Page 33 of Royally Roma
He found the situation amusing, did he? She wanted to grab hold of his elegant silk tie and strangle him with it.
Yet somewhere beneath the heat of her fury, she also still wanted his hands on her. Everywhere. She could feel his every glance as if it were a caress. But it wasn’t enough, and it never would be. She was hungry for his touch. On her. In her.
How could he still be getting to her this way?
Maybe she needed therapy. No, she was pretty sure what she truly needed was for him to pay his bill, climb aboard his plane, and leave the country. Immediately. “Kidnapping? If that’s what it takes, yes.”
“So you would have me bound, gagged, and subservient to your will, would you?” His eyes flashed, dark and dangerous.
Oh my God.
Julia squared her shoulders, determined not to let on just how very much he rattled her. “This is serious. I could lose my job, and unlike youclaimto have, there’s not a staff of people running around paying for things on my behalf. It’s just me.”
It’s just me.
Her voice cracked at those three simple words, and she hated herself anew. The absolute last thing she wanted was to be vulnerable in front of him.
But sometimes it was so difficult to keep moving on, keep pressing forward after everything that had happened. The only parent she’d ever known was in prison. She’d lost her childhood home and all its contents. Picking herself up after that disaster had been bad enough.
She’d come to Rome for a fresh start. It had seemed like the perfect place to finish her degree. She had so many childhood memories of Rome. Good memories. Memories of a time when life was simple and happy, before her father’s misdeeds had come to light. She could lose herself in the past here—a different past than the one she’d fled in New York. A more beautiful past, filled with art and architecture and memories of dramatic centuries gone by.
Then she’d met Elio, the only serious boyfriend she’d ever had. Three months later she’d come home to find all traces of him gone. The only reminders he’d left behind were the debts he’d accumulated in her name and the big fat goose egg in her bank account. He’d done to her precisely what her father had done to his clients. She supposed there’d been some sort of sick, twisted poetic justice to it all.
But she was still here. Still surviving. On some days, though—days like today—it felt like too much to bear all on her own.
It’s just me.
She blinked back a wave of tears. She wouldnotcry in front of this man who’d so royally turned everything upside down.
“Julia, you have my word. The bill will be paid. I really must go.” He looked pained, which was laughable. Why would he care about leaving? She was the one who had to clean up his mess.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, you can’t leave. Not until you’ve made arrangements with my boss to get the charges taken care of.”
She pulled out her cell phone, ignored the texts and missed call notifications that had come in while she’d been escorting Mano around the Forum, and jabbed at the number for the touring company.
“Julia, wait. Please.” A knot formed in the tense set of his jaw. A knot that she would have found devastatingly sexy a half hour ago.
Maybe she still did. Just a little. “It’s ringing.”
“Julia,” he growled. “Hang up the phone immediately.”
His intensity was deadly, but if he thought she was following his orders, he had another think coming. He wasn’t her ruler.
“When in Rome.Buongiorno.”
Julia had never been so happy to hear Paola in her life. “It’s me, Julia.”
“Julia. Oh,” Paola said flatly.
A prickle of unease snaked its way up Julia’s spine. “I need to speak to Guiseppe. It’s an emergency.”
There was a weighty silence on the other end before Paola finally said, “I’m sorry, but he ordered me not to put you through. He said you no longer work here.”
Her stomach sank to her feet. Her eyes burned. She blinked furiously. “Don’t be silly. Of course I work there.” Why was this happening? And why, oh why, did it have to happen in front ofhim?
“I’m afraid you’ve been fired. Check your texts.”
Fired.
