Sicilian Nights Omnibus Read Online Free Page B

to do, because she was a girl and she had been born second.
    Which would be worse? Swallowing her pride now and begging this man she would never see again to spare Leo, or facing her brothers as a failure?
    She took a deep breath.
    ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. Please don’t sack Leo.’
    She sounded as though she was choking on every word, Alessandro recognised. Her brother obviously meant a great deal to her. Good.
    ‘I will think about it. Provided you—’
    Leonora’s head jerked up immediately, her eyes shadowing with apprehension. Whatever it took to make sure Leo did not lose his job she would have to do—even if Alessandro Leopardi told her that she was never to apply for a job with him again. Even that, Leonora recognised bleakly.
    ‘I’ll do anything just so long as you don’t sack Leo,’ she interrupted fiercely. ‘Anything! Whatever it is you want me to do, I’ll do it.’
    The moment her impetuous words were out, Leonora’s mouth formed a self-conscious O whilst her face burned even more hotly as she realised just how her offer might be interpreted. However, before she had time to correct any possible misinterpretation, Alessandro Leopardi was speaking coolly.
    ‘I won’t sack your brother—little as he deserves to be kept on, in view of his stupidity and weakness in agreeing or allowing you to force him to agree to your illegal charade—provided you accompany me to a family function I am obliged to attend.’
    Leonora stared at him, disbelief and distaste clearly visible in her expression. ‘There are escort agencies who provide women for that kind of thing. Why don’t you use one of them? After all, it isn’t as though you can’t afford to.’
    She knew immediately that her blunt speaking had been a bad mistake. She could see the tinge of angry heat burning his face, moving into the high cheekbones and then flashing like a warning beacon in the darkness of his eyes.
    ‘I would remind you that whilst I could afford to pay a woman to accompany me, you cannot afford to refuse me. Unless, of course, you are prepared to see your brother lose his job?’
    To her chagrin his attitude caused Leonora to do something she hadn’t done since she’d left her early teenage years behind her. She glowered at him and stuck out her bottom lip, with all the angry defiance of a rebellious teenager facing a resolute and immovable human obstacle to what they wanted to do. And then she compounded her regression to impotent resentment by saying crossly, ‘Well, I can’t think why you’d want to pick me to accompany you. After all, I’m not a model, or...or...a C-list starlet.’
    Her face was burning again, but it wasn’t her fault if his penchant for glamorous airheads was regularly recorded in celebrity gossip magazines—not that she ever bothered reading such things. It was Leo who was constantly pointing out yet another paparazzi photograph of his boss with some leggy, pouting beauty on his arm.
    ‘The reason I’ve picked you, as you put it, has nothing whatsoever to do with your looks—or lack of them,’ Alessandro told her unkindly.
    This time she wasn’t going to overreact, Leonora told herself. She was a mature woman, after all. A professional and fully qualified pilot. Someone who was not going to be tricked into behaving like an immature teenager because she couldn’t control her own emotions.
    ‘You are such a girl!’ her brothers had loved to tease her when they had been growing up, and she still hated being put in a position where her emotions might threaten to make her look vulnerable or betray her.
    ‘But you obviously want me to accompany you badly enough to blackmail me?’ Leonora couldn’t resist pointing out.
    ‘That’s right,’ Alessandro agreed, so pleasantly and with such an unexpectedly warm smile that for a handful of seconds Leonora was caught off guard. And she found that for some inexplicable reason she was curling her toes in her navy-blue loafers.
    He