Read Online The Italian Billionaire's Secretary Mistress by Sharon Kendrick - Free Book Online Page B

put her fork down.
    ‘Yes, Mum—I’m fine.’
    ‘You’ve been distracted since you arrived. Nothing’s wrong , is it, Angelina?’
    Angie managed a weak smile. ‘No, of course not. Nothing’s wrong.’ Because what woman in the world could confide to her mother that she had broken the cardinal rules of advancement in the workplace? Never mix business with pleasure. Never fall for a man who is light years out of your league. And never end up in bed with the boss after the Christmas party.
    ‘And how’s that nice boss of yours?’
    Could mothers mind-read? ‘Oh, he’s…he’s fine. Successful as ever.’
    ‘So I keep reading in the newspapers,’ murmured her mother approvingly. ‘You were so lucky the way he plucked you out of the typing pool like that!’
    Angie only just stopped herself from cringing at her mother’s choice of words—but, come to think of it, didn’t she used to feel exactly the same way about her rapid promotion? As if Riccardo were some kind of knight in shining armour, galloping into the office and carrying her away on his white charger. Back then, in her eyes, her boss could do no wrong—no matter how irascible he could be. In a way, she had been stuck in a groove of adoring him—her mind still fixed in the same mode it had been when he’d ‘rescued’ her.
    Except he hadn’t done anything of the sort. All he had done was recognise that he’d found a woman who would completely submerge her life in his. Who would put up with just about anything he cared to throw at her. Long, thankless hours spent helping him meet some deadline or other—just for the occasional heart-fluttering smile or glinty-eyed look he threw across the office.
    And just because he’d done the unthinkable—events had taken an unexpected turn. If he hadn’t bought her the kind of dress she would never normally have looked at, then she would never have been transformed into someone else. Someone who had taken a night off from being Angie—so that Riccardo hadn’t treated her like Angie at all. He’d treated her like a woman he’d just been tantalised by. He’d taken her to bed and made her discover just how wonderful a man could make you feel. And just because she had woken up the next morning in a smitten state and wondering if perhaps they had some kind of future together didn’t mean that he felt the same way.
    On the contrary. He wanted to erase the woman in the red dress from his mind and replace her with the old, familiar version of herself—the dull one that he scarcely noticed. Angie didn’t know whether that was possible—and, more importantly, she had to ask herself whether she wanted it, even if it was. Could you possibly go back to the life you’d been living after an event like that?
    ‘So what’s he doing for Christmas?’ asked her mother brightly.
    Angie shrugged. ‘Same as he always does. Spending it with his family in Tuscany.’
    ‘In the castle?’
    ‘Yes, Mum—in the castle. They’re all getting ready for a wedding—his sister’s getting married to a Duke in the new year.’
    ‘A Duke ?’
    ‘Well, they call him a Duca but it means the same thing.’
    ‘Oh, Angelina,’ sighed her mother. ‘It sounds just like a fairy tale.’
    Yes, it did, thought Angie grimly. But it was as illusionary as any other fairy tale—with all those dark undercurrents swirling around beneath the supposedly perfect surface.
    Angie felt a new restlessness as she mentally psyched herself up to going back to work, staring at her bland image in the mirror and trying hard not to remember how different she’d looked in the bright party dress. For the first time in her life she had seen how clothes could make you blossom. Could make a man—even a man as gorgeous as Riccardo—look at you with naked desire in his eyes.
    She might have hung the scarlet dress at the back of her wardrobe, vowing never to wear it again—but she realised that everything else she owned made her look and feel like a