She’d been on his mind. He hadn’t been able to work that one out. Was it because, in a sea of predictable women, she had been the only one to have ever contradicted him? Had the novelty of being criticised got under his skin and provoked a reaction? Like nettle rash? Something annoying you couldn’t ignore? Or had the lack of a female presence in his life had something to do with it? It had been a couple of months since he had seen off his last girlfriend.
He didn’t analyse the reaction. He just knew that the weekend planned had lain in front of him, glittering like a gem on the horizon. And that, in itself, was spectacular, considering how reluctant his visits had been in the past, obligatory visits to be endured before returning to the sanity of city life.
‘You’re late. Was about to head to the kitchen and take something out of the fridge!’
He glanced at Laura to see whether she, like him, was irritated with his father’s impatience, but when he looked at her it was to see that she was smiling indulgently at Roberto, her hand resting lightly on his forearm, a gesture of affection that his father appeared to take for granted.
‘If Freya stocks the fridge,’ Alessandro said evenly, ‘then I wouldn’t count on the contents to be inspiring. I’ll be ten minutes at the most. I need to send a quick email.’
Laura frowned. She knew that Roberto had been dressed and waiting for the past hour and a half. She’d helped him with his tie and she’d seen, from the other three ties draped over the back of the chair, that he’d had a task choosing the one he wanted to wear.
‘I think we should head off sooner rather than later,’ she murmured, catching Alessandro’s eye and holding it. ‘Roberto always has an early night.’
‘Roberto can go to bed whenever he damned well wants to!’ Roberto announced, but she felt him relax a little when Alessandro immediately nodded and dumped his case on the floor.
‘I’m having a car delivered to me in the morning.’ Alessandro fished his mobile out of his pocket. ‘What’s the number for the local taxi company?’
‘No need,’ Laura said briskly. She hooked her arm through Roberto’s and then turned to him and tucked his scarf neatly into his overcoat.
‘You’re always faffing and fussing, girl!’
But again Alessandro was made aware of a relationship he had never even known existed, a relationship from which he was made to feel like an outsider. His father, grumbling and chiding, was clearly pleased to have her fuss over him.
‘Someone has to when my grandmother isn’t around,’ she murmured, and Roberto shot his son a sidelong look before shooing her away. ‘There’s no need to call a taxi.’ She stood back, head cocked, making sure everything was up to her inspection with Roberto’s outfit. ‘I’ve brought my car.’
‘You’re going to drive us?’ Alessandro let them pass and slammed the door behind them.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel comfortable with a woman behind the wheel,’ she said with saccharine sweetness. ‘Because if that’s the case, then you’re a dinosaur.’
‘Girl speaks her mind!’ Roberto chortled smugly. ‘Something you’ll have to get used to, my boy!’ He absently patted her hand as they trundled towards the side of the house.
‘You intend to take us out in that?’ Squatting directly under one of the security lights that surrounded the house was an ageing Morris Minor. ‘I thought those cars were extinct,’ he murmured. ‘Along with the dinosaurs you mentioned.’
‘It’s very reliable,’ Laura told him tartly.
‘Except for last winter,’ Roberto pointed out, and for the duration of the drive they launched into an extended anecdote about the unpredictability of her car, which, Alessandro assumed, he was supposed to find uproariously hilarious. He wondered why his father didn’t just buy her something more reliable and then grimaced because had he done that, Alessandro knew that he would have been the first to point out that his father was being ripped off.
He had intended to bring up the matter of the move but, over a surprisingly good meal, he found every effort thwarted.
They had in-jokes. They talked about people in the village. They spent way too long discussing some orchids someone or other had done something or other with, only desisting when Alessandro was forced to butt in and shut down that particular topic or risk falling asleep. He heard his father laugh. Twice. The sound was so unusual that he wondered whether his ears had been playing up but, no, at the end of an hour and a half he could see for himself that the life he had envisioned his father having might have been slightly off target.
And he had known nothing about it.
‘So how long will you be staying?’ Laura asked politely, when, engine still running, they were back at the manor house.
‘This has been the most uncomfortable journey of my life,’ Alessandro informed her as he levered his big body out of the back seat. ‘Why is your engine still running? I take it you’re coming in.’
‘I hadn’t intended to.’
‘Girl’s got to be on her way!’ Roberto announced.
‘In that case,’ Alessandro countered, ‘we can have some time to discuss your move.’
‘Not tonight, my boy. This old man needs his beauty sleep!’
‘I’ll come in for a couple of minutes.’
Roberto, on his way to the front door, paused to look at the two of them, eyes narrowed. ‘Can’t think Edith will want you gallivanting all over the country at this time of the night!’
Laura laughed as she joined them to walk to the front door. Roberto’s bushy brows were drawn together in a frown. ‘Hardly gallivanting all over the country,’ she soothed. ‘My grandmother worries too much.’
‘With good cause,’ Roberto muttered, rapping his walking stick on the front door impatiently as Alessandro jangled a bunch of keys, hunting out the right one. ‘After all those shenanigans in London!’
‘Here we go!’ Laura trilled, hoping to drown out that utterly, utterly inappropriate remark and mentally vowing to warn her grandmother about any more confidences while Alessandro was on the scene, earwigging. ‘Back home and I must say the meal was delicious!’
Much as she didn’t want to spend time in Alessandro’s company, she knew that she would have to, at least for half an hour or so. First, she wanted to find out how long he intended staying in Scotland, because having a car delivered was not a good sign. Second, she was desperate to know whether he was rethinking his silly decision to try to browbeat Roberto into moving down to London.
She had seen the way Roberto had deflected all attempts to manoeuvre the conversation to the move and she knew that whatever relationship the two had, it would crash and burn completely if Alessandro kept hammering away at his father, trying to force a move that wasn’t wanted.
Couldn’t he see that?
Did he care?
And how on earth had these two ended up at such loggerheads...?
She was curious. She shouldn’t be but she was. She was waved aside when she offered to walk Roberto up the stairs and it was only when he had disappeared from sight that she felt the power of Alessandro’s presence wrap around her like a stranglehold.
In the busyness of leaving the house and driving to the restaurant and then doing her utmost to carry the conversation to any topic that would demonstrate Roberto’s ties to the community, she had forgotten how uncomfortable she felt in the dress.
Now, as those dark eyes settled on her, she had to stop herself from tugging it down.
‘Drink?’ He looked at her for a few seconds. She was wearing a dress that was never going to win prizes at a fashion show. It was an awkward length and, twinned with serviceable boots, gave the impression of someone who wasn’t into clothes. His was a rich diet of catwalk models but he had still found his eyes straying time and time again over dinner to the way the fabric stretched over her full breasts, the way t
he neckline offered just a glimpse of cleavage, enough for his imagination to take flight. ‘Because I’m guessing that the only reason you volunteered to come in was because there’s something you want to say to me. A stiff gin and tonic might move things along.’
Laura scowled. With no Roberto around, he was back to being the arrogant, obnoxious guy who thought it was amusing to needle her. She could also tell from the way his eyes had skimmed over her that he found her get-up funny—the dress, which hadn’t seen the light of day since London, and even then had only been worn once, the boots, which were sturdy, useful and most of all warm, but hardly the height of fashion.
He headed towards the kitchen and she traipsed along behind him. In a dark jumper and dark trousers, he was just impossibly sexy and she really resented the way she even noticed that when she didn’t want to. She halted at the door and watched as he sauntered towards a cupboard, fetched two squat glasses and poured them both a drink.
‘So,’ he drawled, handing her a glass, ‘are you going to remain standing by the door like a sentry or are you going to sit down and say what you have to say?’
His fingers had brushed against hers and every muscle and nerve in her body had reacted.
‘You never mentioned how long you intended staying here...’ She inched her way towards the table and sat down. The first sip of the gin and tonic was pretty frightful but the second sip was much better and helped her relax.
‘Undecided. Why? Do I make you feel uncomfortable? I wouldn’t want to put a spoke in the wheel, but...’ he shrugged, sipped his drink and looked at her over the rim of his glass ‘...needs must.’
‘What needs?’
‘That’s a somewhat leading question, wouldn’t you say?’ If they were referring to his needs, then he might very well meet them by staying.
He had a vivid image of her in his bed, sprawled in all her glorious, lush beauty, her delicate, heart-shaped face heated with desire, her body his for the taking. He imagined her huge, green eyes riveted to his nakedness, her arms spread wide, her legs likewise...
Blood surged through him and he felt a fast, hard, painful erection.
‘You were desperate for me to discover the ins and outs of my father’s busy life here and if I’m to do that I’m going to have to rely on more than a question-and-answer session.’ His voice was terse as he dispelled the sudden eroticism of his thoughts. ‘For starters, answering questions has never been my father’s speciality. When it comes to answering personal questions...well, put it this way, I don’t foresee him putting out the welcome mat. Father-and-son chats have just never gone down that road.’
‘Why?’
‘Come again?’
‘You should be able to have an honest, heart-to-heart conversation with Roberto when it comes to something as important as this. He should tell you why he doesn’t want to move to London.’
‘And yet, as you’ve seen for yourself, that sort of explanation hasn’t been forthcoming, which is why I’ve gone ahead and done what I’ve considered best all round.’
‘So why are you bothering to stay here if you’ve already made your mind up?’
‘Because I want to see first-hand what the situation is with my father and your grandmother,’ he said bluntly.
‘Meaning?’
‘I want to make sure that it’s all above board.’
‘I can’t believe you just said that!’
‘Why?’ He shrugged. ‘We’ve been through this before. You might as well accept that I’m not one of these idealistic, trusting types who takes whatever’s told to him as the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
‘You are just so cynical. Isn’t it enough that your father has found someone at his age? Someone who makes his life a better place?’
‘Beautiful. And even more beautiful if that someone has his physical well-being at heart and frankly couldn’t care less about the well-being of his bank account.’
Laura ground her teeth and glared at him. How was it that someone so good-looking could be so...cold?
But, then, Colin had been good-looking as well, hadn’t he? And he’d turned out to be as genuine as a three-pound note. She obviously had a problem when it came to her judgement. She obviously was one of those people who could be swayed by good looks. Well, it had happened once before and it wasn’t going to happen again.
And there was a big difference between Colin and Alessandro. Colin had been suave and charming. Alessandro was just...outspoken, arrogant and downright charmless.
If he had any reserves of charm, he wasn’t going to use up any of his supply on her, at any rate.
And when it came to attractiveness...the differences were extreme as well, once you started looking a little more closely. Colin had been attractive in a sanitised way. His blond hair had always looked ever so slightly helped along with products, his smile had dazzled, his body had been slim and trim but not overtly muscular.
Alessandro, on the other hand, was good-looking in a more raw, untamed way. Underneath the sophistication you could half sense something more elemental, something powerful that was barely leashed.
And thank the Lord for that, she thought. Because that made her far safer from his brand of good looks!
‘Gran is away until next week.’ She reined in the desire to get into a shouting fit with him.
‘And I can’t wait to meet her.’
‘And once you’ve sized her up, what do you intend to do?’
‘I enjoy crossing bridges when I get to them.’ Not strictly speaking true. He was a guy who had always preferred to plan in advance. However, in this instance he would have to think out of the box and react accordingly. The disturbing truth was that he had planned on a more clear-cut situation and was realising that that was not the case. He had counted on his father’s stubbornness. What he hadn’t counted on was the fact that that stubbornness was not misplaced if he saw himself as being dragged away from connections he would find difficult to replace in London.
But the thorny issue of trekking back and forth remained. Maybe if he and his father had had anything remotely resembling a functioning relationship, that situation might have been different. Maybe then those journeys wouldn’t have been seen as a nuisance. But why beat around the bush? They didn’t and Alessandro wasn’t thrilled at the thought of having to make more and more inconvenient trips, staying for longer and longer periods of time, should his father’s health nosedive.
He might not be lining up to receive the son of the year award, but neither was he so lacking in a sense of filial duty that he would be able to switch off completely.
‘Don’t you have to be...er...back in London? Running your company?’
‘Companies. Plural. I have more than one and, no, I can take some time out to assess this situation.’ He sighed suddenly and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘It’s not ideal,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t think I’d end up having to spend time here, checking up on a life I had no idea my father had. It makes things...slightly more problematic.’
Laura swallowed the last of her drink. She’d had nothing to drink over dinner as she had been driving and now the gin and tonic rushed pleasantly to her head, warming her and making her feel relaxed, not as defensive. He looked weary. Still sexy as hell, but weary.
‘I don’t know why you have the relationship you have with Roberto,’ she was startled to hear herself say, ‘but if you try to force his hand, it’ll backfire. You might end up dragging him down to London but it would be against his will and he’ll resent you for it for the rest of his life.’
‘I don’t recall asking for your opinion.’
‘Do you ever ask for anyone’s opinion?’
‘No.’
‘Sometimes it pays to hear what other people have to say.’ She felt some of her Dutch courage ooze away in the face of his icy stare
. ‘You can’t be a rock all of the time...’
Except he was and always had been. He’d grown up knowing that he was on his own and he had acquired the necessary independence from an early age. She, it would appear, had not. Even though...
‘How old were you when you lost your parents?’ He gave in to the curiosity that had been nibbling at the edges of his consciousness. He didn’t encourage deep and meaningful conversations with women because deep and meaningful unfailingly gave rise to awkward forward thinking on their part. There was nothing he disliked more than a woman with plans and too much interest from him engendered plans. But...this was different. Exceptional circumstances. Curiosity was permitted.
‘Seven.’ She was startled at his digression.
‘And then you moved in with your grandmother.’
‘She was my closest living relative and we’d always been close.’
‘And despite the loss of your parents, you remain an optimistic, upbeat person. That...’ he sat forward, scarcely believing that he was having this conversation ‘...is because your grandmother was a constant. I think you’re viewing the relationship I have with my father through rose-tinted spectacles.
‘He paid the exorbitant school fees for my boarding school, lavished as much pocket money on me as any boy could possibly want or need, paid for ridiculously expensive holidays, which I took with various trusted members of staff, and those were the constant. His presence wasn’t because I seldom laid eyes on him and when I did, we were forced into agonisingly polite conversation that we were both very happy to bring to an end as soon as we could.’ He couldn’t believe he had said as much as he had. It was so unlike him to confide in anyone. It made him feel annoyed and uncomfortable at the same time but he told himself that it had been necessary, if only to combat her perky optimism. She was a one-woman cheerleading team.
‘What about your mother?’ Laura’s heart went out to him. In fact, she wanted to close the distance between them and place her hand over his.
‘What about her?’ This was a subject that was closed to all. It was something he rarely thought about. He had put to bed all questions about his mother a long time ago. His mother had died when he had been young enough not to have remembered her...an unexpected heart complication that had sprung from nowhere. That was the sum total of what he knew.
A Pawn in the Playboy's Game Page 5