‘And the career opportunities are going to disappear unless you hurry back to London as fast as you can?’
‘I realise you’ll probably pull that big job out from under our feet.’ That thought only now struck her, as did the conclusion that she wasn’t going to win employee of the week if her boss found out that she had been instrumental in losing a job that would bring hundreds of thousands of pounds to the company and extend their reach far wider than they had anticipated.
Alessio wondered whether her thirst for a rewarding career would make her change her mind about not staying on, about not continuing what they had. It revolted him to think that it might. He had never had to use leverage to get any woman into his bed and he wasn’t about to start now.
Nor had he ever had to beg any woman to stay in his bed once she was there, and he certainly wasn’t about to start that now.
‘You misjudge me,’ he said coldly. ‘I offered that job to your boss and I am not a man who would renege on a promise, least of all over an affair that goes belly up. Your company has the job and everything that goes with it.’
Lesley lowered her eyes. He was a man of honour. She had known that. He just wasn’t a man in love.
‘I also think that when I decide to embark on another relationship.’
‘You mean after you’ve launched yourself back into the singles scene.’
She shrugged, allowing him to think something she knew to be way off mark. She could think of nothing less likely than painting the town red and clubbing.
‘I just feel that, if I decide to get involved with anyone, then it should be with the person who is right for me. So, I think we should call it a day for us.’
‘Good luck with your search,’ Alessio gritted. ‘And, now that you’ve said your piece, I shall go and do some work downstairs. Feel free to use the bedroom where your suitcase has been put; I shall sleep in one of the other bedrooms and you can book your return flight first thing in the morning. Naturally, I will cover the cost.’ He stood up and walked towards the door. ‘I intend to go to Claudia’s by nine tomorrow. If I don’t see you before I go, have a safe flight. The money I owe you will be in your bank account by the time you land.’ He nodded curtly and shut the kitchen door behind him.
This is all for the best, Lesley thought, staring at the closed door and trying to come to terms with the thought that she would probably never see him again.
It was time for her to move on...
CHAPTER NINE
LESLEY PAUSED IN FRONT of the towering glass house and stared up and up and up. Somewhere in there, occupying three floors in what was the most expensive office block in central London, Alessio would be hard at work. At least, she hoped so. She hoped he wasn’t out of the country. She didn’t think she could screw up her courage and make this trip to see him a second time.
A month ago, she had walked out on him and she hadn’t heard from him since. Not a word. He had duly deposited a wad of money into her account, as he had promised—far too much, considering she had bailed on their trip a day in.
How had his talk with his daughter turned out? Had they made amends, begun the protracted process of repairing their relationship? Where was she at school now?
Had he found someone else? Had he found her replacement?
For the past few weeks, those questions had churned round and round in her head, buzzing like angry hornets, growing fat on her misery until... Well, until something else had come along that was so big and so overwhelming that there was no room left in her head for those questions.
She took a deep breath and propelled her reluctant feet forward until she was standing in the foyer of the building, surrounded by a constant river of people coming and going, some in snappy suits, walking with an air of purpose; others, clearly tourists, staring around them, wondering where they should go to get to the viewing gallery or to one of the many restaurants.
In front of her a long glass-and-metal counter separated a bank of receptionists from the public. They each had a snazzy, small computer screen in front of them and they were all impeccably groomed.
She had worked out what she was going to say, having decided beforehand that it wasn’t going to be easy gaining access to the great Alessio Baldini—that, in fact, he might very well refuse to see her at all. She had formulated a borderline sob story, filled with innuendo and just enough of a suggestion that, should she not be allowed up to whatever floor he occupied, he would be a very angry man.
It worked. Ten minutes after she had arrived, a lift was carrying her up to one of the top floors, from which she knew he would be able to overlook all of London. She had no idea how much the rent was on a place like this and her head spun thinking about it. She had been told that she would be met at the lift, and she was, but it was only as they were approaching his office that nerves really truly kicked in and she had to fight to keep her breathing steady and even and not to hyperventilate.
She was aware of his personal assistant asking concerned questions and she knew that she was answering those questions in a reassuring enough voice, but she felt sick to the stomach.
By the time they reached his office suite, she was close to fainting.
She didn’t even know if she was doing the right thing. The decision to come here had been taken and then rejected and then taken again so many times that she had lost count.
The outer office, occupied by his personal assistant, was luxurious. In one corner, a massive semi-circular desk housed several phones and a computer terminal. Against one of the walls was a long, grey bench-like sofa that looked very uncomfortable. Against the other wall was a smooth, walnut built-in cupboard with no handles, just a bank of smooth wood.
It was an intimidating office, but not as intimidating as the massive door behind which Alessio would be waiting for her.
And waiting for her he most certainly was. He had been in the middle of a conference call when he had been buzzed by his secretary and informed that a certain Lesley Fox was downstairs in reception and should she be sent away or brought up?
Alessio had cut short his conference call without any preamble. His better self had told him to refuse her entry. Why on earth would he want to have anything further to do with a woman who had slept with him, had not denied having slept with him as part of her preparations for entering the world of hectic dating and then walked out of his life without a backward glance? Why would he engage in any further conversation with someone who had made it perfectly clear that he was not the sort of man she was looking for, even though they had slept together? Even though there had been no complaints there!
He had made sure that the money owed to her was deposited into her bank account, and had had no word from her confirming whether she had received it or not, despite the fact that he had paid her over and above the agreed amount, including paying her for time she had not worked for him at all.
The time he had wasted waiting for a phone call or text from her had infuriated him.
Not to mention the time he had wasted just thinking about her. She was hardly worth thinking about and yet, in the past few weeks, she had been on his mind like a background refrain he just couldn’t get out of his head.
And so, when he had been called on his internal line to be told that she was there in the building, that she wanted to see him, there had been no contest in his head.
He had no idea what she could possibly want, and underwriting his curiosity was the altogether pleasant day dream that she had returned to beg for him back. Perhaps the wild and wonderful world of chatting up random men in bars and clubs had not quite lived up to expectation. Maybe having fun with the wrong guy was not quite the horror story she had first thought. Maybe she missed the sex; she had certainly seemed to enjoy every second of being touched by him.
Or, more prosaically, maybe her boss had sent her along on something to do with the job he had put their way. It made sense. She knew him. Indeed, they had landed that lucrative contract without even having to tender f
or it because of her. If anything needed to be discussed, her boss would naturally assume that she should be the one to do it and there would be no way that she could refuse. At least, not unless she started pouring out the details of her private life, which he knew she would never do.
He frowned, not caring for that scenario, which he immediately jettisoned so that he could focus as he waited for her on more pleasurable ones.
By the time his secretary, Claire, announced her arrival, through the internal line to which she exclusively had access, Alessio had come to the conclusion that he was only mildly curious as to the nature of her surprise visit—that he didn’t care a whit what she had to say to him and that the only reason he was even allowing her entry into his office was because he was gentlemanly enough not to have her chucked out from the foyer in full view of everyone.
Still, he made her wait a while, before sitting back in his leather chair and informing Claire that his visitor could be ushered in—cool, calm and screamingly forbidding.
Lesley felt the breath catch jaggedly in her throat as she heard the door close quietly behind her. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten what he looked like. How could she when his image had been imprinted in her brain with the red-hot force of a branding iron?
But nothing had prepared her for the cold depths of those dark eyes or the intimidating silence that greeted her arrival in his office.
She didn’t know whether to keep standing or to confidently head for one of the leather chairs in front of his desk so that she could sit down. She certainly felt as though her legs didn’t have much strength left in them.
Eventually, she only scuttled towards one of the chairs when he told her to sit, simultaneously glancing at his watch as though to remind her that, whilst she might have been offered a seat, she should make sure that she didn’t get too comfortable because he didn’t have a lot of time for her.
This was the guy she had fallen in love with. She knew she would have dented his pride when she had walked out on him, but still she had half-hoped that he might contact her in some way, if only to ask whether she had received the money he had deposited into her account.
Or else to fill her in on what had happened in his family drama. Surely that would have been the polite thing to do?
But not a word, and she knew that had she not arrived on his doorstep, so to speak, then she would never have seen him again. Right now, those brooding dark eyes were surveying her with all the enthusiasm of someone contemplating something the cat had inadvertently brought in.
‘So,’ Alessio finally drawled, tapping his rarely used fountain pen on the surface of his desk. ‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’ To his disgust, he couldn’t help but think that she looked amazing.
He had made one half-hearted attempt to replace her with one of the women he had dated several months ago, a hot blonde with big breasts and a face that could turn heads from a mile away, but he had barely been able to stick it out for an evening in her company.
How could he when he had been too busy thinking of the woman slumped in the chair in front of him? Not in her trademark jeans this time but a neat pair of dark trousers and a snug little jacket that accentuated the long, lean lines of her body.
On cue, he felt himself begin to respond, which irritated the hell out of him.
‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you,’ Lesley managed. Now that she was here, she realised that she couldn’t just drop her bombshell on him without any kind of warning.
‘I’m a busy man.’ He gesticulated widely and shot her a curving smile that contained no warmth. ‘But never let it be said that I’m rude. An ex-lover deserves at least a few minutes of my time.’
Lesley bit her tongue and refrained from telling him that that remark in itself was the height of rudeness.
‘I won’t be long. How is Rachel?’
‘You made this journey to talk about my daughter?’
Lesley shrugged. ‘Well, I became quite involved in what was going on. I’m curious to know how things turned out in the end.’
Alessio was pretty sure that she hadn’t travelled to central London and confronted him at his office just to ask one or two questions about Rachel, but he was willing to play along with the game until she revealed the true reason for showing up.
‘My daughter has been...subdued since this whole business came out in the open. She returned to London without much fuss and she seems relieved that the boarding school option is now no longer on the cards. Naturally, I have had to lay down some ground rules for her—the most important of which is that I don’t want to hear from anyone in the school that she’s been acting up.’ Except he had been far less harsh in delivering that message than it sounded.
Rachel might have been a complete idiot, led astray for reasons that were fairly understandable, but he had to accept his fair share of the blame as well. He had taken his eye off the ball.
Now, there was dialogue between them, and he had high hopes that in time that dialogue would turn into fluent conversation. Would that be asking too much?
He had certainly taken the unfortunate affair by the horns and sorted it all out, personally paying a visit to the boy’s parents and outlining for them in words of one syllable what would happen if he ever had another email from the lad.
He had shied away from taking the full hard line, however, confident that the boy’s parents, who had seemed decent but bewildered, would take matters in hand. They both travelled extensively and only now had it dawned on them that in their absence they had left behind a lonely young man with a drug problem that had fortunately been caught in the bud.
Rachel had not commented on the outcome, but he had been shrewd enough to see the relief on her face. She had found herself caught up in something far bigger than she had anticipated and, in the end, he had come to her rescue, although that was something he had taken care not to ram home.
‘That’s good.’ Lesley clasped her hands together.
‘So is there anything else you want? Because if that’s all...’ He looked at the slender column of her neck, her down-bent head, the slump of her shoulders, and wanted to ask her if she missed him.
Where the hell had that notion come from?
‘Just one other thing.’ She cleared her throat and looked at him with visible discomfort.
And, all at once, Alessio knew where she was going with this visit of hers. She wanted back in with him. She had walked away with her head held high and a load of nonsense about needing to find the right guy, wherever the hell he might be. But, having begun her search, she had obviously fast reached the conclusion that the right guy wasn’t going to be as easy to pin down as she had thought and, in the absence of Mr Right, Mr Fantastic Sex would do instead.
Over his dead body.
Although, it had to be said that the thought of her begging for him was an appealing one. He turned that pleasant fantasy over in his head and very nearly smiled.
He was no longer looking at his watch. Instead, he pushed the chair away from the desk and relaxed back, his fingers lightly linked together on his flat, hard stomach.
Should he rescue her from the awkwardness of what she wanted to say? Or should he just wait in growing silence until her eventual discomfort propelled her into speech? Both options carried their own special appeal.
Eventually, with a rueful sigh that implied that far too much of his valuable time had already been wasted, he said, shaking his head, ‘Sorry. It’s a little too late for you.’
Lesley looked at him in sudden confusion. She knew that this was an awkward situation. She had appeared at his office and demanded to see him, and now here she was, body as stiff as a plank of wood, sitting in mute silence while she tried to work how best to say what she had come to say. No wonder he wanted to shuffle her out as fast as he could. He must be wondering what the hell she was doing, wasting his time.
‘You’re—you’re busy,’ she stammered, roused into speech as her brain sluggishly cranked back into gear just
enough to understand that he wanted her out because he had more important things to do.
Once again, she wondered whether she had been replaced. Once again, she wondered whether he had reverted to type, back to the sexy blondes with the big breasts and the big hair.
‘Have you been busy?’ she blurted out impulsively, almost but not quite covering her mouth with her hand in an instinctive and futile attempt to retract her words.
Alessio got her drift immediately. No matter that the question hadn’t been completed. He could tell from the heightened colour in her cheeks and her startled, embarrassed eyes that she was asking him about his sex life, and he felt a groundswell of satisfaction.
‘Busy? Explain.’
‘Work. You know.’ When she had thought about having this conversation, about seeing him again, she had underestimated the dramatic effect he would have on her senses. In her head, she had pictured herself cool, composed—a little nervous, understandably, but strong enough to say her piece and leave.
Instead, here she was, her thoughts all over the place and her body responding to him on that deep, subterranean level that was so disconcerting. The love which she had hoped might have found a more settled place—somewhere not to the forefront—pounded through her veins like a desperate virus, destroying everything in its path and making her stumble over her words.
Not to mention she’d hoped not to ask questions that should never have left her mouth, because she could tell from the knowing look in those deep, dark eyes that he knew perfectly well what she had wanted to know when she had asked him whether he had been ‘busy’.
‘Work’s been...work. It’s always busy. Outside of work...’ Alessio thought of his non-date with a non-contender for a partner and felt his hackles rise that the woman staring at him with those big, almond-shaped brown eyes had driven him into seeking out someone for company simply to try and replace the images of her he had somehow ended up storing in his head. He shrugged, letting her assume that his private life was a delicate place to which she was not invited—hilarious, considering just how much she knew about him. ‘What about you?’ He smoothly changed the subject. ‘Have you found your perfect soul-mate as yet?’
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