THE UNCOMPROMISING ITALIAN

by Cathy Williams

  The leather was warm from where he had been sitting, and the heat seemed to infiltrate her entire body as she took his place in front of the computer screen. When he leaned over to tap on the keyboard, she felt her breathing become rapid and shallow and she had to stop herself from gasping out loud.

  His forearm was inches away from her breasts and never had the proximity of one person’s body proved so rattling. She willed herself to focus on what he was calling up on the screen in front of her and to remember that she was here in a professional capacity.

  Why was he getting to her? Perhaps she had been too long without a guy in her life. Friends and family were all very good, but maybe her life of pleasant celibacy had made her unexpectedly vulnerable to a spot of swarthy good looks and a wicked smile.

  ‘So...’

  Lesley blinked herself back into the present to find herself staring directly into dark, dark eyes that were far too close to her for comfort.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Email one—a little too familiar, a little too chatty, but nothing that couldn’t be easily ignored.’

  Lesley looked thoughtfully at the computer screen and read through the email. Her surroundings faded away as she began studying the series of emails posted to him, looking for clues, asking him questions, her fingers moving swiftly and confidently across the key board.

  She could understand why he had decided to farm out this little problem to an outside source.

  If he valued his privacy, then he would not want his IT division to have access to what appeared to be vaguely menacing threats, suggestions of something that could harm his business or ruin his reputation. It would be fodder for any over-imaginative employee, of which there were always a few in any office environment.

  Alessio pushed himself away from the desk and strolled towards one of the comfortable, deep chairs facing her.

  She was utterly absorbed in what she was doing. He took time out to study her and he was amused and a little surprised to discover that he enjoyed the view.

  It wasn’t simply the arrangement of her features that he found curiously captivating.

  There was a lively intelligence to her that made a refreshing change from the beautiful but intellectually challenged women he dated. He looked at the way her short chocolate-brown hair spiked up, as though too feisty and too wilful to be controlled. Her eyelashes were long and thick; her mouth, as he now saw, was full and, yes, sexy.

  A sexy mouth, especially just at this very moment, when her lips were slightly parted.

  She frowned and ran her tongue thoughtfully along her upper lip and, on cue, Alessio’s body jerked into startling life. His libido, which had been unusually quiet since he’d ended his relationship with a blonde with a penchant for diamonds two months ago, fired up.

  It was so unexpected a reaction that he nearly groaned in shock.

  Instead, he shifted on the chair and smiled politely as her eyes briefly skittered across to him before resuming their intent concentration on the computer screen.

  ‘Whoever’s sent this knows what they’re doing.’

  ‘Come again?’ Alessio crossed his legs, trying to maintain the illusion that he was in complete control of himself.

  ‘They’ve been careful to make themselves as untraceable as possible.’ Lesley stretched, then slumped back into the chair and swivelled it round so that she was facing him.

  She stuck out her legs and gazed at her espadrilles. ‘That first email may have been chatty and friendly but he or she knew that they didn’t want to be traced. Why didn’t you delete them, at least the earlier ones?’

  ‘I had an instinct that they might be worth hanging onto.’ He stood up and strolled towards the French doors. He had intended this meeting to be brief and functional, a blip that needed sorting out in his hectic life. Now, he found that his mind was stubbornly refusing to return to the matter in hand. Instead, it was relentlessly pulled back to the image he had of her sitting in front of his computer concentrating ferociously. He wondered what she would look like out of the unappealing ensemble. He wondered whether she would be any different from all the other naked women who had lain across his bed in readiness for him.

  He knew she would—instinct again. Somehow he couldn’t envisage her lying provocatively for him to take her, passive and willing to please.

  No. That wasn’t what girls with black belts in karate and a sideline in computer hacking did.

  He played with the suddenly tempting notion of prolonging her task. Who knew what might happen between them if she were to be around longer than originally envisaged?

  ‘What would you suggest my next step should be? Because I’m taking from the expression on your face that it’s not going to be as straightforward as you first thought.’

  ‘Usually it’s pretty easy to sort something like this out,’ Lesley confessed, linking her hands on her stomach and staring off at nothing in particular. The weird, edgy tension she had felt earlier on had dissipated. Work had that effect on her. It occupied her whole mind and left no room for anything else. ‘People are predictable when it comes to leaving tracks behind them, but obviously whoever is behind this hasn’t used his own computer. He’s gone to an Internet café. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes to a variety of Internet cafés, because we certainly would be able to trace the café he uses if he sticks there. And it wouldn’t be too much of a headache finding out which terminal is his and then it would be a short step to identifying the person... I keep saying he but it might very well be a she.’

  ‘How so? No, we’ll get to that over something to drink—and I insist you forfeit the tea in favour of something a little more exciting. My housekeeper makes a very good Pimm’s.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ Lesley said awkwardly. ‘I’m not much of a drinker and I’m...err...driving anyway.’

  ‘Fresh lemonade, in that case.’ Alessio strolled towards her and held out his hand to tug her up from the chair to which she seemed to be glued.

  For a few seconds, Lesley froze. When she grasped his hand—because frankly she couldn’t think of what else to do without appearing ridiculous and childish—she felt a spurt of red-hot electricity zap through her body until every inch of her was galvanised into shrieking, heightened awareness of the dangerously sexy man standing in front of her.

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said a little breathlessly. As soon as she could she retrieved her scorching hand and resisted the urge to rub it against her trousers.

  Alessio didn’t miss a thing. She was a different person when she was concentrating on a computer. Looking at a screen, analysing what was in front of her, working out how to solve the problem he had presented, she oozed self-confidence. He idly wondered what her websites looked like.

  But without a computer to absorb her attention she was prickly and defensive, a weird, intriguing mix of independent and vulnerable.

  He smiled, turning her insides to liquid, and stood aside to allow her to pass by him out of the office.

  ‘So we have a he or a she who goes to a certain Internet café, or more likely a variety of Internet cafés, for the sole reason of emailing me to, well, purpose as yet slightly unclear, but if I’m any reader of human motivation I’m smelling a lead-up to asking for money for information he or she may or may not know. There seem to be a lot of imponderables in this case.’

  They had arrived at the kitchen without her being aware of having padded through the house at all, and she found a glass of fresh lemonade in her hands while he helped himself to a bottle of mineral water.

  He motioned to the kitchen table and they sat facing one another on opposite sides.

  ‘Generally,’ Lesley said, sipping the lemonade, ‘This should be a straightforward case of sourcing the computer in question, paying a visit to the Internet café—and usually these places have CCTV cameras. You would be able to find the culprit without too much bother.’

  ‘But if he’s clever enough to hop from café to café...’

  ‘Th
en it’ll take a bit longer but I’ll get there. Of course, if you have no skeletons in the cupboard, Mr Baldini, then you could just walk away from this situation.’

  ‘Is there such a thing as an adult without one or two skeletons in the cupboard?’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Although,’ Alessio continued thoughtfully, ‘Skeletons imply something...wrong, in need of concealment. I can’t think of any dark secrets I have under lock or key but there are certain things I would rather not have revealed.’

  ‘Do you honestly care what the public thinks of you? Or maybe it’s to do with your company? Sorry, but I don’t really know how the big, bad world of business operates, but I’m just assuming that if something gets out that could affect your share prices then you mightn’t be too happy.’

  ‘I have a daughter.’

  ‘You have a daughter?’

  ‘Surely you got that from your search of me on the Internet?’ Alessio said drily.

  ‘I told you, I just skimmed through the stuff. There’s an awful lot written up about you and I honestly just wanted to cut to the chase—any articles that could have suggested that I needed to be careful about getting involved. Like I said, I’ve fine-tuned my search engine when it comes to picking out relevant stuff or else I’d be swamped underneath useless speculation.’ A daughter?

  ‘Yes. I forgot—the “bodies under the motorway” scenario.’ He raised his eyebrows and once again Lesley felt herself in danger of losing touch with common sense.

  ‘I never imagined anything so dramatic, at least not really,’ she returned truthfully, which had the effect of making that sexy smile on his face even broader. Flustered, she continued, ‘But you were telling me that you have a daughter.’

  ‘You still can’t erase the incredulity from your voice,’ he remarked, amused. ‘Surely you’ve bumped into people who have had kids?’

  ‘Yes! Of course! But...’

  ‘But?’

  Lesley stared at him. ‘Why do I get the feeling that you’re making fun of me?’ she asked, ruffled and red-faced.

  ‘My apologies.’ But there was the echo of a smile still lingering in his voice, even though his expression was serious and contrite. ‘But you blush so prettily.’

  ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life!’ And it was. Ridiculous. ‘Pretty’ was something she most definitely was not. Nor was she going to let this guy, this sex God of a man—who could have any woman he wanted, if you happened to like that kind of thing—get under her skin.

  ‘Why is it ridiculous?’ Alessio allowed himself to be temporarily side-tracked.

  ‘I know you’re probably one of these guys who slips into flattery mode with any woman you happen to find yourself confined with, but I’m afraid that I don’t go into meltdown at empty compliments.’ What on earth was she going on about? Why was she jumping into heated self-defence over nonsense like this?

  When it came to business, Alessio rarely lost sight of the goal. Right now, not only had he lost sight of it, but he didn’t mind. ‘Do you go into meltdown at compliments you think are genuine?’

  ‘I...I...’

  ‘You’re stammering,’ he needlessly pointed out. ‘I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘I don’t...err...feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘Well, that’s good.’

  Lesley stared helplessly at him. He wasn’t just sinfully sexy. The man was beautiful. He hadn’t looked beautiful in those pictures, but then she had barely taken them in—a couple of grainy black-and-white shots of a load of businessmen had barely registered on her consciousness. Now, she wished she had paid attention so that she at least could have been prepared for the sort of effect he might have had on her.

  Except, she admitted truthfully to herself, she would still have considered herself above and beyond being affected by any man, however good-looking he might happen to be. When it came to matters of the heart, she had always prided herself on her practicality. She knew her limitations and had accepted them. When and if the time came that she wanted a relationship, then she had always known that the man for her would not be the sort who was into looks but the sort who enjoyed intelligence, personality—a meeting of minds as much as anything else.

  ‘You were telling me about your daughter...’

  ‘My daughter.’ Alessio sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his dark hair.

  It was a gesture of hesitancy that seemed so at odds with his forceful personality that Lesley sat up and stared at him with narrowed eyes.

  ‘Where is she?’ Lesley looked past him, as though half-expecting this unexpected addition to his life suddenly to materialise out of nowhere. ‘I thought you mentioned that you had no family. Where is your wife?’

  ‘No sprawling family,’ Alessio amended. ‘And no wife. My wife died two years ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need for tears and sympathy.’ He waved aside her interruption, although he was startled at how easily a softer nature shone through. ‘When I say wife, it might be more accurate to say ex-wife. Bianca and I were divorced a long time ago.’

  ‘How old is your daughter?’

  ‘Sixteen. And, to save you the hassle of doing the maths, she was, shall we say, an unexpected arrival when I was eighteen.’

  ‘You were a father at eighteen?’

  ‘Bianca and I had been seeing each other in a fairly loose fashion for a matter of three months when she announced that her contraceptive pill had failed and I was going to be a father.’ His lips thinned. The past was rarely raked up and when it was, as now, it still brought a sour taste to his mouth.

  Unfortunately, he could see no way around a certain amount of confidential information exchanging hands because he had a gut feeling that, whatever his uninvited email correspondent wanted, it involved his daughter.

  ‘And you weren’t happy about that.’ Lesley groped her way to understanding the darkening of his expression.

  ‘A family was not something high on my agenda at the time,’ Alessio imparted grimly. ‘In fact, I would go so far as to say that it hadn’t even crossed my radar. But, naturally, I did the honourable thing and married her. It was a match approved by both sides of the family until, that is, it became apparent that her family’s wealth was an illusion. Her parents were up to their eyes in debt and I was a convenient match because of the financial rewards I brought with me.’

  ‘She married you for your money?’

  ‘It occurred to no one to do a background check.’ He shrugged elegantly. ‘You’re looking at me as though I’ve suddenly landed from another planet.’

  His slow smile knocked her sideways and she cleared her throat nervously. ‘I’m not familiar with people marrying for no better reason than money,’ she answered honestly.

  Alessio raised his eyebrows. ‘In that case, we really do come from different planets. My family is extremely wealthy, as am I. Believe me, I am extremely well versed in the tactics women will employ to gain entry to my bank balance.’ He crossed his legs, relaxing. ‘But you might say that, once bitten, twice shy.’

  She made an exceptionally good listener. Was this why he had expanded on the skeleton brief he could have given her? Had gone into details that were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? He hadn’t been lying when he had told her that his unfortunate experience with his ex had left him jaded about women and the lengths they would go to in order to secure themselves a piece of the pie. He was rich and women liked money. It was therefore a given that he employed a healthy amount of caution in his dealings with the opposite sex.

  But the woman sitting in front of him couldn’t have been less interested in his earnings.

  His little problem intrigued her far more than he did. It was a situation that Alessio had never encountered in his life before and there was something sexy and challenging about that.

  ‘You mean you don’t intend to marry again? I can understand that. And I guess you have your
daughter. She must mean the world to you.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Alessio’s voice cooled. ‘Although I’ll be the first to admit that things have not been easy between us. I had relatively little contact with Rachel when she was growing up, thanks to my ex-wife’s talent for vindictiveness. She lived in Italy but travelled extensively, and usually when she knew that I had arranged a visit. She was quite happy to whip our daughter out of school at a moment’s notice if only to make sure that my trip to Italy to visit would be a waste of time.’

  ‘How awful.’

  ‘At any rate, when Bianca died Rachel naturally came to me, but at the age of fourteen she was virtually a stranger and a fairly hostile one. Frankly, a nightmare.’

  ‘She would have been grieving for her mother.’ Lesley could barely remember her own mother and yet she still grieved at the lack of one in her life. How much more traumatic to have lost one at the age of fourteen, a time in life when a maternal, guiding hand could not have been more needed.

  ‘She was behind in her schoolwork thanks to my ex-wife’s antics, and refused to speak English in the classroom, so the whole business of teaching her was practically impossible. In the end, boarding school seemed the only option and, thankfully, she appears to have settled in there with somewhat more success. At least, there have been no phone calls threatening expulsion.’

  ‘Boarding school...’

  Alessio frowned. ‘You say that as though it ranks alongside “prison cell”.’

  ‘I can’t imagine the horror of being separated from my family. My brothers could be little devils when I was growing up but we were a family. Dad, the boys and me.’

  Alessio tilted his head and looked at her, considering, tempted to ask her if that was why she had opted for a male-dominated profession, and why she wore clothes better suited to a boy. But the conversation had already drifted too far from the matter at hand. When he glanced down at his watch, it was to find that more time had passed than he might have expected.