The Italian's Secretary Bride Read Free Page A

‘very special person’ welcoming tone.
    What was it about some people that made other people fall over themselves to be attentive? Alice would have liked to be able to attribute the deference to money and power, but she knew that even if you had robbed her boss and his brother of those advantages they would still have been able to effortlessly command attention in any environment.
    Impatient with the trepidation she was experiencing, she turned her head and gave a smile befitting the efficient ‘PA cum secretary deputising for her boss’s face.
    There was a man standing there, but not the one she was waiting for. Anticlimax sent the tense muscles of her stomach into a lurching dive. She sighed, rubbed her nervously damp palms against one another and, because she’d looked at most everything else in the room and the newcomer was worth a second glance, she carried on studying him.
    This one looked far more like the sort of man she would prefer to be waiting for, she mused wistfully. Tall but not too tall and well dressed. Youngish-looking, too, despite his distinctive head of silver hair. As her eyes connected with his the man gave a quizzical smile. Alice returned a lopsided embarrassed smile and looked away in case he got the wrong idea.
    Her gloom intensified as she returned her attention to the wine list and pretended to study it, as if she couldn’t already have written a dissertation on the hideously expensive bottles on offer! The man, like the entire room, including the overly solicitous staff, obviously thought she had been stood up. They weren’t wrong.
    Just as well this wasn’t a real date.
    The idea of her having a real date with Luca O’Hagan made her smile thinly. World peace by the weekend was a much more likely scenario!
    She was making inroads into her fresh glass of wine when the discreet maître d’ quietly informed her that Mr O’Hagan had left a message that he would be there presently.
    â€˜I can hardly wait.’ Her dry rejoinder made the bearer of the glad tidings look slightly disconcerted. ‘Thank you,’ she added with a smile, trying hard to display a little of the gratitude the man obviously expected her to exhibit.
    In reality the news had not made Alice feel exceptionally grateful, just exceptionally mad.
    To be stood up by, not one, but two O’Hagans on one evening was enough to make anyone a little cranky.
    â€˜You stay, smooth things over with Luca for me,’ her boss had cajoled persuasively before abandoning her. ‘A night out will do you good. You deserve a treat.’
    â€˜Well, actually, I could do with an early night…’ And you could do with therapy if you imagine even for a tiny second that I’d class a night out with your brother as a treat.
    â€˜Pity. I cancelled our meeting last month and I wouldn’t like Luca to think I’m a sore loser.’
    Alice was instantly sympathetic. ‘Well, I suppose I could…’
    â€˜Excellent.’
    What Roman had lost and Luca had picked up had been six feet one and blonde. The Swedish model in question graced the front covers of just about every glossy magazine Alice picked up at the moment. The elder O’Hagan brother had returned from a business trip to Prague to find that his girlfriend had left for the States with his brother.
    Roman hadn’t seem gutted; he had greeted the news with a philosophical shrug. Alice, indignant on his behalf, knew he was bravely hiding his true feelings. Bad enough to have your brother run off with your girlfriend, but for the story then to be splashed across the tabloids must have been truly shocking.
    She really hoped her boss’s feelings for the gorgeous lady hadn’t run deep, but even if they hadn’t it wouldn’t have let the lecherous Luca off the hook in her eyes. For all he knew Roman might have been head over heels in love…no, Alice thought, he had behaved despicably!
    Some