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Except, she loved her job. She loved working with Marco, who was brilliant, diligent, and respected her intelligence and professional strengths enough to frequently stretch her way beyond a traditional assistant’s workload. He was forever challenging her, offering her opportunities, inviting her to travel with him. This was one of the rare times when he’d asked her to do something more like grunt work. And she knew why he didn’t outsource this sort of thing to one of the pool assistants, shared between the executives.
He needed discretion.
Marco was something of a media darling, his charming, sexy, playboy persona combined with the family’s stratospheric wealth, meant he was frequently in the scandal papers and all over the internet. His dating—or sleeping around—was a matter of great interest, and the prospect of being able to sell a tidbit of gossip about his latest conquest meant Portia was one of the few people Dante could trust to breech Marco’s inner-sanctum. She didn’t bother replying to Dante straight away; that would wait until she was in a cab downstairs, documents signed.
When no answer came to her knock on the bedroom door, she pushed it inwards and peeked around.
The curtains were drawn but enough morning light filtered through to make out the shape of Marco in bed and with relief, she saw he was alone.
A sheet was draped over his lower half, though one darkly tanned, hair-roughened leg was kicked out of the bed, and if she stared long and hard enough and followed the line of that leg upward, it would be to see the outline of his impressively firm bottom silhouetted by the billion thread count sheets.
“Marco.” She stood beside the bed, arms crossed over her chest, willing him to stir. “Dante sent me. Wake up.”
Marco didn’t move.
Great.
Irritated and impatient, she reached down and jabbed a finger into his shoulder. His skin was warm and soft; her finger lingered a moment longer than necessary, then she withdrew it as though she’d been burned.
His features were similar to Dante’s but somehow different. Dante was the oldest sibling, and his face had a harsh angularity to it, a symmetry, that spoke of strength and also of turmoil. Or perhaps the turmoil part came from knowing about his tragic past, and imagining that his loss and grief were imprinted on his harsh features. Or perhaps it was because he rarely smiled, and smiling could change a person’s appearance so completely. Dante appeared to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, whereas Marco seemed to not even know what it was to carry any weight whatsoever. He was the epitome of carefree. Make that, careless.
He lived as though every day was his last on earth. He partied, flirted, slept around, lived the kind of life one might expect a person born into obscene wealth to enjoy. Except Portia knew he also played a valuable role in the company, purely by virtue of the fact he was a certified genius with a savant-like gift for numbers. He could achieve in twenty minutes of focused effort what many people might take months to fathom, meaning almost anything was tolerated from him.
“Marco.” She raised her voice, jabbed his shoulder again, but this time he moved, reacting fast, one hand reaching out, grabbing her wrist, eyes blinking open—bleary yet somehow focused—and spearing hers, making it feel as though she’d been glued to the spot.
“Portia.” He said her name with the hint of an accent and her stomach rolled uncomfortably. “What a pleasant surprise.”
His fingers were wrapped around her wrist and for reasons beyond her comprehension, Portia didn’t pull back. “Dante sent me,” she said, her voice strangely light.
Marco’s eyes narrowed. “You work too hard.”
“That’s what your family pays me for,” she responded crisply, finally getting her head back in order and jerking her hand away. “You need to sign these papers.”
“Which papers?”
“These.” She reached into her bag and removed the envelope. “Do you need a minute to get dressed?” She prompted, eyes dropping of their own volition to his broad, naked chest, chasing the tattoo that ran horizontally beneath his right pectoral muscle, the cursive script just as difficult to read now as it had been the first and second time she’d seen him half-naked.
“Do you want me to get dressed?” He drawled, moving a hand to his chest, running it over the tattoo, then drawing it lower, down the mid-line of his impressively muscled body, towards the sheet.
A lump formed in her throat. She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t move, couldn’t tear her eyes away. His hand went lower still, and her breath snagged in her throat.
“Yes,” she said simply, trying to work out what she was responding to, if it was the right answer, if it was what she’d meant to say.
He lifted a brow. “Yes, what?”
Think, Portia, think.“You need to get dressed,” she blurted out with relief. “I’ll wait for you in the living room.”
Except she didn’t leave. Her feet still wouldn’t cooperate. She simply stared at his body, transfixed by his striking masculine perfection. Marco didn’t seem like someone who worked out and yet he must, because there was no way anyone had this physique without putting in some kind of effort.
“I can sign the papers here, can’t I?”
“Here?” Her voice was squeaky. She controlled it with effort. “In your bedroom?”
His laugh was a low rumble. “You sound as though I’ve just propositioned you for sex,cara.Relax, you’re not my type.”
Something jabbed deep beneath her ribs and it galvanized her into action. “I’m glad to hear it. Believe me when I tell you having a man like you be attracted to me would be quite an insult. I’ll wait in the living room. Hurry up.”
She left his room quickly before foolish tears could spring to her eyes.
