Glittering silver, gold, scarlet and greens were looped around every available picture and door jamb and fairy lights festooned the fax machines. The coffee shop down the road was playing corny Christmas songs all day and yesterday the Salvation Army band had stood in the square and played carols so soaringly beautiful that Angie had had to swallow back tears as she’d fished around in her purse for a crumpled five-pound note.
Yes, it was nearly Christmas, and wasn’t that part of the whole problem—and the reason why she was feeling so emotionally wobbly? Because Christmas did something to the world at large and to individuals in particular. It crystallised all your hopes and fears. It made you yearn and wish and dream. And no matter how hard you tried—it made you realise all the things you were missing in life.
‘Are you looking forward to tonight’s office party?’ asked the junior, a sweet young secretary named Alicia who’d only joined a few months ago.
Angie pulled a face of mock-horror. ‘Are you kidding?’
Alicia looked at her eagerly. ‘What’s it like? Everyone says it’s absolutely fantastic—one of London’s classiest restaurants and with no expense spared! And is it true that Mr Castellari stays for the whole time?’
Angie had had enough experience of juniors being slightly overawed by her boss. Hadn’t she once been like Angie herself? Sneaking glances at his dark, beautiful face from afar and wondering how a man ever got to be that gorgeous. The only difference was that she had been plucked out of the typing pool by Riccardo himself and elevated to the dizzy status of his secretary overnight. She wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen her—she had just been overjoyed that he had. And now? Well, now she wasn’t so sure. Sometimes she thought her life would be less complicated if she had stayed put in the typing pool. That way she would have moved on by now, gone to pastures new—and far away from the intoxicating presence of the sexy Italian.
She smiled at Alicia. ‘He certainly does. He’s there right until the end.’ Or the bitter end, as Riccardo rather bitingly put it. Truth to tell, he wasn’t crazy on Christmas—but once a year he put himself out and fulfilled all the expectations of the Castellari workforce. He lavished money on a party which still had people talking in February and he gave everyone a generous bonus. Even her. Though hadn’t she sometimes longed for him to give her something a little more…personal?
Recognising that there was no sense in longing for the impossible, Angie stood up and flicked a tiny piece of fluff from the front of her jersey skirt. ‘In fact, I’d better go and finalise a few arrangements—I’m expecting Riccardo back any time now.’
‘Are you?’ questioned Alicia enviously.
‘Yes. He’s on his way from the airport.’ Angie knew his schedule down to the last second. The dark limousine would be speeding its way towards central London and Riccardo would be stretching his long legs out in the back. He would have loosened his tie and he might be flicking through some paperwork. Or talking on the phone in one of the three languages he spoke. He might even be exchanging a few desultory comments with his Italian-speaking driver, Marco—who doubled as a bodyguard when the need arose.
‘In fact…’ Angie glanced at her watch ‘…if the roads are clear, then he might be—’ Her beeper began emitting a high-pitched little squeal and she could do absolutely nothing about the rapid acceleration of her heart. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, with a brisk little smile which hid her instinctive excitement, ‘but he’s in the building.’
On her low-heeled, perfectly polished navy shoes, she sped along to her office which adjoined Riccardo’s—a breath of pleasure escaping her lips as she walked into the light and spacious room. Because it didn’t matter how many times she saw it, she could never get over the fact that she worked in a place as beautiful as this. It was, Angie reflected, like a picture postcard come to life.
The Castellari headquarters looked out over the vast and impressive space of Trafalgar Square and the world-famous landmark always looked beautiful with its pluming fountain and tall statue, but never more so than at Christmas time. The iconic fir tree sent over each year by the King of Norway twinkled brightly and every single window as far as the eye could see was alive with brightly coloured Christmas lights. Angie stared out of the window. It looked…magical.
But then she heard the sound of a familiar footfall ringing along the corridor. A footfall she would have recognised even if it were treading in thick snow and she quickly moved into his office to greet him, wiping all traces of wistfulness from her face and replacing it with the calm and efficient expression which Riccardo had learned to expect from his right-hand woman. But nothing could stop the sudden acceleration of her heart as the door opened and she looked into his dark, heartbreakingly handsome face.
‘Ah, Angie. You are here. Good.’ His deep, accented voice washed over her skin like raw silk as he dropped his briefcase and coat onto one of the squashy leather sofas. His black hair was tousled as if he had been running his fingers through it and he had loosened his tie as she’d known he would. A brief smile was slanted in her direction and then he picked up a sheaf of papers and began flicking through them. ‘Get me the paperwork on the Posara takeover bid, would you?’
‘Certainly, Riccardo,’ she replied smoothly as she automatically scooped up the beautiful cashmere coat and hung it up.
Did her features betray her probably unreasonable hurt—that the man she had not seen for a fortnight should barely deign to greet her? Not a hello or a how are you? If she had been substituted by one of the other secretaries, would he even have noticed? But good secretaries didn’t obsess about the fact that they might as well have been invisible for all the notice that was taken of them. And she prided herself on being a good secretary.
‘Good trip?’ she asked politely as she deposited the file he wanted onto the centre of his desk.
He shrugged. ‘New York is New York. You know. Busy, buzzy, beautiful.’
Angie didn’t know, as it happened—because she’d never been there. ‘I suppose it must be,’ she observed politely, biting down the question she longed to ask. About whether or not he’d seen Paula Prentice—the woman all the papers had been linking him to a year ago. Paula with her blonde and tanned beauty, her amazingly white teeth and a body which had been voted Most Lusted After by a leading men’s magazine.
When Riccardo had been dating the Californian lovely, he had spent many weekends in the Big Apple—and Angie would anxiously study his face on his return, wondering if he was going to announce that he was planning to make the stunning Paula his bride. But he hadn’t. To Angie’s enormous relief, they’d split—again, according to the papers, since Riccardo certainly didn’t discuss his private life with his secretary.
‘And how about the de Camilla account?’ she questioned, because that, after all, was the deal he’d gone out there to oversee.
‘Frustrante! Frustrating,’ he translated, tugging his silk tie off completely as he glanced up at her.
‘I could just about work that out for myself, Riccardo.’
‘Oh?’ Jet dark brows were elevated. Did his sensible, reliable mouse of a secretary have frustrations in her own life? he wondered. He doubted it. The only frustrations he could imagine her having were being unable to find a new knitting pattern. Or her television breaking down, perhaps. He glittered her an ebony glance. ‘You have been taking the crash course in Italian, perhaps?’
‘Hardly! My Italian may be poor but I have a comprehensive knowledge of exclamations and profanities which I’ve managed to acquire after working for you for so long!’ she said crisply. ‘Now, would you like some coffee?’
