He hadn’t laid eyes on her in three days but he had managed to spend a great deal of time thinking about her and he had stopped beating himself up for being weak. So what if she had become an annoying recurring vision in his head? Wasn’t it totally understandable? He had been catapulted back to a past he had chosen to lock away. Naturally it would be playing on his mind, like an old, scratched record returned to a turntable. Naturally she would be playing on his mind, especially when she had remained just so damned easy on the eye.
‘What do you mean?’ Everything about Alessandro Moretti sitting at her kitchen table made her jumpy.
‘Is this the family home?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The dearly departed... Is this the marital home?’
‘No, it’s not.’ She looked down. ‘Shaun and I... We, er, had somewhere else when we were together... When he died I rented for a couple more years until I had enough equity to put in as a deposit on this place.’
Alessandro thought of the pair of them, young love-birds renting together, while she had batted her eyelashes at him and played him for a fool. He swallowed a mouthful of instant coffee and stood up, watching as she scrambled to her feet.
‘Are you going to give me a tour of the place?’
‘There isn’t much to see. Two bedrooms upstairs; a bathroom. You’ve seen what’s down here. Shall we think about going?’
Alessandro didn’t answer. He strolled out of the kitchen, glancing upstairs before turning his attention to the sitting room. Why was she so jumpy? She had been as cool as a cucumber eight years ago when she had walked out on him, so why was she now behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof? Guilt? Hardly. A woman who could conduct an outside relationship while married would never be prone to guilt. Or remorse. Or regret.
Perversely, the jumpier she seemed to be, the more intrigued he became. He shoved one hand in his trouser pocket, feeling the coolness of his mobile phone.
‘For a cool-headed lawyer,’ he mused as he stared round the sitting room, ‘you like bright colours. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the decor here suggests a completely different personality.’ He swung round to look at her as she hovered in the doorway, neither in the room nor out of it. ‘Someone fun...vibrant.’ He paused a fraction of a second. ‘Passionate...’
Chase flushed, and was annoyed with herself, because she knew that that was precisely the response he had been courting. He was back and he was intent on playing with her like a cat playing with a mouse, knowing that all the danger and all the power lay exclusively in his hands.
‘And yet,’ Alessandro drawled as he prowled through the room before gazing briefly out of the window which overlooked the little street outside, ‘there’s something missing.’
‘What?’ The question was obviously reluctantly spoken. As he began to walk towards her, she felt panic rise with sickening force to her throat. All at once she was overcome with a memory of how desperately she had wanted him all those years ago. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted on a softly indrawn breath.
Getting closer and closer to her, Alessandro thought he could touch the subtle change in the atmosphere between them. It had become highly charged and, for the first time in a very long time, he felt sizzlingly alive. Not one of the catwalk-model beauties he had slept with over the past few years had come close to rousing this level of forbidden excitement. The immediacy of his response shocked him, all the more so because he recognised that the last time he had felt like this was when he had been in the process of being duped by the very same woman standing in front of him now. Hatred and revulsion were clearly inadequate protection against whatever it was she had that was now pushing an erection to the fore.
The bloody woman had been elusive then, for reasons which he had later understood, and she was elusive now, this time for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand.
‘Are you afraid of me?’ he demanded harshly and Chase roused herself from the heated torpor that had engulfed her to stare up at him.
‘What makes you think that I’m afraid of you?’ She tried to insert some vigour into her voice but she could hear the sound of it—thin, weedy and defensive, all the things she didn’t want him to imagine she was for a second.
‘The way you’re standing in the doorway as though I might make a lunge for you at any minute!’
‘I can’t imagine you would do any such thing!’
Couldn’t she? It was precisely what he wanted to do: behave like a caveman and take her, because she was tempting the hell out of him!
‘I’m afraid of what you could do.’ She backtracked quickly as her mind threatened to veer down unexpected, unwelcome paths. ‘You’ve already shown that you’d be willing to punish Beth because you... Because of me.’
‘And yet here I am now. Do you think I’m the sort of man who reneges on what he’s said? I’ve told you that I intend to pay the full, agreed price. I’ll pay it.’ Not afraid of him? Like hell. She might not be afraid of him, but he was certainly making her feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to try and shimmy further away from him.
He extended one lean hand against the wall, effectively blocking any further scarpering towards the front door. He could smell her hair. If he lowered his head just a little, he would feel its softness against his face. Of their own accord, his eyes drifted to the prissy blouse and the even prissier navy-blue jacket. He was well aware that she was breathing quickly, her breasts rising and falling as she did her utmost to keep her eyes averted.
Just as quickly he pushed himself away, retreating from her space, and he watched narrowly as she relaxed and exhaled one long breath.
He wasn’t going to lose control. He had lost control once with her and he wasn’t about to become the sort of loser who made a habit of ignoring life’s lessons and learning curves.
‘I was going to say...’ He led the way to the front door and paused as she slung her handbag over her shoulder and reached for the case on the ground. ‘There’s something missing from your house.’ He opened the door for her and stood back, allowing her to brush past him. ‘Photos. Where are the pictures of the young, loving couple, from before your husband died? I thought I might have seen the happy pair holding hands and gazing adoringly up at one another...’
Chase walked towards the waiting car, head held high, but underneath the composed exterior she felt the ugly prickle of discomfort.
‘We didn’t do the whole church thing.’
‘Who said anything about a church?’
‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she burst out as soon as they were in the car. She had kept her voice low but she doubted the driver would have heard anything anyway. A smoked-glass partition separated the front of the car from the back. Presumably it was completely soundproof. The truly wealthy never took chances when it came to being overheard, not even in their own cars. Deals could be lost on the back of an overheard conversation.
Alessandro shifted his muscular body to face her. ‘Why are you getting so hot under the collar?’
‘I...I’m not. I...I don’t like to be surrounded by memories. I think it’s always important to move on. There are photos of me and Shaun, just not on show. Do you want to talk about the shelter? I...I’ve brought all the relevant information with me. We can go over it on the way.’ Sitting next to him in the back seat of this car induced the feeling of walls closing in. She fumbled with the clasp of her briefcase and felt his hand close over hers.
‘Leave it.’
Chase snatched her hand away. ‘I thought you wanted to pick me up so that we could talk about this deal.’
‘I’m more interested in the lack of photos. So, none of the husband. Presumably you have albums stashed away somewhere? But none of your family either. Why is that?’
Chase flushed. The adoring middle-class pare
nts who lived in the country. She was mortified at how easily the lie had come to her all those years ago, but then she had been a kid and a little harmless pretence had not seemed like a sin.
Who wanted a rich, handsome guy to know that you have no family? That your mother had died from a drugs overdose when you were four and from that point on you’d been shoved from foster home to foster home like an unwanted parcel trying to find its rightful owner. How wonderful it had been to create a fictitious family, living in a fictitious cul-de-sac, who did normal things like taking an interest in the homework you were set and coming along to cheer at sports days, even if you trailed in last.
She had loved every minute of her storytelling until it had occurred to her that she had fallen in love with a man who didn’t really know a thing about her. The fact that she had been married was just one of the many facts she had kept hidden. By then, it had been too late to retract any of what she had said, and she hadn’t wanted to. She’d been enjoying their furtive meetings too much. Okay, so she knew that they would never come to anything, but she still hadn’t wanted them to end.
And now...
‘My parents...er...moved to Australia a few years ago.’ She hated doing this now but for the life of her she didn’t know what to do. At least, she thought, sending her non-existent parents on a one-way ticket to the other end of the world would prohibit him from trying to search them out.
Although, why on earth would he do that? The answer came as quickly as the question had: revenge. Find her weak spots and exploit them because he hated her for what he imagined she had done to him. She felt sick when she thought of the number of ways he could destroy her if he set his mind to it and if he had sufficient information in his possession.
‘Really?’
‘It was...um...always a dream of theirs.’
‘To leave their only child behind and disappear halfway across the world?’
‘People do what they do,’ she said vaguely. ‘I mean, don’t you ever want to disappear to the other end of the earth?’ Although she was making sure to stare straight ahead, she could feel his probing eyes on her, and she had to resist the temptation to lick her lips nervously.
‘I disappear there quite often, as it happens. But only on business.’
Chase could think of nothing worse than travelling the globe in the quest for more and more money and bigger and bigger deals. Stability, security and putting down roots had always been her number one priority. She had managed to begin the process, and she shuddered to think of him pulling up any of the roots she had meticulously put down over the past few years.
‘I’m surprised that after all these years you haven’t become tired of trying to make up for your parents’ excesses.’ It slipped out before she could think and Chase instantly regretted the momentary lapse. The last thing she wanted to do was establish any kind of shared familiarity. ‘My apologies,’ she said stiffly. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
The reminder of just how much she knew about him underscored his bitterness with a layer of ice. He had never understood how that had managed to happen, how he had found himself telling her things he had never told anyone in his life before.
But then, she had been different. He had never met anyone like her in his life before. Still and yet wryly funny; guarded and yet so open in the way she gazed at him; composed and brilliant at listening. Between the inane yakking of the students—who, at the end of the day, were only a few years younger than him, even though he had been light years removed from them in terms of experience—and the pseudo-bored sophistication of the people he mixed with in his working life, she had been an oasis of peace. And, yes, he had told her things. For a relationship that struggled even to call itself a ‘relationship’, he had confided and, hell, where exactly had it got him?
He clenched his jaw grimly. ‘I’m really not interested in psychobabble,’ he told her.
‘That’s fair,’ Chase returned. ‘But if I’m not allowed to talk about your history then I don’t see why you should talk about mine.’ For starters, the last thing she needed was detailed questions about her so-called parents and where exactly they lived in Australia. And how dared he imply that they somehow didn’t care about her simply because they had fulfilled their lifelong dream of emigrating? She almost felt sorry for them...
She half-grinned at that and Alessandro’s eyes narrowed. What was going through her head? He had a fierce desire to know.
‘So the shelter...’ He interrupted whatever pleasant thought had made her smile.
‘The shelter...’ Chase breathed an inward sigh of relief because this was a subject she was more than happy to talk about. He ceased being a threat as she began to describe life at Beth’s House. She smiled at some of the anecdotes about the women who came and went. She told him about the plans Beth had had for upgrading the premises, and then assured him that he could see for himself what she was talking about as soon as he got there. She told him that he had a heart of stone for wanting to knock it down to build, of all things, a stupid mall for people who had more money than sense, but found it was impossible to generate an argument because he hadn’t taken her to task for voicing her opinion.
As a professional, a lawyer in charge of the brief, voicing opinions was not within her remit but she hadn’t been able to help herself.
By the time they made it to the shelter, her eyes were bright and there was colour in her cheeks. More to the point, her guard was down. Alessandro felt that he was watching the years falling away. He wasn’t about to be sucked into believing that she was anything but the liar she undoubtedly was, but he was certainly enjoying the hectic flush in her cheeks and the lively animation on her face.
They made it to the shelter on time. He immediately understood its potential for investment.
The large Victorian house, clearly in need of vast sums of money for essential repair, sat squarely in the midst of several acres of land. For somewhere that was accessible by bus and overland rail, it was a gem waiting to be developed.
The car swung through iron gates that were opened for them only after they had cleared security and they drove up to the house which was fronted by a circular courtyard, in the centre of which stood a non-functioning fountain.
‘Beth was left this property by her parents,’ Chase told him. ‘It’s another reason why she’s so reluctant to sell. It was her childhood home. She may have converted it into the shelter, but there are a truck load of memories inside.’
‘Is this when you begin to repeat your mantra that I have no heart and that my only aim in life is to make money at other people’s expense?’
‘If the cap fits...’ Chase muttered under her breath in yet another show of unprofessionalism that would have had her boss mopping his brow with despair.
Alessandro raised his eyebrows and she had the grace to blush before stepping out of the car into the sunshine.
Alessandro was more than happy to follow her lead. He had never been to a place like this before. They were greeted at the door by Beth, who was in her sixties, a woman with long, grey hair tied back in a ponytail and a warm, caring face. Whatever she felt for the big, bad developer who was moving in to sweep her inheritance out from under her feet, she kept it well hidden.
‘Some of the girls who come to us are in a terrible way,’ she confided as they toured the house which was laid out simply but effectively inside. ‘Chase knows that.’
‘And that would be because...?’
‘Because I’ve taken an interest in the place from the very start,’ Chase said quickly. ‘This sort of thing appeals to me. As I told you, I was very tempted to go into Social Services or the police force, some place where I would be able to do good for the community.’
Alessandro personally thought that it was priceless that she could come over all pious and saintly in his presence but he kept silent. He made all t
he right noises as he was shown through the house and introduced to girls who looked unbearably young, many of whom had nowhere else to go and were either pregnant or with a child.
‘I try and keep them busy,’ Beth told him as they went from room to room. ‘Most of them don’t see the point of continuing their education and it’s very difficult for a fifteen-year-old to go to classes when they have a baby to look after. Many of my dear friends are teachers and volunteer to hold classes for them. It’s truly remarkable the goodness that exists within us.’
Alessandro’s eyes met Chase’s over the older woman’s head and his lips twisted into a cynical smile. ‘It’s not a trait I see much of in my line of business,’ he said.
‘I’m sure,’ Beth concurred with a sad shake of her head. ‘Now, Chase tells me that you’re a very busy man.’
‘And yet,’ Chase inserted blandly, ‘he’s managed to make time to come here and see what you’re all about. Although, I guess that mostly has to do with him judging the potential for knocking down the house and developing the land as soon as the money changes hands.’
Alessandro was cynical enough to appreciate the underhand dig. No one could accuse her of giving up without a fight. Their eyes tangled and he gave a slight smile of amused understanding of where she was heading with that incendiary statement.
‘I will personally see to it that your...operation is transferred to suitable premises,’ he affirmed, raking fingers through his dark hair.
‘Not the same. Is it, Beth?’
‘I will certainly miss the old place,’ Beth agreed. ‘It may not seem much to you, Mr Moretti, but this is really the only house I’ve ever known. I’ve never married, never left the family house. You must think me a silly old woman, but I shall find it very difficult to move on. Well, in truth—and I haven’t said this to you, Chase, and you must promise me that you won’t breathe a word to anyone else—my thoughts are with retiring from the whole business once I move on. Of course, I shall make sure that some of the money I get from the sale goes towards another shelter—perhaps smaller than this—and Frank and Anne will run it.’
Enthralled by Moretti Page 5