Alessandro’s jaw hardened. He took in her beautiful, stubborn face and had a very vivid image of the teenager she must have been: wild, drifting, incredibly bright, incredibly good-looking. ‘Shaun...’ Just uttering her ex-husband’s name left a sour taste in his mouth. ‘Must have thought he had won the lottery the day he met you—clever kid who could be his passport out of whatever dead-end life he was looking forward to leading.’
Chase looked up at him with some surprise. ‘I never thought about it that way,’ she said truthfully. ‘I...’ Was that how he had seen her, whilst making her believe that it had been the other way around? That she had been the lucky one to have been noticed by him? ‘I met him when I was fifteen. He was the leader of the pack, so to speak. Everyone looked up to him even though he was younger than nearly all the guys in the gang. He was fed up living on the outskirts of Leeds. He said he wanted more. He said that London was the place to be.’
‘And of course, he encouraged you to sign up to university life he knew that it was the best way out for him.’
‘I don’t know how I managed to get through all my exams, and I did them all a year ahead of everyone else,’ Chase confessed. ‘Maths, further maths, economics, geography...’ But she had. Her teachers had seen to it that she’d sat them all. They were the ones who had insisted on university, who had filled in all the applications on her behalf while she had been busy having fun and running wild.
She had landed herself a place at one of the top universities in the country and had been amazed that she had accomplished such a feat. Only in retrospect had she appreciated the energy behind the scenes that had got her there.
‘So you went to university and you got married.’
‘The other way around, actually. I got married. Yes. And I went to university. I never expected to meet someone like you. Or anyone, for that matter.’
‘And yet you did. And, instead of being truthful, you thought that it would be a much better idea to concoct a fairy-tale story about yourself.’
Chase heard the undercurrent of contempt mixed with bewilderment in his voice and inwardly winced. She was not the person she had pretended to be and that mattered to a man like him, a man who occupied a stratosphere of wealth and power that few could even dream about.
She wanted to shout at him that he didn’t have a clue, that he couldn’t possibly understand, but shouting wasn’t going to do. Losing control wasn’t going to do. She would offer him the explanation he deserved to hear with detachment and lack of passion. She would demonstrate that she was already breaking away from him, just as he was with her. She would leave with her dignity intact, as much as it could be. She would save her tears for later.
‘Yes.’ She tilted her chin up and steeled herself to meet his eyes squarely and without apology. ‘I was young. I just...gave in to the temptation to turn myself into someone I wasn’t. I made up the background I always wanted for myself.’
Alessandro felt another unwelcome, piercing tug of compassion at the thought that a middle-class background could have constituted her dream life. Most girls would have dreamt up stories of money, overseas holidays and parents with fast cars. She, on the other hand, had dreamt of what most other young girls of her age would have grumbled about and considered normal and boring.
He squashed any notion of compassion as fast as it raised its inappropriate head. The bottom line was that she was a compulsive liar, not to be trusted, never to be believed. He had come to get some truths out of her and he was getting them—in shed-loads.
‘Which brings us to that piece of rubbish who was filling bin bags with your possessions.’
Getting to the heart of the matter and the reason he had shown up on her doorstep, Chase thought. Because, the faster he could wash his hands of her and clear off, the better.
‘When we went to Italy, one of the girls who used to hang out in our gang was at the airport. I didn’t see her.’ But then, she hadn’t had eyes for anyone but the man silently judging her now.
‘She took pictures of us on her phone and posted them on a social networking site. Brian saw them, clocked the Louis Vuitton luggage and the chauffeur-driven car and decided that he would turn up on my doorstep and squeeze me for money. I don’t know how he got my address, but there are so many ways of finding people; I don’t suppose he had much trouble. He may just have gone to the place we were renting before Shaun died, got in touch with the landlord and got the forwarding address I gave him all those years ago. Who knows? He threatened to tell the people at work about my background... It would have spelled the end of my career. And he might have done a lot more besides...’
It seemed ironic now that the life she had built for herself could have been undone by something as crazy as someone taking a picture of her with Alessandro at an airport. There was no point dwelling on what was fair or what was unfair, she thought. The only way was to move forward. She kept her voice as modulated and toneless as she could.
‘He was waiting for me when I got back to my house from Italy.’
Alessandro felt rage wash over him, a perfectly normal reaction to the thought of any thug lying in wait for a helpless victim.
‘He told me that he wanted money and...that’s when I asked you. I didn’t want to, and if you had lent me the money I would have paid you back every penny.’
‘You mean from the proceeds of the job you jacked in? Why did you do that?’
‘I thought it best to resign just in case... I’ve never brought my past to my work. What would happen if Brian decided to show up at Fitzsimmons...?’
‘Catastrophe—because they too were victims of your lies. They believed what you told them about your background, just like I did, didn’t they?’
‘I’ve never discussed my private life with anyone,’ Chase mumbled, feeling even more of a hopeless liar, even though her lies had been through omission of the absolute truth. ‘I’ve kept myself to myself. I fought hard to get where I was.’
‘If you had told me the truth, I might have been inclined to give you the money.’
Chase shrugged. ‘He would have come back for more. He knew where to find me. It was stupid of me to even... Well, in moments of panic we sometimes do stupid things.’
‘He won’t be back.’
‘I know. And...and I’m very grateful to you for scaring him away. You probably threatened him with the one thing he would have taken notice of.’ She wanted to smile, because who would have thought that a billionaire businessman from a cushy background could have had sufficient forcefulness to intimidate someone like Brian Shepherd into running scared? ‘Look, I know you probably hate me for all of this...’
‘You mean the fact that you were prepared to perpetuate a piece of fiction about yourself?’ Alessandro strolled to stand in front of her, legs planted apart, hands at his sides.
Chase looked up at him reluctantly.
‘What other pieces of fiction did you perpetuate?’ he asked softly. ‘No. There’s just one more thing I need to get straight in my head.’
‘What’s—what’s that?’ she stammered uncertainly. She watched as he slowly leant over her and she half-closed her eyes as she inhaled his familiar scent. It rushed to her head like incense.
‘This...’ His mouth crushed her in a savage, punishing kiss and Chase helplessly yielded. She arched back in the chair, pulling him towards her, tasting him hungrily. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew that it should be impossible to feel this driving, craven lust for a man who felt nothing but scorn towards her, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
There was a refrain playing at the back of her head that was telling her that this was the last time she would feel his lips on hers.
He pulled her to her feet and somehow they found themselves on the sofa, still entwined with one another. She was breathing heavily and she didn’t stop him when he began undoing the
buttons on her shirt, very soon losing patience. She heard the pop as a couple were ripped off. She wanted him so badly that she was shaking. Pride or no pride, she felt that she needed this final joining of their bodies. Her hands scrabbled to open his shirt so that she could feel the breadth of his chest and she moaned when, eventually, her fingers were splayed against it.
Her nipples tingled against her lacy bra. He cupped her breast with his hand and then pushed it underneath the bra, shoving the bra up so that he could suck on her nipple, drawing the stem into his mouth and swirling his tongue against it until she was half-crying for more.
As he suckled, he nudged her legs apart and then his hand was there, not even bothering to pull down her undies but delving underneath them, finding her wetness and exploring every inch of it with his fingers.
He still hadn’t taken off a stitch of his own clothes. She had managed to undo a few buttons on his shirt and had yanked it out from the waistband of his trousers. She feverishly tried to complete the task of undressing him but he wasn’t helping. She couldn’t get to the zip of his trousers, although she could feel the bulge of his erection.
She gave up as he continued driving his fingers against her, pausing in the rhythmic movement only to insert them into her, into that place where she knew she wanted his rock-hard shaft to be instead.
He reared up and yanked down his trousers and, with his hand tangled in her hair, he guided her to his erection and stifled a groan when she took him into her mouth.
Through half-opened eyes, he watched as she sucked and licked him. She knew just how to rouse him down there with her hands and her mouth and he let her.
She might be a liar; he might not be able to trust her as far as he could throw her—because who could ever trust a woman who made a habit of fabricating her life story?—but she certainly knew just which buttons to press.
He tugged her away from him and sank onto her. Her breasts, with the bra pushed up above them, were full and ripe and irresistible. With a groan of satisfaction, he covered them with his mouth, until the pouting buds were wet and hard and he continued, giving her no respite, until she was wriggling like an eel, desperate for more.
Her hair was all over the place and her cheeks were flushed, her mouth slightly parted, showing her perfect, pearly-white teeth. She had sunbathed in the nude by the pool in Italy, and her body was a perfect honey colour.
How well he knew this body. How much of it he had explored and committed to memory, from the freckle by her nipple to the tiny mole on her upper arm.
He pulled down her panties, flattened his hand between her legs and then stroked her down there, harder and faster, until he could feel her orgasm building beneath his fingers. He didn’t stop and when she came he watched: watched her eyes flutter; watched her breathing catch in her throat for a few seconds; watched her whole body arch, stiffen and finally slacken as the waves of pleasure finally subsided, leaving her limp.
‘Alessandro...’ She reached for him and he stayed her hand, circling her wrist before releasing her and standing up.
For a few seconds, Chase was completely bewildered. When he began to zip up his trousers, she clambered into a sitting position and looked at him speechlessly.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
‘We were making love.’
‘I was proving to myself that the way you responded to me wasn’t yet another lie.’
‘How could you say that?’ She itched to pull him back to her but he was already turning away, doing up his buttons and taking his time, as cool as a cucumber. ‘I never, never, pretended with you. Not about that...’
Alessandro steeled himself. She had made him cry once. The memory of that rose uninvited like poison from the deepest recesses of his mind. He had given a lot to her and her betrayal then had rocked his foundations. Never again.
‘So it would seem.’ He turned around to look at her. She was utterly dishevelled and utterly bewitching. ‘I came here to get answers from you and I got them, Chase. Now the time has come for me to tell you goodbye. It’s been... I would say fun, but what I’d really mean is...it’s been a learning curve. You can congratulate yourself on teaching me the dangers of taking people at face value.’
‘Alessandro!’
‘What?’ In the process of heading for the door, he half-turned towards her. His eyes were flat, hard and cold. There was a tense silence that stretched between them to breaking point.
Chase found that she didn’t know what to say. She just didn’t want him to go. Not just yet. Her body was still burning from where he had touched her, where he had deliberately touched her, turning her on, bringing her to a shuddering orgasm just to prove to himself that the attraction she’d claimed to feel for him was real. It was humiliating, yet she still couldn’t bear the thought of him walking away. How on earth had she let it go this far? How was it that the control she had spent eight years building, the ability to arrange her life just how she wanted it without reference to anyone else, had been washed away by a man who had always been unsuitable and inappropriate?
‘Nothing.’
He looked at her for a few seconds, shrugged and then he was gone. Just like that.
Chase was left staring at the empty doorway. He was gone and he would never be coming back. She disgusted him. Her awful life, her sleazy ex-friends...
And he’d had the nerve to look contemptuous because once upon a time she had given in to the temptation to make it all go away by pretending to be somebody else! She might not have known about his wealth back then, but she had known with some unerring sixth sense that he would not be the kind of guy who would find any woman who came from her background attractive or in any way suitable.
And of course, she hadn’t been suitable. She had been married, for starters. But she had seized that window of forbidden, youthful pleasure and now, all this time later, she was paying heavily for it.
She spent two hours returning all the stuff Brian had hauled off shelves and from drawers back to their rightful places. She washed a lot of it. The thought of his hands on her things made her shudder with distaste.
She hoped that by occupying herself she might take her mind off Alessandro but, all the while, he was in her head as she remembered the things they had done together, the conversations they had had.
She shakily told herself that it was a good thing that they were finished. It had been destined to end and the sooner the better. How much worse would she have felt had they ended it in two months’ time? Two months during which she would have just continued falling deeper and deeper in love with him! The longer they lasted, the more difficult it would have been to unpick and disentangle her chaotic emotions. She should be thankful!
And yet, thankful was the very last thing she felt. She felt devastated, tearful and...ashamed.
More than anything else, she was angry with him for making her feel that way. She was angry with him for being hard line; for not having an ounce of sympathy in him; for not even trying to see her point of view. She had known from the outset that his sole motivation for sleeping with her was to exact some sort of revenge, to have that wheel turn full circle, to take what he thought had been promised to him eight years ago. Yet, hadn’t he got to know her at all during that period? Had she just been his lover and nothing more?
They hadn’t been rolling around on a mattress all of the time. There had been so many instances when they had talked, when the past hadn’t existed, just the present, just two people getting to know one another. Or so it had felt to her.
She hated him for wiping that all away as though none of it had existed. She hated him for finding it so easy to write her off as though she was worthless.
* * *
Over the next week, as she came closer and closer to her final day at Fitzsimmons, the frustration and anger
continued to build inside her. If only she could have maintained the anger, she might have felt protected, but there were so many chinks through which she recalled small acts of thoughtfulness, his wonderful wit, his sharp intellect, his lazy, sexy smile. What they had had all those years ago had been unbearably intense and that intensity had given the times they had shared recently a deep level of communication that was almost intuitive. She missed that. She missed him.
She hadn’t heard a word from him. He had truly disappeared from her life—although, by all accounts, he had been on the scene far more than anticipated at the shelter, where, from what Beth had blithely told her, he appeared suddenly to have taken a keen interest in all the renovations she had planned.
‘He has so many good suggestions for how the money could be spent!’ Beth had enthusiastically listed all the suggestions while Chase had listened in resentful silence. ‘He’s also been kind enough to put us in touch with contacts he has in the contracting business so that we can get the best possible deal!’ Chase had muttered something under her breath which she hoped didn’t sound like the unladylike oath it most certainly was.
Beth had no idea of the history she and Alessandro had shared. It would have been petty and small-minded not to have responded with a similar level of enthusiasm to the hard-nosed billionaire businessman who had previously threatened a hostile buy-out, only to morph into a saint with a positively never-ending supply of ‘brilliant ideas’ and ‘amazingly useful contacts’.
On the Friday, exactly a week after he had walked out of her house, there was a little leaving drinks party for her at the office, to which far more people turned up than she had expected, bearing in mind she had not been the most sociable of the team out of work.
She would be sorely missed, her boss said in the little speech he gave to the assembled members of staff. Everyone raised their glasses of champagne. These were the people she had kept at arm’s length, burying herself in her work and always feeling the unspoken differences between them. And yet, as various of her colleagues came over to talk to her, she could tell that they were genuinely delighted that she intended to pursue her pro bono work in a firm that was solely dedicated to doing that.
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