work for any woman before. He hadn’t even rushed work for Alicia. In fact, had it not been for the pregnancy, Alicia would have been as temporary as all the women he had dated since his divorce.

      But he’d found that he couldn’t wait to drive back to the house and surprising her in the swimming pool...

      He felt the stirrings of an erection as he recalled the softness of her body against his, the teasing temptation of those stiffened nipples...

      Deep in thought, he was hardly aware of Flora until she said, standing in the doorway, ‘Sunny’s here.’

      Stefano smiled, turning. ‘You look very pretty, Flora.’

      Flora frowned and he wondered whether the fragile truce was over now that Sunny was no longer on the scene as a third party and unwitting mediator.

      ‘No, I don’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’m too dark-skinned.’

      Stefano looked at her narrowly. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

      Flora shrugged and it reminded him of those evasive, dismissive shrugs that Sunny often produced when she had no intention of prolonging a conversation she wasn’t interested in having.

      Had his daughter picked that up from Sunny? But no...he had noticed that trait before. Were there barely discernible similarities just below the surface, similarities that connected them, explained the way they had just clicked? And how could a child who had had it all be similar to a woman who had had nothing as a child?

      ‘Who told you that?’ he pressed and was met with another shrug.

      ‘Mum mentioned it now and again.’

      ‘Your mother...’ He inhaled deeply and held onto his daughter’s serious gaze. ‘You’re beautiful, Flora, and I’m not just saying that because I’m your...dad...’ He had to clear his throat. His voice sounded strangely gruff and he felt a curious lump in his throat when she rolled her eyes but half smiled before leaving the room and heading for the front door.

      Dear Alicia, he thought, the corrosive taste of bitterness filling his mouth. She had ensured that their divorce was as acrimonious as possible and, having flown across the ocean with Flora, had made doubly sure that his visiting rights were thwarted at every turn. He had always suspected that she had filled his daughter’s head with all sorts of lies and half-truths, even though he had given her every single thing she had requested at the time of the divorce.

      But had her machinations gone even further?

      Had she taken out her rage and bitterness on their child? Because Flora reminded her of him? Had she made the sort of wilful remarks that had left an impact on Flora? Alicia had been very blonde. He could imagine the ugly twist of her mouth if she’d made a point of criticising Flora’s much darker colouring.

      If his ex-wife had been standing in front of him right at that very moment, Stefano felt that he would not have been responsible for what he did to her. He could have cheerfully throttled the witch.

      Any wonder he’d had his fill of women as long-term investments?

      He laughed sourly to himself, heading in his daughter’s wake for the front door.

      He saw Sunny before she actually saw him because, as he hit the hall, she was turning away, saying something to Eric, laughing.

      Stefano stopped dead in his tracks and, eyes narrowed, felt a stab of something like jealousy rip through him.

      Gone were the jeans. He’d told her to wear something dressy. He’d expected a variation on her working-clothes theme. Sensible skirt skimming her knees...neat top...camouflage outfit... The sort of nondescript garb designed to make her blend into the background and not draw attention to her stupendous looks.

      He knew he’d been guilty of assuming that she was a girl who made it her business to avoid fun, especially after she had told him about her background, especially when he’d connected the pieces and worked out that security was way more important to her than fun, and financial security was really the one thing for which she was quite happy to sacrifice the business of going out.

      She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. He guessed that she’d had a parent who had done that. What she wanted was to fly under the radar, hence her unassuming work clothes and nondescript casual clothes.

      She was fiercely independent and to have been frothy and flirty would have gone against the grain.

      He’d made all those sweeping assumptions about her.

      She had no boyfriend. Another sweeping assumption was that she wasn’t interested in looking for one either. That sort of thing could come later and, when it did, it would be in the form of a serious-minded guy with a stable job, who, like her, wasn’t interested in the business of having fun.

      It was inexplicable why he was so drawn to her, why she had taken root in his head and why she refused to go.

      He liked his women to be fun. The last thing he was interested in was a serious woman because it was a short step between the woman who was serious and the woman who wanted a ring on her finger.

      Avoid the serious woman and you avoided the whole ring-on-finger killer conversation.

      His mother had always mistakenly imagined that he needed a nice, serious young woman to step into the role of wife and mother. She disapproved of the flighty things who