The Innocent and the Playboy Read online

  Rachel gave her a pale grin in the mirror. ‘Fifteen going on forty. To judge by this morning’s performance, anyway.’

  Mandy was surprised. ‘How quickly they grow up. I hadn’t realised.’

  ‘Nor, according to Alexandra, had I,’ Rachel said drily.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mandy, enlightened. She had younger sisters. ‘She wants to go to a rock concert and you won’t let her.’

  Rachel’s face tightened. ‘Something like that.’ ‘They all do,’ Mandy said comfortingly. ‘It’s just a phase. I had some terrible fights with my father. You grow out of it.’

  Rachel flicked the little brush over her other eyelid. ‘Do you? I never had any fights like that. Too much of a goody-goody. Never did anything my father wouldn’t like,’ she confessed.

  Except once, said a small voice inside her. Except that last, fatal time when you brought the whole world down on everyone, just because you were determined to show Riccardo di Stefano and his kind that they could not hurt people with impunity.

  It was a voice that had been whispering away for three or four days now. It reminded her that even the best-conducted adolescents could make some horrible mistakes. It was a voice she had silenced for nine years and it was disconcerting to find it coming out of the ether now. Especially as it had a disturbing tendency to take her difficult stepdaughter’s side in the present argument.

  Mandy said comfortably, ‘I bet you did. You’ve just forgotten.’ She relieved Rachel of the eye-shadow and handed her a lipstick and lip-brush. ‘Alexandra just needs a good fight with authority at the moment. You happen to be the only major authority figure around. Hard on you, but it’s not the end of the world. What she needs is a man in her life.’

  Rachel shuddered. ‘Don’t say that. She’s jolly nearly got one.’

  Mandy was unperturbed. ‘We all had boyfriends.’

  Rachel paused, the lip-brush arrested halfway to her mouth. Not me, she thought involuntarily. Is that why I’m so bad at dealing with Alexandra? Is it because I never went through the normal stages? Was I just too busy being a good little girl, working hard and winning prizes? Until... The voice again! Why on earth should it start up now when she needed all the confidence she could summon up?

  She suppressed the voice, applied the lipstick, stepped back and looked at herself critically.

  ‘Well, that will have to do.’

  Mandy nodded approval. In spite of the fact that Rachel paid very little attention to her appearance, when you had shining, naturally auburn hair and wide brown eyes, it did not make too much difference, Mandy thought without jealousy. A dash of modest eye-shadow and Rachel’s eyes turned the colour of Madeira wine.

  ‘You look gorgeous.’

  Rachel sent her a harassed look. ‘I wish I looked tidy.’ She flicked irritatedly at the loose hair about her shoulders. ‘Tidy is efficient. Untidy—well...’

  ‘Philip knows you’re efficient,’ Mandy soothed.

  ‘It isn’t Philip I have to convince.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Being half an hour late isn’t going to help either.’

  Mandy laughed and uncurled herself from her perch.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. The new boss man has changed all the meetings round, so no one knows who is due to speak when or on what. With a bit of luck no one except Philip will even know.’

  Rachel was looking in the mirror, giving a last downward brush to her neat skirt, but this made her look round. ‘New boss man?’

  ‘Genghis Khan in person,’ Mandy said cheerfully.

  Rachel was aware of a quick lurch in her stomach, as if she were still in Geoff’s lift and it had hurtled down to the lowest level of the underground car park. You’re paranoid, she told herself. And obsessed. This is ancient history. You’d never have remembered it at all if it weren’t for the fight with Alexandra.

  She took a firm grip on herself and said casually, ‘Which Genghis Khan is that?’

  ‘The main man. Leader of the barbarians in person.’

  Her stomach sank below car-park level to somewhere around the seabed.

  ‘You don’t mean di Stefano?’

  Please tell me you don’t mean Riccardo Enrico di Stefano, heir to one fortune and personal creator of another five times the size, patron of the arts, darling of the gossip columns and the man who took confidence into a whole new dimension.

  But Mandy was grinning. ‘Himself.’

  Rachel’s stomach penetrated the earth’s crust without difficulty and began to swirl around in the molten core. She could feel the heat in her face. She even put up a hand. Her cheekbone was warm under the make-up.

  She swallowed. ‘What—?’ Her voice squeaked. Mandy was looking at her curiously. She swallowed and got a grip on her vocal cords. ‘What is Riccardo di Stefano doing here? The bank is only a minority investment from his point of view.’

  Mandy chuckled. ‘Well, from what I saw when I helped Angela with the photocopying, that’s all going to change. I’d say he’s going to buy us.’

  Rachel stared at her, appalled. Mandy misinterpreted the horror.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. He’ll probably buy your corprorate plan as well. More likely to than the old board, if you ask me.’

  This could not be happening. Something inside her was turning over like a hibernating beast roused out of ice. Old, deep ice. Rachel could feel the faint internal tremors starting again. They were not exactly unfamiliar, but she had not been aware of them for years. Meanwhile, Mandy, unaware, was giving her an encouraging smile.

  ‘You could be right,’ Rachel said faintly.

  Mandy patted her on the shoulder. ‘Of course I’m right. Now go and broke the agreement.’

  There was nothing to be done. If he was here already, all her escape routes were blocked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rachel automatically.

  She shrugged herself into the check jacket like a sleepwalker and went to the door. She looked as if someone had hit her with a sandbag, Mandy thought. More encouragement was clearly called for.

  ‘Cheer up, Rachel. Your tights are whole and your jacket is clean. From here on in, today can only get better.’

  Rachel stared at her. For an odd moment it seemed as if she were looking over the precipice of a particularly cold and deadly mountain. Then she gave a harsh laugh. ‘I wouldn’t put money on it.’

  It was bitter. It even startled Mandy out of her cheerfulness. Then she said bracingly, ‘You’ll do fine. Bigwigs have never worried you. The bigger the wig, the cooler you get.’

  But Rachel was still looking sick. Mandy had never seen her look like that before. She began to be alarmed.

  ‘You can handle yourself,’ Mandy reminded her urgently, putting a hand on her arm. ‘You know you can.’

  Rachel gave a little jump as if she had been brought back to the present by main force. ‘I hope,’ she muttered.

  The sick look went out of her face. But although she was regaining command of herself there was still that shaken look at the back of her eyes. It was almost as if she had received a bad shock, Mandy thought. Which, of course, was ridiculous. It took more than a visiting troupe of American money-men to shock Rachel. Or, at least, it ought to.

  Rachel was thinking the same thing. She pulled her jacket straight and squared her shoulders in the mirror.

  ‘Boardroom?’

  Mandy said, ‘Well, Mr Jensen said he’d like to see you in his office first.’

  I’ll just bet he did, thought Rachel. If the biggest shark of them all has turned up in person, Philip will be turning to jelly.

  ‘But they arrived and he went straight to the boardroom. Would you join him—er—soonest?’

  Panic stations, interpreted Rachel. She did not say so. She was too close to panic herself.

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  She went, buried in thought. Confidence, she said to herself. That’s the thing to remember. You’re good at your job. You know that. Everyone else does. Believe it, why can’t you? Play to your strengths.


  He must never know you even remember. Almost certainly he won’t. It is nine years ago. He must have had dozens of girls before and since. It’s ten to one that he forgot the whole thing in days.

  She almost convinced herself.

  She was still frowning in preoccupation as she went along the executive corridor. It was ankle-deep in an expensive carpet and hung with valuable seascapes. Usually Philip’s idea of executive interior decoration made Rachel laugh. Today, however, she barely noticed it.

  In fact she was so deep in thought that she did not notice the man coming towards her. That was hardly her fault. Although he was tall and loose-limbed, he moved like a cat. On the sumptuous carpeting his tread was noiseless.

  So when a voice said, ‘Hi there,’ she jumped about a foot in the air and came down with her head spinning.

  It was the voice from her very worst dreams. Rachel felt as if someone had thrown ice-water over her. She found herself staring straight into those laughing, green-flecked eyes for the first time in nine years. It felt like yesterday. She stared at him, transfixed.

  The man looked amused. ‘Rick di Stefano.’

  There was not the slightest hint in his voice that he knew they had met before. Rachel registered his open smile: not a glimmer of recognition there. She moistened suddenly dry lips and tried to believe it.

  In all those worst dreams of hers Riccardo di Stefano knew her at once. What he did about it varied with the awfulness of the dream but he had never looked at her with the smile of a pleasant stranger.

  Rachel gulped. For the first time in years she was unable to think of a single thing to say. Instead, she just went on staring at him, horrified. Not yet, something in her brain was wailing. I’m not ready. Not yet.

  Her reaction surprised him, she saw. One dark eyebrow rose.

  ‘I startled you. You must have been a long way away.’

  Oh, she was, she was. Nine years and a whole ocean away. Impossible to say that, of course. Engage brain, Rachel, she told herself furiously. Engage brain. Or this will go out of control before you’ve even said hello.

  Years of professional negotiations came to her aid at last. The unforgotten past receded, at least for the moment.

  She swallowed and said, ‘Hello, Mr di Stefano.’ It came out a lot huskier than she’d expected but at least it did not sound as if all she wanted to do was run away from him and hide.

  He laughed aloud then. ‘That sounds very formal.’

  She gave him a quick, meaningless smile. ‘That’s the English for you.’

  He smiled back. It was slow and sexy and made his eyes crinkle at the corners as if he was used to staring into the sun. He was not as tanned as she remembered, but the muscles were still as lithe under the city suit—and the laughter as wicked.

  ‘Now, I’ve always found English formality to be a bit of a myth,’ he said easily.

  Oh, have you? she thought. Now that she had brought herself back under control she had time to observe him more dispassionately. She disliked what she saw amazingly. Confident, good-looking, intelligent. The things that her stepmother had gloated over all those years ago were still true. Even more so, if you could judge from one quick, resentful look. The charm was still there too—and he knew it. He was even waiting for her to respond to it. Rachel realised it in gathering wrath.

  She said smartly, ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a formal person.’

  Riccardo di Stefano’s eyes narrowed. It looked as if he had just registered that there was a real person confronting him in the corridor, Rachel thought, pleased. Her satisfaction was short-lived.

  ‘Have we met before?’

  She could have kicked herself. Never start a fight unless you’re prepared to finish it, she reminded herself grimly.

  She said in her most colourless voice, ‘I was away when you were here in September.’

  He detected the evasion. Of course he would. He had built up a worldwide empire on management skills, which meant that he would have no problem at all in reading a minor employee’s disaffection.

  He did not look worried by her attitude. Why should he? His reputation said he had a flair for rooting out opposition at the heart. He would have detected that this minor employee would not present him with any problems he could not deal with. Just let him not detect as well how carefully she had orchestrated her leave in order to avoid his thrice-postponed visit, Rachel thought.

  Before he could challenge her further she said, ‘Were you looking for the boardroom? You should have turned right out of the lift, not left.’

  He was looking at her intently. Before he could question her she said, ‘Let me show you.’

  For a moment he did not say anything. She could feel him weighing up her reaction, assessing its implications, even its possible effect. Oh, yes, you could see why he was head of a multinational, multi-business empire.

  She could have kicked herself. She held her breath, not quite looking at him. But he decided it was not worth probing, in the end.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said easily. ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  She breathed again.

  He fell into step beside her. He did not say anything further, but Rachel could feel his thoughtful gaze on her profile. She hoped she kept her expression neutral. By the time they reached the boardroom she felt as if the whole of that side of her face had been irradiated. Doing her best to ignore the feeling, she opened the door.

  ‘Mr di Stefano,’ she announced to the room.

  It was not necessary. All the men there already knew who he was as well as she did, Rachel could see. And most of them were scared of him. She saw that too.

  Well, at least she wasn’t scared of him, she thought. Not now. Maybe once. Not any more. It was ironic. He had done his worst to a vulnerable adolescent and she had survived. There was nothing left to be afraid of.

  Reminding herself. that she was totally unafraid of Riccardo di Stefano was one thing. Meeting his eyes and retaining conviction was something else entirely. Prudently, Rachel kept her head turned away from that piercing gaze. Luckily it was not difficult.

  It became obvious that Riccardo di Stefano had come to Bentley’s that morning with one object and one only. He was pleasant enough about it but underneath the good manners he was not making much attempt to hide that steely purpose. Philip Jensen was chairing the meeting and managed to deflect four pointed questions. Eventually Riccardo di Stefano changed tack. He stopped asking questions and interrupted Philip in mid-waffle.

  ‘Frankly, it seems to us at Di Stefano that you’ve lost your way,’ he said.

  Philip Jensen was unused to direct confrontation.

  ‘If we can just keep with the agenda...’ he began fussily.

  Riccardo di Stefano pushed the papers away from him.

  ‘Forget the agenda. What’s the point of talking about whether to go into Eastern Europe next year when the bank could collapse at any time?’

  Rachel gasped. She was not alone. Riccardo di Stefano’s eyes swept round the table.

  ‘That sounds like surprise,’ he mocked.

  Philip recovered. ‘Collapse? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your little adventures into the futures market. You’ve got enough risk on board to wipe out the bank.’

  Philip forgot he was in awe of Riccardo di Stefano. He sat bolt upright and glared. ‘That’s a preposterous suggestion.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Riccardo nodded to a quiet man whom Rachel knew to be his company’s London director and who was on the bank’s board. The man produced a pile of printed sheets and began to pass them round. The result of Angela’s photocopying, presumably. Could Mandy possibly be right about his intending to put in a bid for the whole bank, then?

  Rachel looked at the sheets blankly. They were figures of some sort. She was too shaken to focus on precisely what they represented.

  The quiet man said, ‘I’ve been saying I wasn’t happy with bank strategy for six months. After the last board meeting I was
so worried that I talked to Riccardo. He had our research department do a full analysis. These are the results.’

  Philip picked up the stapled sheets and flicked through them. Sitting next to him, Rachel saw that his hands were shaking. He was clearly having as much difficulty in focusing on the figures as she had.

  He managed, though, and looked up sharply. His eyes went very small and sharp and the tremor in his hands intensified.

  ‘Where did you get these figures?’

  Riccardo shrugged. ‘Market information and some in-depth deduction. Then the research department in New York did some modelling. This is the result.’

  Philip was shaking with anger now. With more than anger—fury.

  ‘You’ve been spying. This is market sensitive.’

  Riccardo looked amused. ‘No need to spy. It’s all out there in the market if you go looking for it. With Sam on the board, I knew what to look for, of course.’

  Philip stood up. ‘This is intolerable.’

  Riccardo stood up as well. He looked utterly relaxed. How well Rachel remembered that cool, relaxed manner. How well she remembered how effectively he could use it—and with what devastating results. She braced herself.

  Riccardo drawled, ‘I rather agree.’

  Philip blinked. All Rachel’s protective instincts urged her to take his shaking hand. She curbed them. It would do no good and Philip would not thank her for humiliating him in public. She looked down at her own copy of Riccardo’s figures again.

  Riccardo said, ‘Face it, Philip. You’ve driven this bank into the ground. Mismanagement followed by panic. Speaking as a major shareholder, I’ve had enough.’

  Rachel was probably the only person at the table who was not surprised. Even Riccardo’s quiet colleague looked taken aback. A general spluttering of indignation and recriminations broke out. Riccardo sat down again, leaning back in his chair. He watched them all lazily.

  Rachel lifted her eyes from the papers in front of her. Across the table Riccardo was the only one not trying to make himself heard in the hubbub. The only one apart from her, that was.

  Suddenly something seemed to draw his attention to her. Seeing her silent, he raised his brows. Then he looked directly at her, straight in the eyes. Rachel felt as if she had touched a naked wire. She jolted back in her seat, breaking the eye contact feverishly. But she knew he was still looking at her.