An Exquisite Challenge Read online

Why hadn’t she anticipated it?

  A hand came down on her shoulder.

  “Alex.”

  She spun around, her heart jump-starting and racing a mile a minute. Jordan Lane. Her former client. The man she’d made the biggest mistake of her life with.

  The man she’d loved and hated in equal measure.

  “Jordan.” She forced the words past her constricted throat. “What a surprise.”

  His gaze narrowed on her face as if to say he knew she’d seen him, but he played the game, capturing her hand in a deliberate gesture and brushing his lips across her knuckles. “You look beautiful. Age agrees with you.”

  Meaning she’d been twenty-two when she’d met him and far too unsophisticated to ever have been able to handle a man like him. Heat roared inside of her, dark and all consuming. She pulled her hand back and pressed the trembling appendage to her side. He had used her inexperience to play her like a bow, to mold her into what he’d desired.

  The charm was still there, but the predatory instinct in those startling blue eyes was clearly visible to her now. How had she not seen it before?

  “How about,” she suggested icily, “we pretend I took that as a compliment and you go back to your flirtation? At least she doesn’t look half your age.”

  His eyes darkened to the wintry color of the Hudson River on a stormy day. “How about we have a drink and talk about it?”

  “No. Thank. You.” She turned her back on him.

  “It’s about work.”

  She spun around. “I wouldn’t work for you if you were the last client on this planet.”

  “It takes two to tango, Alex.”

  “Funny,” she bit out, “I didn’t even know I was dancing.”

  His mouth tightened. “I need branding work done. I know your work and I trust you.”

  Trust. Her stomach lurched. The very thing he’d taken away from her when she’d had so little to start with. She clenched her hands into fists and drew herself up to her full height, her gaze clashing with his wintry silver one. “You lied to me and dishonored your wife, Jordan. You almost destroyed my career. Don’t talk to me about trust.”

  “Let me make it up to you.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight onto both feet. “I heard you lost Generes. Let me give you some work.”

  She lifted her chin. “Go to hell.”

  Head held high, she pushed through the crowd, anger stinging her eyes, stinging every part of her. How dare he so cavalierly dismiss what he’d done? How dare he think she’d even want to talk to him, let alone work for him? She was almost to the front doors when a hand grasped her arm. Sure it was him again, she swung around, intent on giving him a piece of her mind, but it was Gabe standing in front of her.

  “Everything all right?”

  She nodded. “I just need some fresh air.”

  “You know Jordan Lane?”

  Damn. He had seen them. She struggled to wipe the emotion from her face, to wipe away any evidence she had ever known the man who had almost destroyed her. “Yes—” she nodded “—he was a client at my old agency.”

  A frown creased his brow. “He was coming on to you?”

  “No.” She raked a hand through her hair and looked away from that penetrating green gaze. “He was offering me a job.”

  “He’s not the kind of guy you want to work for, Alex.”

  She set her chin at a belligerent angle. “Then give me the job and I won’t have to.”

  He was silent for a moment. If there was one person she couldn’t read in this world, it was Gabe. He guarded his feelings with a security worthy of Alcatraz. “I’m ready to go,” he said finally, pulling the sweater out of her arms and holding it out for her. “You look exhausted. Let’s go.”

  She slipped her arms into the sleeves, letting him wrap it around her. His deliciously male scent enveloped her, sending her senses into overdrive. And not the kind of overdrive that had anything to do with business.

  The valet brought Gabe’s car around. He held the door open for her and she slipped into the luxurious interior of the silver-blue Porsche and sighed. So much better to be out of that crowd.

  On the way to her hotel, Gabe wanted to know how his nephew, Marco, Lilly and Riccardo’s rambunctious two-year-old, was doing. She gave him an update, smiling when he asked her what he should buy him for his birthday present, because Gabe inevitably bought Marco totally inappropriate toys. No one saw fit to correct him because, really, how could you tell a proud uncle that a two-year-old, however clever Marco undoubtedly was, was not capable of building a suspension bridge by himself?

  They hadn’t even begun discussing the events when Gabe parked outside her boutique Union Square hotel, cut the engine on the powerful beast of a car and looked at her. “Talk over a drink?”

  She nodded, even though every bone in her body told her it was a bad idea. She wasn’t sure if it was seeing Jordan tonight that made her nervous about having a man in her hotel room or if it was just that it was Gabe, but her cozy little suite suddenly seemed far too small as they entered it and he shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his tie. Steady on, she told herself, turning some lights on as he folded himself into the sofa in the little sitting room. It’s just a drink.

  He looked tired, she noticed, the lines at the sides of his mouth more pronounced than usual, the hand he used to rub his eyes shifting back to cradle his neck. The stress was getting to him.

  She walked over to the bar. “Scotch?”

  “Soda and lime if you have it. I have to drive back to the vineyard tonight.”

  “Aren’t you swamped back in New York?” he asked as she handed him his drink and perched on the sofa beside him. “How can you possibly take on a job like this?”

  “Some things have moved around in my calendar.” Moved permanently, as in out of her calendar, but he didn’t need to know that.

  He sat back and took a sip of his drink. “Us working together is a bad idea, Alex.”

  “These are extraordinary circumstances.”

  “We will kill each other.”

  “No,” she countered, “we will learn to work together. I haven’t even tried to be nice to you.”

  His smile flashed white against his olive skin. “That thought terrifies me.”

  She gave him an earnest look. “I’m the only person who can do this, Gabe.”

  He set his drink down and pushed a distracted hand through his hair. “If I gave you the business, and I’m not insinuating anything here, would you do the work yourself or will it be a case of bait and switch with the juniors doing everything?”

  “I’ve never done a bait and switch in my life,” she said matter-of-factly. “If you hire me, you get me.”

  Oh. That didn’t sound right. She hadn’t meant get her. But he knew what she meant, right?

  He shot her a sideways look. “What is wrong with you? Sit down properly, for Cristo’s sake. You’re completely on edge.”

  She pushed herself deeper into the sofa. She was on edge, dammit. It was stupidly hard to concentrate with Gabe plastered across the sofa of her hotel room looking hellishly hot in a shirt and tie that would have been ordinary on any other man but made him look like stud of the century.

  “Alex?”

  “Sorry?” She lifted her gaze to his face.

  He sighed. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “It’s been a long day.”

  He pursed his lips. Took a sip of his drink. “Convince me I should let you do this.”

  She got up, found her briefcase and pulled out a file. “Here are five case studies of events I’ve pulled off in this amount of time,” she said, handing it to him. “I can make this the most spectacular debut for your wine. I promise you that.”

  He flipped through the folder. “This is impressive.”

  “So make the call.”

  He put the folder down on the coffee table and sat back. The movement drew her attention to his superb, muscular thighs. They were
so good they were impossible not to ogle.

  “Even if I did agree you are the right choice,” he said evenly, “we still need to discuss our other problema.”

  “What other problem?”

  “That problem.”

  She frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He lifted a brow. “Tell me that was not a distinctly lustful look.”

  “That was not lustful. That was—”

  “Alex.” He angled his body toward her and captured her gaze. “You’ve been jumpy since the minute we walked into this hotel room and we both know why. You keep wondering what it would have been like to have that kiss in Lilly and Riccardo’s garden and so do I.”

  Ahh. The almost kiss. The thing she couldn’t get out of her head no matter how hard she tried. She’d been slightly tipsy, standing on a stool unstringing lanterns from a tree after all the guests had left her sister’s welcome-to-summer party, when Gabe had come looking for her. She’d been caught so off guard by his sudden presence she’d nearly fallen off the stool. He’d caught her and swung her to the ground, but kept his arms around her waist. The knowledge that he had been about to kiss her had made her grab her slingbacks and run.

  She scowled at him. “I’m working on about four hours’ sleep, that’s why I’m jumpy. Maybe you should just say yes to the contract so I can get some rest and—” She stared at him as he moved closer. “What are you doing?”

  He lifted his hand and splayed his fingers across her jaw. “Figuring out how bad this particular problema is before I make up my mind.”

  “There is no problem,” she croaked. “And if we’re going to be working together, I—”

  “I haven’t said yes yet,” he cut in, his gaze purposeful. “Right now we have no working relationship whatsoever.”

  They did have heat. They definitely had heat. She swallowed hard as it washed over her and made her pulse dance. “If I make this really bad you’ll say yes?”

  His gaze darkened. “It isn’t going to be bad.”

  No, she acknowledged, heart pounding, it wasn’t. Slicking her tongue across dry lips, she told herself she just needed to stay in control. Prove to him this attraction between them was wholly avoidable. But when he shifted his thumb to the seam of her lips in the most erotic opening to a kiss she’d ever experienced, she caved like a ton of bricks.

  Her first taste of Gabriele De Campo lived up to every fantasy she’d ever had. Hot, smooth and utterly in control, his mouth slanted unhurriedly over hers, exploring every dip and curve with a leisurely enjoyment that made her want to curl her fingers into his shirt and beg. She resisted with the small amount of willpower she still possessed, but it was like being dangled over a ledge a hundred feet above the ground and told to hang on when you knew you were eventually going to fall.

  She’d known he’d be good. Just not this good.

  For a minute, for just one glorious minute, the temptation was too great and she let her mind go blank. And let herself savor what she’d been craving for a very long time.

  He sensed her softening. Slid his hand to the back of her head and took her mouth in a drugging, never-ending kiss that upped the hotness quotient by ten. Off balance, she had to dig her fingers into his shirt and hang on.

  “Lex,” he murmured, sliding his tongue along the seam of her lips. “Give me more.”

  She was going to stop this in about five seconds. She was. He demanded entry again and she gave it to him. The feel of his tongue sliding sensuously against hers made her insides coil tight. This was more than a kiss, it was a full-out assault on her common sense.

  And it was working.

  She yanked herself out of his arms, her chest moving rapidly in and out. Her five seconds were definitely up. Way past up.

  “That was not fair.”

  “You need to admit you have a problem to solve it,” he murmured dryly. “Now we know.”

  “We also know we can control it,” she pointed out. “Look it’s done. Presto,” she said, waving her hand at him. “Never to be had again. Curiosity’s over.”

  He picked up the file and got to his feet. “Be at my office at ten tomorrow.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “You’re leaving me hanging?”

  He waved the file at her. “I need to read this.”

  “That kiss was nothing, Gabe.”

  “I’d like to see what something is.”

  She watched as he straightened his shirt. Mortification sank into her bones. Why the hell had she allowed that to happen? She was supposed to be convincing him of her professionalism, not her skills in the necking department.

  She followed him to the door. “You won’t regret it if you give me this job, Gabe.”

  He gave her a long look. “Che resta da vedere.”

  She scrunched her face up. “What does that mean?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  He left. She picked up her shoe and threw it at the door. His soft laughter came from the other side. “Use the deadbolt, Alex.”

  Despite her bone-deep fatigue, it took a hot shower and an hour of fretting to get herself anywhere near sleep. Gabe had been playing her and playing her well. Establishing a reason not to give her the business. She’d just been too busy being a spineless fool who couldn’t resist his Italian charm to see it.

  After all these years of walking away, it had taken jet lag to do her in.

  She whacked her head against the pillow and closed her eyes. If she got another chance, if he gave her the job tomorrow, she wasn’t making the same mistake twice.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MORNING BUMPER-TO-BUMPER traffic on Highway 101, with every motorist in northern California fighting their way into San Francisco with an aggressive zeal that said they were ten minutes late for a meeting and short on temper, wasn’t helping to improve Gabe’s mood. In fact, it had sent it to a whole other level.

  He cursed, checked his blind spot and accelerated into the left-hand lane, which appeared equally blocked, but the movement at least made him feel as though he was doing something.

  “Maledizione,” he muttered. “I should have stayed in the city last night.”

  “One of San Francisco’s most eligible bachelors, devoid of a date on a Thursday night?” His brother Riccardo’s taunting voice sliced through the high-tech speakerphone.

  “I was at an industry party.” He scowled at the tinny box. “Mention the bachelor thing one more time and you’ll be talking to empty air.”

  His brother chuckled. “I’m just jealous I never made the list.”

  As if. Riccardo had dated five times a man’s usual share of the styled-down-to-their-pinkie women who inhabited the island of Manhattan and it hadn’t been until he’d met Lilly and fallen flat on his face for her that the parade had ended. His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “They probably figured they were doing the female population a favor.”

  “Maybe so.” Humor flavored his brother’s response. “Speaking of women, talk to Matty lately?”

  “No.” It struck him as strange now that he thought about it. Matty and Gabe were close and usually talked once a week. “What’s up?”

  “A woman, I think. He won’t talk about it. You should call him.”

  Gabe wasn’t sure his cynical attitude of late was going to be of much use to his younger brother. Matty was the Don Juan of his generation—he thought love made the world go around. Gabe wasn’t sure how he’d acquired that notion in their particular family, but that was for Matty to figure out. Not his problem. Matty’s issue was likely of the which-one-do-I-pick variety, anyway.

  “What happened to the Olympian?”

  “I don’t know. He hung up shortly after I asked him if her flexibility was useful in bed.”

  “You don’t say?”

  His brother’s tone turned businesslike. “How are the events going, by the way? Do you need me in Napa or can I just do NYC?”

  Gabe’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “They’re getting th
ere. We’re working through some kinks at the moment.” He checked his rearview mirror and moved back to the center lane. “New York’s fine. I can handle Napa.”

  “Bene. The doctor said to keep a close eye on Lilly for the next few weeks.”

  “You should be there,” Gabe muttered distractedly, his brain on five hundred people at his vineyard in three weeks. “How did Marco take the news of a little brother?”

  “He’s estatico. Already picking out which trains his little brother can and cannot use.”

  Gabe smiled. “Already a De Campo.”

  “Was there ever any doubt?”

  “Nessuna.” Marco was an exuberant brute of a little boy so much like his father and the rest of the De Campo brothers it was like watching one of them as a child. Gabe was glad the little guy was going to have a brother, because his had been a lifeline in a childhood marked by his parents’ coldness. His father’s survival-of-the-fittest regime had reigned supreme in Montalcino, his mother’s lack of interest in her children blatantly apparent. A business merger between two important families did that to the family dynamic.

  “I heard,” Riccardo said evenly, “that Alex flew over there to do the events.”

  Gabe grimaced. “I fired the PR firm. They were spewing out garbage that was all wrong for the brand.”

  “Three weeks before launch?”

  “It wasn’t working.”

  “So you’re letting Alex step in?”

  “I’m thinking about it.” Truth was, Alex’s portfolio was brilliant. The campaigns she’d included had all been for established brands launching products with breakout potential. Just like The Devil’s Peak. Not only had her campaigns been sophisticated and clever with the big buzz potential he was looking for, they’d also been exactly the tone and feel he’d wanted in the last PR agency’s ideas.

  “The board is only giving me so much leeway with the Napa investment.” Riccardo’s quietly worded warning came through the speaker. “At some point they’re going to rein us in, and I’d prefer that time be when you’ve had a chance to make things happen and they’re compelled to keep investing.”

  Gabe stiffened. “You think I’m not well aware of that?”