He was far more complex than that.
‘I would give anything to have a parent,’ she said wistfully, ‘even one I didn’t get along with.’
‘That’s because you’re sentimental,’ Alessandro responded deflatingly. ‘I’m betting there are damp tissues all round whenever you watch a tearjerker at the movies.’
‘Would anything change your mind as far as removing your father is concerned? Are you just sticking around so that you can size my grandmother up and make sure she’s not going to nick the silver the minute your back’s turned?’
Alessandro shrugged. ‘I’m taking it as it comes.’
‘But it’s a good thing,’ Laura mused thoughtfully, ‘because you’ve had to actually put yourself out to integrate into your father’s life.’
‘Let’s not dress this up, Laura. It’s a two-way street.’ He had no idea what was propelling him to unpick scabs that had hardened over the years. Neither could he work out how they had managed to digress from the topic of when and where they were going to do something about the chemistry burning between them. Which was a far more interesting topic for discussion.
She lowered her eyes and didn’t say anything. Frustrating woman, Alessandro thought. Any other woman would have been pressing to continue the conversation. The slightest shred of confidential information being shared would have opened the door to all sorts of thoughts of really getting to know him...the real him...
But, then, this woman was different, wasn’t she? She might be hellishly attracted to him, but that still didn’t make him her type. And since he wasn’t her type, she wasn’t looking for a way in to him via trying to lead him down the path of touchy-feely conversation. She was probably away with the fairies right now, thinking sentimental thoughts about her past.
‘I don’t know my father,’ Alessandro heard himself say through gritted teeth, ‘because he’s always made sure to be unavailable.’
‘Unavailable?’
‘I was brought up by a selection of hired help,’ he pointed out neutrally. ‘Some excellent nannies, it has to be said. I barely remember my father being around when I was a kid. He spent most of his time abroad. He even...’ Alessandro laughed mirthlessly ‘...went on holidays without me. Not that I didn’t enjoy everything that vast sums of money could buy. I did. I had holidays few could dream of...in the company of the reliable hired help. At seven I was shipped off to the finest boarding school in the country and so the tale of our serviceable but distant relationship goes on...’
‘I’m sorry.’ Laura took a few steps towards him and Alessandro, cursing himself for the ease with which the natural fortress he had built around himself had been invaded, shot her a wolfish half-smile.
‘Sorry enough to come to bed with me?’ he murmured. ‘Trust me when I tell you that I’m not at all against a sympa—’
‘Stop it!’ White-faced, Laura looked at him with blazing eyes. Was that what it had all been about? Had that unexpected crack in his self-assured, forbidding exterior been a deliberate ploy to try to get her to sleep with him?
She remembered the way Colin had infiltrated himself into her life, playing on her emotions and saying whatever he thought she might want to hear. In retrospect, it had been so obvious.
Was she so transparent that Alessandro Falcone was ready to pull the same stunt?
She placed her hands firmly on her hips and glared at him, seething. ‘That was crude!’
Alessandro had the grace to flush. Yes, it had been, and crude was something he had never resorted to in his life before.
‘My apologies.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and stared at her, and for a few seconds she was so taken aback by the apology that she couldn’t find anything to say. ‘You’re right. It’s getting late. You should go. What was it my father said about your grandmother not wanting you to be gallivanting all over the country?’
Released from the awkward situation, Laura hovered for a few seconds. She licked her lips and noticed the way he absently followed that little gesture with his eyes.
He wasn’t coming closer to her, not by an inch. In fact, she could almost feel him pulling away, distancing himself, but the heat was still there. She could feel it like something tangible and alive between them.
Of course it would be madness to even think about going there, but it still gave her a heady kick to know that he found her attractive and she didn’t honestly think it was because he happened to be here, in the middle of nowhere, bored and restless.
She wanted to shove him in the same bracket as Colin because it somehow felt safer, but he wasn’t Colin.
‘So...’ She unconsciously stepped a tiny bit towards him. She wasn’t even aware that she was doing it.
‘So? So what?’
She shrugged, mesmerised by the smouldering darkness of his eyes.
‘You really shouldn’t, you know...’
‘Shouldn’t what?’
‘Kiss me the way you kissed me...hot and hard and urgent...and then pull away and wipe your lips and somehow try to make-believe that it didn’t happen and if it did, it wasn’t your fault...’
‘I never—’
He overrode her feeble interruption in the same dangerously soft voice. ‘And then, when I take a step back, look at me as though you’d love nothing more than for me to kiss you all over again. Is that what you want? For me to kiss you all over again? Would you like me to lock the kitchen door, sweep the glasses off the table and make love to you right there? With the lights on so neither of us misses a thing?’
A thousand erotic images flashed through Laura’s head. Her mouth went dry and she knew that her whole body was aroused beyond belief. Moisture was dampening her underwear, pooling between her legs. It was somehow all the more of a turn-on because he was still keeping his distance. She felt giddy.
‘No...’ she managed, in a voice she didn’t recognise.
‘Sure? Because if you do...just say the word...’
‘I’ve had one narrow escape when it comes to flinging myself into something...something...wrong...’
Alessandro shrugged. ‘Like I said, there would be no wrongs or rights, because I’m not in it for the long haul.’ Her body was so exquisitely provocative, especially as she seemed oblivious to that. He was holding himself back by sheer willpower but he had to. There was no way he intended to coerce anyone into bed with him, even if he knew that she wanted him.
She either came to him or she didn’t.
His eyes darkened when he contemplated the possibility of her walking away. If he ended up being denied the promise of touching and making love to that glorious body, which he couldn’t seem to get out of his head, he would have to instil a rigid regime of cold showers.
Never had the outcome of any encounter with any woman been so precariously balanced and he wondered whether that was why he could scarcely contemplate the thought of her turning her back on him for airy-fairy, woolly reasons that made no sense, because they were both adults and they both fancied each other. End of story.
‘And I won’t be using persuasive arguments to try to convince you that what we have needs to be...sated...’
‘This is crazy!’
‘When does your grandmother return from her holiday?’
‘Huh?’
‘We’ve covered the subject of sex,’ he imparted with a wave of his hand, ‘so, before you go, I want to arrange a time and a place for me to meet her.’
Laura’s brain seemed to be lagging behind. It seemed to have snagged somewhere between him asking her whether she wanted him to kiss her all over again and telling her that she just had to say the word.
Now he was moving on and that in itself said it all about the way he could compartmentalise sex, put it into a box that was quite separate from emotions or feelings or thoughts of the long-term.
She landed back down on earth and focused on him. ‘Right. Yes. My grandmother.’ Deep breath in, deep breath out. ‘She’s back on Friday. I’m going to pick her up from the airport. She could get a taxi back but, you know, she always thinks that taxi drivers are hell-bent on ripping her off by taking long, unnecessary detours...’ She knew that she was babbling but she couldn’t help it. And she wished he would stop looking at her like that, with his head ever so slightly inclined to one side, as though he was thinking all sorts of stuff that had nothing to with what she was talking about.
‘In that case, Saturday. You and your grandmother can come here.’
‘For tea? A drink?’
‘Dinner. Maybe I’ll do our digestive systems a favour and give Freya the evening off...fly my guy in. He could stay for the weekend.’
‘Fly your guy in?’
‘I have someone I can call on who cooks for me if I happen to eat at home.’
‘Your father may have lots of money,’ Laura said, ‘but I don’t think he would be happy with that situation.’
‘No.’ Alessandro gave her one of those slow, amused smiles that could knock her for six. ‘I think he’s so accustomed to Freya’s challenged cooking that he might be confused if anything too edible came his way.’
‘That’s unkind.’ She didn’t want to, but he could bring a smile to her face without trying.
‘Seven?’ Alessandro asked, and she nodded.
Meeting her grandmother would be the last thing he would want to do when it came to finding out about the life his father would be leaving behind, the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
Laura couldn’t imagine him kicking his heels in Scotland for much beyond that, even though he had sorted out an office for himself and appeared to be working quite efficiently.
‘We’ll be there.’
* * *
‘No need for you to have arranged all this nonsense!’ Roberto glared at his son from the stiff-backed chair where he sat, unhelpfully critical of the evening’s arrangements.
‘Don’t you want me to meet the...ah...woman in your life?’ Alessandro looked at his father and marvelled, yet again, at how simple conversation could end up feeling so tortured.
Not that strides forward hadn’t been made. Ever since Laura had confided, a few days ago, about the dilemma with the tie, Alessandro had loosened up a little, had found it easier not to let his hackles rise after three seconds.
He had been invited to go over his father’s company accounts and over dinner, the night before, they had actually managed a halfway decent conversation about the gradual sale of some of his father’s interests now that he was fully retired.
Business was a safe topic of conversation and it was a damn sight more stimulating than the leaden silence that usually settled between them and to which they had become accustomed over the years.
‘Old men don’t have women.’ Roberto adjusted his navy tie and eyed his gleaming shoes with a jaundiced eye. ‘They have companions, my boy! Don’t see why the sudden interest in meeting Edith anyway! Never had much time for what was going on in my life in the past!’
‘But I wasn’t trying to convince you to leave these goings-on before, was I?’ Alessandro pointed out, because his father had developed an annoying and efficient habit of sweeping all talk of his move to London under the carpet.
‘Must be missing your women in London...’ Roberto said slyly. ‘Must be hordes of ’em walking up and down outside your house, waiting for you to return... Nothing better to do with themselves, judging from the couple I met! Certainly couldn’t get a job anywhere! Not with sawdust for brains!’
Alessandro, standing by the imposing Victorian fireplace, half smiled to himself because right now the last thing he was missing were women in London. Right now, this felt like a game and it was an exciting one. All he needed was the one woman right here on his doorstep, thank you very much.
‘I’m doing just fine,’ he murmured and missed the sharp look his father threw at him.
‘Ever think of settling down?’
Alessandro looked at his father, shocked at this unexpected departure from their normal regime of polite conversation.
‘Not if I can help it,’ he said smoothly.
‘You should,’ Roberto grizzled. ‘Marriage makes a man.’
Saved by the doorbell, Alessandro didn’t get a chance to quiz him on that because he had no idea what the quality of his father’s marriage had been, but he could only assume that it had been a dictatorship in which his long-suffering mother had had to put up with the same sort of silent treatment from a man who had only spoken when absolutely necessary. He had a mental picture of two people moving around one another in silence.
Except...how much did he actually know for sure? He was about to answer the door to a friend in her twenties he had never known existed and a woman who was his father’s girlfriend, someone else whose existence he had known nothing about.
Opening the front door, Alessandro dispelled the unsettling feeling of the floor shifting under his feet.
* * *
Laura had prepared her grandmother by telling her that Roberto’s son wanted to meet her.
‘I wondered when I’d get to meet him,’ Edith had replied crisply. ‘About time Roberto and his son sorted themselves out! Communication! That’s all it takes!’
Laura had been too busy thinking her own thoughts to pay much attention to that remark.
What to wear? What did a girl wear when she was about to see a guy to whom she was stupidly attracted, a guy who had made her insides flip over with one kiss, a guy she most certainly did not want to have a fling with...
But was still driven to impress?
It was freezing cold outside but she wore a short-sleeved, deep blue, tight-fitting top with more of a plunging neckline than she would normally feel comfortable wearing and a long, black skirt with ballet pumps. Of course, she had to layer up and she could see her grandmother looking curiously at her dressy get-up, but it was no big deal. When someone invited you to dinner at their house, it was customary to show up in something other than jeans and a shapeless woollen jumper! She left her hair loose and it tumbled down her back, held back from her face with two blue clips on either side.
‘Quite a picture,’ her grandmother had said approvingly. ‘Dress to impress?’
Which had almost made her take the whole lot off and climb back into her usual garb but she didn’t and she was glad she hadn’t when Alessandro opened the door and...
Black jeans, a faded black polo-neck jumper...he was so drop-dead gorgeous that her mouth went dry. She made sure not to look at him as they were ushered inside but she could feel his eyes on her as coats were removed and in just the tight top and her long skirt she was as conscious of the plunging neckline as she’d feared she might be.
‘Fetching outfit,’ Alessandro murmured, as Roberto and Edith walked towards the sitting room. ‘Did you wear the top because you knew I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off you?’
‘This old thing?’ Laura said airily. ‘I just stuck on the first thing in the wardrobe that came to hand.’
‘What else is there in that wardrobe? I’m curious...’
‘I told you that I’m not interested in...in anything...so...’
‘I know.’ He put both hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. ‘You only kissed me because you had a couple of sips of gin and tonic and suddenly all your reservations were washed away! But I’m not your type because I’m an arrogant bore.’
‘I never said you were boring.’
‘So you find me scintillating company and as sexy as hell...it’s almost impossible to keep your hands off me...but you’re going to do your best to resist because some loser you met in London let you down.’
‘This isn’t the time or the place to be t
alking about this!’ She looked surreptitiously at Roberto and her grandmother. Edith was doing a lot of talking and Roberto was laughing at something she had said. They were as absorbed in one another as a couple of teenagers on a first date.
‘I like it. You can’t run away. You never said what he did to you. Promised you the earth and then failed to deliver? Like I said, relationships are so much more straightforward when you lay down the boundary lines from the start.’
Laura stopped and looked up at him. ‘He strung me along and I found out that it really wasn’t going anywhere because he was married.’ Remembered shame washed over her.
‘What a class-A bastard,’ Alessandro murmured softly. He looked down into those sea-green eyes and wanted to strangle the creep who had let her down. ‘But you can’t take that with you for ever and let it hang round your neck like an albatross.’
‘I can learn from it.’
‘Granted you can learn from it and then move on or else you can become so risk-averse that you never take a chance again.’
‘I can reduce the odds by not having a stupid fling with someone who’s totally unsuitable. I can wait until I meet the right guy for me. I don’t think that’s being risk-averse. I think that’s being sensible!’
‘Yes, but where’s the fun in that?’
‘It’s not all about fun. When it comes to relationships, it’s much more than having fun.’
‘I bet your grandmother wouldn’t agree. She looks a feisty lady. Should I ask her?’
‘Don’t you dare!’
She was so wrapped up in their conversation that she only noticed Roberto and her grandmother looking at them out of the corner of her eye, then she smiled a little faintly and cleared her throat.
‘What’s going on here?’ Roberto tapped his way towards them and looked at both of them narrowly.
‘Nothing,’ Laura said.
‘Good! Now, come along. No more of this hush-hush nonsense! Wasn’t my idea to have a dinner party but now that it’s happening, then into the sitting room you both go! No more standing out here and whispering! Bad damned manners!’
A Pawn in the Playboy's Game Page 7