All I've Ever Needed (After the Storm) (3 page)

He had eagerly looked forward to Harry’s stag night and all the activities he and the guys had planned to pack into their weekend away from the capital.
 
He had booked a room for himself for two nights and another for his parents for the night of the wedding only as his mother was keen to come back to London and her self-named restaurant, Antonietta’s, to cater for her regular Sunday diners.
 
He had even contemplated paying for a third night’s stay at the hotel knowing that once he’d performed his duty to the groom he’d intended to have a great time, which may have necessitated an extra night’s stay at the hotel.
 
He could have traveled from there straight to work on Monday morning.

Now the weekend had lost some of its appeal.
 
Even though
 
he wouldn’t have been able to see her over the weekend, it would have been good to have Natalie’s number to call her and ensure that she hadn’t suffered any ill-effects from their unrestrained sexual encounter.

He chuckled as he remembered her ‘Italian Stallion’ comment.
 
It was flattering, but he knew he was no larger than average.
 
Though she wasn’t a virgin, it had been obvious that she hadn’t been with a man in a long time some time.
 
He should have aroused her more, he berated himself.
 
Instead he’d snapped and acted like a horny teenager.
 
After months of waiting patiently for a sign, her nearness and her scent had intoxicated him.
 
The only thing stopping him from pulling his hair out was the knowledge she hadn’t disguised the fact she’d enjoyed every minute as much as he had.

He couldn’t wait to get back to London and the office on Monday.
 
He knew that it would be hard to keep himself under control seeing her sitting just meters away from him.
 
Many evenings as they shared the office by themselves he’d fantasized about making love to her on her desk or his.
 
He’d often had to banish his lecherous thoughts and bring himself firmly back under control before being able to rise from his seat.

Having had a dip in her honey pot, he knew that it would be nigh impossible to get any serious work done on Monday.
 
All he would be thinking of is her baby-soft skin,
 
her tantalizing perfume and her near-virginal tightness.

He couldn’t wait to get her into bed and make sweet, slow love to her.

Damn you and your bloody wedding, Harry!

***

Natalie gave herself a good talking to on the weekend.
 
She wouldn’t let a past relationship poison the start of a new one.
 
Although Stephano had previously mentioned a girlfriend in conversation with her and their colleagues, he hadn’t done so in recent months.
 
She’d even overheard the guys teasing him about living with his mother only a few weeks ago.
 
Instead of being embarrassed at the good-natured ribbing, he’d told the guys they were just jealous that he had a mamma who was the best cook in the world, who ensured that his clothes were taken for dry cleaning when needed and that the maid changed his sheets and cleaned his room for him.
 
The guys had tasted the food at his mother’s rustic restaurant and after a few minutes’ consideration, most of them had agreed that there were much worst things than living at home with your parents at the age of twenty-eight.

And in all the months she’d worked with him, nothing in Stephano’s behavior indicated he was a liar.
 
In fact, not long after joining the agency she had been stunned when Paul had wrongly praised Stephano in their monthly meeting for a successful project she had spent weeks working on tirelessly.
 
Stephano had promptly corrected the misconception.
 
Natalie had still been on her six-month probation and though she’d done enough to impress her immediate line manager, Alan Woods, Stephano giving her the credit she was due for the publicly successful project had cemented her position in the agency.
 
Her permanent status was confirmed less than a week later and more than seven weeks before confirmation was due.

Stephano was the hottest looking guy in the office.
 
Morgan Wells, another colleague, was perhaps better looking, but since he was openly and very proudly gay that gave Stephano the crown as far as Natalie was concerned.
 
She had been a little in love with him from the day she’d started, but from the moment Stephano had raised his hand, interrupting the director’s speech to correct his facts, she’d gone from mildly interested to fully-blown infatuated.
 
Most of her other colleagues would have wallowed in the man’s praise and given Natalie a perfunctory apology for stealing her thunder later, or perhaps not at all.

Stephano had probably been honest about going out with his friends, she decided as she took a seat at her desk the next Monday morning.

Except for the fact that her keyboard was pushed too far forward on her desk for her to use it comfortably and the empty tissue dispenser that she hastily refilled, there was nothing to indicate that she and Stephano had had sex on her desk.

I had sex on my desk!

Natalie still couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
 
She didn’t believe in office romances, especially since she loved her job and wouldn’t want to leave when the relationship went sour.
 
Staying in a job and seeing an ex-lover every day would be hard thing to endure—seeing that lover with someone new in the same office would be even harder.
 
Thankfully, she wouldn’t have that problem as she was the only woman in the team of ten.

Unless he starts batting for the same team as Morgan
, she thought with a smile.

She sobered as she checked the time on her computer and realized that it was after ten o’clock.
 
Stephano should have been in the office by now.

The agency allowed flexible working and each of them did their required thirty-five hours around the ten-to-four core hours.
 
An early bird by nature she had switched to a later working pattern when she’d realized that Stephano came in later in the morning and was usually the last to leave the office in the evening.
 
But although he was often the last to arrive, he always arrived by ten, unless the Tube experienced severe delays.

Worried, she positioned her monitor so that she had a view of the road and the passengers exiting the Tube station while appearing to be focused on her computer screen.
 
Her desk was in prime position in the office—most of her colleagues would swap desks in a heartbeat.
 
She had inherited it from Mary O’Brien, her successor, a woman who had been the longest-serving member of staff before retiring early to go sailing around the world with her husband.
 
Morgan had complained bitterly when Natalie had been given the best desk in the office, but Alan had insisted that as Mary’s replacement she was entitled to it.
 
Morgan had ranted and raved for weeks, but Alan had remained unbending.

A sporty red car pulled up just outside her window and blocked her view of the station.
 
Wanting to scream abuse at the driver, Natalie glanced angrily at the occupants instead, hoping that a dirty look would send them on their way.
 
With a shock she recognized the back of Stephano’s head as he leaned over to kiss the female driver.
 
It was a brief kiss, but Natalie was certain it had been on the lips.
 
As he unfolded his length from the passenger seat with some difficulty, Natalie caught a glimpse of the beautiful, young black woman who smiled as she waved at him, then gunned the engine and drove off before the loitering parking attendant could issue her a ticket for stopping in the no-parking zone.

Numb with shock, Natalie quickly re-positioned her monitor and adjusted the blinds covering the window so that he wouldn’t know she had been looking out for him like a love-sick fool.

She should have known better than to doubt her first instincts.
 
Alarm bells had immediately gone off when Stephano hadn’t as much as extended an invitation for a walk in the park over the weekend.
 
She had gone home thinking that she’d been ‘laid and played’, but after reading the first of the three romance novels she’d finished over the weekend she’d been once again convinced that good men did exist and Stephano was one of them.

She’d come to work this morning eager to see him, to find out if he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him, hoping that he would admit that not one waking hour had passed without thoughts of her and the scorching sex they’d had.

She should have known that it was all too good to be true.

“Sorry, I’m late, guys,” Stephano apologized as he burst into the office.
 
“Crazy weekend and then my father complained of chest pains last night and had to be rushed to hospital.
 
Turns out he had a nap too soon after eating a large portion of my mum’s lasagna and had a bad case of heartburn.”

Yeah, right!
 
She wanted to snort in derision but instead asked politely, “How’s he feeling now?”

“Much better, thanks,” Stephano replied, giving her a secret wink that she didn’t acknowledge.
 
“They ran tests on him and finally released him this morning.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”
 
Their colleagues seemed to miss the sarcasm in her voice, but Stephano’s eyes narrowed as he took a seat behind his desk and looked across at her.

She ignored him, dipping her head and pretending to be engrossed in her work.

At lunch rather than go late with Stephano and two of their other colleagues as usual, she went early to a local wine bar with Morgan and grabbed a sandwich on her way back.

That evening, Morgan who usually left early had a project that was due the next morning.
 
He stayed late to finish it and at half past five the office was empty except for the three of them.
 
Several times Natalie saw Stephano glance in Morgan’s direction with ill-concealed annoyance.
 
Normally she would have been annoyed too; she’d always thought of this time of the day as their
special
time.
 
Just the thought of sitting close enough to see him, even if not touch him, had thrilled her.
 
Often when she had gone to the bathroom to ready herself for the journey home by Tube, she’d found herself wet with longing.

Not today, though!

Morgan finally shut down his computer, grabbed his coat and threw them a hasty goodbye, saying that he had a blind date with a hot new guy.

Natalie felt both exhilarated and apprehensive being alone with Stephano again.
 
Her heartbeat quickened and she wondered for a moment if she would have a heart attack as he quickly rounded his desk and stalked over to her.

“Natalia?”

It’s Natalie
, she wanted to scream at him.
 
The arrogance of the man thinking that he could come over and say her name with his sexy Italian voice in the same way he had called her ‘darling’.

“Yes,” she responded coolly, lifting her head and looking calmly into his eyes.

“Natalie?” he repeated.
 
This time he got it right she noted—the ice dripping from her voice must have chilled him.
 
He could have no idea how much money it had cost her in therapy and finally hypnosis to be able to call up her Ice Queen persona when she needed it.
 
“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be,” she responded innocently, widening her eyes in surprise at his question.
 
She held the puzzled look just long enough for effect and then gasped as though all thoughts of the events three evenings previous had completely slipped her mind, “Oh, you mean about Friday evening?”

Words, she had discovered far too late in her physically abusive relationship with Michael, can sometimes hurt more than blows to the body.
 
And worst than words, indifference.

“Stephano, it was fun,” she said airily as if sleeping with hunky work colleagues was something she did on a regular basis.
 
“But let’s not repeat it.”