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to such comments.’ He stared at her. ‘Fortunately you are well educated enough to be able to converse intelligently with my brother’s guests, and if you are asked about our relationship you will say simply that we met through your brother, who is one of my pilots. Falcon in particular will try to question you. My younger brother and I have good cause to be grateful to our elder brother for the care he gave us whilst we were growing up, and I must warn you that he will attempt to test you to see if you are worthy of me.’
    When Leonora’s eyes glittered with angry resentment, Alessandro shook his head.
    ‘You are jumping to conclusions which are not valid. My brother’s anxiety as to your worthiness has nothing to do with your social status. His concern will be to see that you will not hurt me, and it is on that issue that he will seek to test you, by hinting that he can offer you far more than I.’ He frowned as his mobile purred, telling Leonora briskly before he answered it, ‘We shall discuss all of this in more detail over supper.’
    He turned away from her to take his call, leaving Leonora to look helplessly towards the magnificent wrought-iron staircase that soared up from the hallway to the upper floor. She was a reluctant eavesdropper on his conversation as he said coolly, ‘Yes, I shall be bringing someone with me, Don Falcon. Her name?’ He paused and looked at Leonora. ‘Her name is Leonora Thaxton.’
    Leonora’s heart thundered with half a dozen heavy and dizzying beats. Hunger, she told herself pragmatically. That was all it was.
    She focused on the cream marble of the staircase, which should have been so cold but somehow, in this Florentine setting, was a thing of beauty and sensuality that made her long to reach out and stroke the beautiful stone. Wanting to stroke the marble was fine, but she’d better not allow that longing to spread to wanting to reach out and stroke its owner, she warned herself—and then was thoroughly shocked that she should feel it necessary to give herself such a warning.
    After all, why on earth would she want to touch Alessandro Leopardi, when she could barely tolerate being in the same room with him?
    The only piece of furniture in the hallway was a large and ornate gilded table with a dark onyx top, on which sat a large alabaster urn filled with greenery and white lilies, their scent perfuming the air like a caress. Everything about the hallway made Leonora feel out of place and awkward, somehow underlining her own lack of sensuality whilst subtly highlighting its own. But was it the hallway that was making her so aware of her own lack of sensuality or Alessandro himself?
    What if it was him? He could think what he liked about her—she didn’t care, Leonora told herself stoutly, reverting to the defensive mechanisms she had learned as a girl. She didn’t care one little bit as he finished his call and turned back to her.
    A woman—Caterina, Leonora presumed—emerged from a door set at the back of the hallway. She gave Leonora a sharp look that whilst not exactly welcoming wasn’t hostile either.
    Alessandro addressed her in Italian, instructing her to take Leonora to the guest suite. Leonora, whose own Italian was excellent, was just thinking to herself that it might be a good idea not to reveal that she spoke Italian when Alessandro turned to her and said in that language, ‘I seem to recall that your many job applications made mention of the fact that you are proficient in several languages, one of which is Italian.’
    He had read her applications himself, and had still rejected her—despite the excellence of her qualifications? Rejected her as her brothers had so often done because she was female? Immediately and instinctively Leonora reverted to another of the habits of her childhood: wanting to get her own back. Without stopping to think she answered him in Mandarin, but the rush of triumph she felt was quickly destroyed when he spoke to her in the