Under the Italian's Command (3 page)

‘AND YOUR SECOND TASK for today, Ms Tate…’

They were in Lorenzo’s office. He was seated; she was standing in front of him like a recalcitrant child. She kept her expression carefully neutral. It wasn’t that she had suddenly become immune to the power storm swirling round Lorenzo, but the fact that her feet were killing her. She had made a real effort to conform to the image she imagined he would have in mind for a successful female applicant for the Unicorn scholarship, and if that involved wearing the type of heels that were almost impossible to come by for farmyard feet, then that was what she would do.

‘You’re a front runner for the scholarship,’ he said. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

Say yes, and be damned for complacency, or say no and appear a
wuss
. She decided not to comment and straightened her back, assuming what she hoped he would take for a determined stance. And while she did that she gave full rein to her lust. Playing poker face was an area in which she excelled.

‘You do
realise
what’s hanging on your performance over the next few weeks?’

She might have known Lorenzo wouldn’t give up until he had forced an answer out of her. Thinking about her parents made a clean sweep of her mind and the lust. Her parents had talked of nothing but the scholarship for months now, and both the bridge club and golf club were waiting agog for news of her latest triumph, apparently.

‘Ms Tate.’ Lorenzo snapped her out of the reverie.

‘Yes?’ She held back on the temptation to salute.

‘Do I have your total commitment to this project?’

‘One hundred per cent.’

‘Good.’ He relaxed a little, which was enough to give her a grandstand view of his socks…as well as just a hint of the tanned and deliciously muscular hairy legs above them. Her cheeks fired up like warning beacons when he caught her staring.

‘Something wrong?’ he said.

‘No…of course not—’

‘That outfit won’t do,’ he said, turning his attention to her clothes. He wrinkled his nose as he
scrutinised
the same suit he’d seen lying in the gutter. She had sponged it down since then with a pungent though effective mix of hot water and vinegar. She had wanted to look her best for this momentous first one-on-one meeting with her pupil master, except, of course, this wasn’t their first one-on-one encounter. ‘I’m sorry about your car—’

‘Never mind that now,’ he said impatiently. ‘I expect you to deal with that in your own time. This is my time, and while you’re under my tutelage I expect you to prove you’re a lawyer worth sorting out.’

‘Oh, I am,’ she said eagerly. Her cheeks fired as her body entertained some frenzied notions involving Lorenzo sorting her out. ‘What I mean is, I won’t disappoint you—’ The fire in her cheeks went up a notch when she noticed his interested gaze lingering on her breasts. Her suit jacket wouldn’t close over them and was hanging open, revealing a paper-thin shirt that had seen much better days. ‘I’m ready to be sorted out,’ she blurted recklessly. ‘And I promise to try and find something more suitable to wear.’ As she spoke she clutched the edges of her jacket in a last-ditch attempt to make it close.

‘Be sure that you do.’

Carly
couldn’t tell if Lorenzo was amused or angry as he turned his attention to the documents on his desk, but now it was her turn to study him. The fine wool of his dark, bespoke suit clung attractively to his powerful frame, and she guessed he would have to have suits made for him as the spread of his shoulders was so wide—

Looking up, he snapped, ‘I thought I told you to go home and change?’

Change into what? Ally
McBeal
? She was wearing a thrift-shop find, and going home to change her clothes would involve donning another thrift-shop find. She had to come clean and explain. ‘I would, but—’

‘But?’ Lorenzo let the word hang like a dead rat. ‘No excuses, Ms Tate. If you intend to succeed you must do what I say, when I say it.’

Had she signed up to join the army? And what would it take to soften that firm mouth?

‘If you have difficulty following a simple instruction perhaps we’d better sort that out before we go any further,’ Lorenzo rapped, jolting her back to full attention. Holding up a list with the logo of the Unicorn scholarship printed prominently on the top of the sheet of paper, he said, ‘If you’re not willing to go the extra mile in every area of your professional life I think it better for both of us if I cross your name off this list now.’

‘Are you threatening me?’ She couldn’t believe she’d said it, but something made her blunder on. ‘Did you spare a thought for the consequences of parking your flashy new car across the cycle path? Or was it more important to leave a gleaming Alpha Romeo where you could admire it from the window? That way, I suppose, when the cogs of your students’ minds failed to turn swiftly enough you’d got at least one piece of outstanding machinery to admire.’

‘Finished?’ Lorenzo demanded coolly. He shifted in his chair. ‘Passion, Ms Tate. I like that in an advocate. But I’d also like you to consider the perils of over-larding your assertions when you’re standing up in court.’

His eyes were like black diamonds, and the ice in his voice was a salutary reminder that Lorenzo
Domenico
had not risen to the top of the legal levee on a tide of emotion.

‘Yes or no, Ms Tate?’ he demanded, pen poised.

Her heart was racing. Her lips were parted…

She was aroused!

And not just aroused, she was thoroughly stirred up, which was unusual—no, make that unique! This unexpected confrontation with Lorenzo was rousing parts of her that had remained dormant for years. And at this, one of the most crucial moments in her life!

She had to get over it, and let her mind rule; her parents needed this. ‘You can put your pen down,’ she said with matching calm. ‘I’m up to the challenge.’

If only Lorenzo didn’t have quite such a direct and perceptive stare, but she had to be up to the challenge. She hadn’t moved from a sleepy village—where her parents were pillars of the local community—to the city, only to fail them. Her goal was to make her parents proud, and if that meant jousting with Lorenzo like this then she would. She wanted the Unicorn scholarship more than anything. Other than a hug sometimes… ‘You mentioned a second task?’ she prompted, rattling her brain cells into order.

‘I’d like you to
organise
the Christmas party.’

The poisoned chalice! Her stomach clenched.

‘The holidays come around each year, Ms Tate,’ he said briskly. ‘There’s no need to look so startled. I have been informed that we host a spectacular Christmas party each year, and I’m offering you the chance to make this year’s the best. I would have thought you would be grateful for an opportunity to shine.’ He said this wearily. ‘You have four days,’ he added in a harder tone.

Four days? He made it sound as if four days was a generous amount of time in which to achieve the impossible. Lorenzo had unerringly settled on the one task for which her finely-tuned brain was most ill equipped. She was a
swot
, not a party planner. She collected scholarships like other people collected golf trophies. But Lorenzo was right in saying this was a chance to impress, if not the chance she had been hoping for. She didn’t have sufficient polish to lay on something grand for a group of sophisticated lawyers.

But polish could be acquired,
Carly
reminded herself, whereas ambition had been stamped on her forehead at birth. She was going to nail this.

‘If you don’t feel up to the task I can always ask someone else.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she assured him. ‘I can handle it.’ If he’d asked her to walk up and down Oxford Street with a sandwich-board on her back advertising ambulance-chasing services, she’d do that too. All it took to cement her determination in place was the thought of her mother’s face if she failed, or her father’s friends shaking their heads behind his back, if she returned home empty-handed. She had to win Lorenzo’s respect somehow if she was going to land the wretched scholarship. She was going to grasp this nettle and shake it in his face. She was going to put on the best Christmas party there’d ever been.

Somehow.

‘Are you sure?’ he pressed, staring at her intently. ‘You can’t afford to get this wrong, Ms Tate.’

Thanks for the confidence boost! ‘I’m positive. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’ She tipped her chin and found a confident, businesslike smile to match the brave words. She had already fathomed how she was going to turn what her mother was sure to see as a menial task into a positive: Lorenzo had entrusted her with the task of
organising
the most important chambers event of the year. The fact that you didn’t need an
honours
degree from Cambridge to do that would never occur to her mother.

She hoped.

‘Very well, then…’ Lorenzo’s dark eyes glinted as the challenge began. ‘Well? What are you waiting for? You’d better make a start.’

It was the ultimate test for
Carly
. He doubted she had ever attended the type of party where networking and point-scoring were a given, champagne and
caviare
just a starting point. He wanted to push her; he wanted to find out about those hidden depths. Would she ring a party planner and take the easy way out? He’d known that to happen in the past. It usually ended in disaster with the student forced to ring Mummy and Daddy to provide extra funds when they
realised
how little they would be receiving from him.

Yes, this was one of his
favourite
tests.

Back in the cubby-hole that passed for her office,
Carly
reviewed her position. Planning a sophisticated party took her so far out of her comfort zone her first inclination was to laugh hysterically.
Carly
Tate, the girl least likely to party, was now expected to arrange one!

Her mother expressed serious doubts when she rang up for advice. ‘If only your sister were there to help you…’ But
Livvie
wouldn’t be there to help…

She felt a pang as she thought about her sister.
Livvie
had a talent for bringing people together and making them smile and could sprinkle fairy dust over any gathering. But, clueless or not, this was her party. It was just one more mountain to climb. And climb it she would.

Dusting off the crampons of her ambition, she got to work. The phrase ‘party planner’ sang in her mind as she spotted the telephone directory, but then remembering the tone of Lorenzo’s instructions, she changed her mind. He had asked her to
organise
the party; he hadn’t asked her to delegate. This was just another of his little tests,
Carly
concluded, determined to play Lorenzo at his own game.

Playing Lorenzo at his own game involved seeing him again during his working day, and he didn’t welcome her interruption. But he could turn on the hard stare all he liked, she wasn’t going anywhere until she had the information she needed. ‘I must know more before I can start to plan.’ She used a firm voice to distract him from the papers he was studying.