The large concrete entrance ended with a tower of glass, and while it only rose up two or three stories, it sprawled out for acres behind her. There were several wings, each with classic red tiled rooftops, one of which spanned an entire city block. The line of arch-shaped windows down the corridor reminded Gwen of a church.
“You look like you belong here.” Andrew tugged on the curled ends of her long dark hair. “Stop it.”
She smiled behind her gold-rim shades. “Does Marcello know I’m here?”
“Sì, lo fa. I mean, yes, he does. But as far as Enrico’s little scheme? Let’s just say you’re still getting familiar with the company, and you want to share some ideas.”
She refrained from rolling her eyes and instead gave an encouraging nod, thinking: The man works for Prada, he can’t be that dumb.
“I’m sure there were subtle hints of what’s wrong that you missed.” She followed Andrew into Marcello’s office.
The man’s chin rested on a phone while he spoke Italian. By the look on Andrew’s face, it must have been a personal call.
After Marcello hung up the phone, he stood and faced Gwen. “Scusa.”
Marcello was tall, but lankier than Andrew. His body hadn’t bulked up yet, the way a man’s body filled out when he reached his thirties. Dark brown curls flopped on a thin and bony forehead and his cheekbones cast a shadow on the lower half of his face.
“Marcello, this is Gwendolyn from the New York office.” Andrew rested his hand against the small of her back.
She leaned across the desk, piled up with papers and folders. Worse than Andrew’s used to be.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said.
“Così meraviglioso di conoscerla.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, it is wonderful to meet you...Gwendolyn.”
His eyes lingered on hers for a moment, but he dragged them away with the sound of Andrew’s voice. They conversed in Italian for a few moments, giving Gwen the opportunity to look around. She took an inventory of the rest of his office, messy, like his desk. The place had a haphazard look to it, like it had once been neat, but then Marcello just gave up.
She glanced at the pictures on his bookshelf. Photo after photo showed Marcello on ski-slopes, on a yacht with beautiful girls, in front of a roulette wheel in a casino, posing on a motorbike. The frames were several rows deep, and she couldn’t see them all, but Gwen had a good diagnosis of the problem: Marcello was a party animal.
AFTER WORK, ANDREW hoped for some kind of flinching objection when he suggested they check Gwen into her hotel.
Nope.
She’d been up in that damn room for an hour getting settled and ready for dinner. He sipped his third cocktail at the lobby bar, wondering what the hell he was doing there and not up in the room getting her ready...for him. The way he wanted her.
“Sono pronto, Signor Morgan,” Gwen purred. “Did I get that right?”
He looked up, and his throat tightened. Christ, now he knew how she felt when he spoke Italian.
He listened to the language all day, but Gwen saying it, turned him hard as steel.
“Sì, perfetto,” he said, nodding.
She looked like a cat who had swallowed an entire pet store of canaries as she twirled to show off her first clothing score from the production floor.
“Good?” she asked with a smile that was going to kill him.
“Bello. ” Except the red and black wrap dress she changed into was too low cut, and too damn tight. It showed every luscious curve of her body.
He tossed a wad of Euros on the bar and steered her out of the hotel. His hand rested on her back and he had no plans to stop touching her until they got to work tomorrow. On the walk to the restaurant, she stayed silent, but inside at the table, she would not shut up.
About Marcello.
After she placed her drink order and looked at him oddly when he asked for water, she lifted a yellow legal pad out of the work bag she’d hidden under her coat.
“Okay. Here’s what we need to do. We need to put Marcello on a performance plan.”
He sighed, figuring there was no way to divert the conversation to them without getting this part out of the way. The woman was on a mission. Unless Andrew planned to take the Kamikaze route, he just nodded and listened to her. “And what’s a performance plan?”
“We’re gonna give him small assignments.” Perhaps she’d be better at his job, managing a staff.
Clearly, this was her forté. “I had this awful assistant at Starlight. But the woman had been there forever, so I had to make it work.”
“What did you do?” Andrew jammed his face against his palm trying like hell not to look bored as fuck with this topic.
“Micro-micro-micro managing. It’s awful, and it made me feel like I was the one being punished.
I had to give her small daily tasks. At the end of each day, I had to sit and review what she did right and what she did wrong. I used some reverse psychology here and there, but I really tried to beef up what she did right. Then I played the active listening game to get her to figure out what she had done wrong and why.”
Why? Why were they still in the restaurant?
The night dragged on, and Gwen finally finished her meal, having talked more than she’d eaten.
Walking back to her hotel, he should have paced his steps slower to let her enjoy a view of the city.
Andrew wanted, no needed, to be with Gwen. In her hotel room. In her bed. He’d been given a second chance and he wouldn’t let anything mess this up. That included not letting her turn away or give into doubts.
Under the hotel marquis, he knocked into her back when he lunged for the lobby door. “Why did you stop?” he asked.
She spun to face him. “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, her hands on his chest.
“Inside.”
She crossed her arms. “Really? For what?”
He hoped this was some odd role-playing game. He leaned in closer. “Okay, I’ll play along and buy you a drink first.”
Her body jerked back. “You realize we just can’t pick up where we left off in L.A.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” She blinked in astonishment.
“Because there never should have been this stupid gap of time.” His face felt pinched and contorted, filled with tension. “L.A. should have been the beginning for us. Not the end.”
“Either way, we had to re-set this whole thing to base it on reality. That night was a fairy tale.”
After she pulled the collar of her coat closer, she drew a fist to her mouth. “I was a princess and you were—”
“Look at me.” He lifted her hand away and leaned it against his lips. “Gwen, I don’t want a princess. Or a model. I want you. The real you and everything you are.”
“How do you really know you want someone like me?”
He moved closer and set his lips against the curtain of smooth brown hair and whispered into her ear. “Don’t you remember what you did to me in L.A.?” When she released a slight nod he said, “Just trust me, please.”
He didn’t care if he sounded pathetic. If he expected Gwen to open up and take a risk, he needed to set the example of what vulnerability looked like.
When she said nothing or didn’t move, however, he realized there may be other emotions lurking under the surface. Perhaps they would come out in time. Andrew didn’t have time. Didn’t want any more time...to think...to wonder. He wanted to move forward with his life. With Gwen.