‘You will be getting no such thing,’ Alessandro assured her calmly. ‘You take my word for it or you leave here with your wallet several shades lighter.’
‘There’s no point rehashing what happened between us, Alessandro.’
‘Your answer: yes or no. Simple choice.’
Chase stood up and smoothed down her grey skirt. She knew that she had a good figure, very tall and very slender. It was a bonus because it meant that she could pull off cheap clothing; she felt she needed simply to blend in with the other lawyers and paralegals in the company where she worked. Fitzsimmons was a top-ranking law firm and it employed top-ranking people; no riff-raff. Nearly everyone there came from a background where Mummy and Daddy owned second homes in the country. She kept her distance from all of them, but still she knew where they came from just by listening to their exploits at the weekends, the holidays they booked and the Chelsea apartments they lived in.
Thankfully, she was one of only two specialising in pro bono cases, so she could keep her head down, put in her hours and attend only the most essential of social functions.
She didn’t want her quiet life vandalised. She didn’t want Alessandro Moretti strolling back into it, asking questions and nursing a vendetta against her. She just couldn’t afford to have any cans of worms opened up.
Likewise, she didn’t want to feel this scary surge of emotion that made her go weak at the knees. Her life was her own now, under control, and she didn’t want to jeopardise that.
But where were the choices? Did she make Beth pay for what she didn’t want? Did she risk her boss’s disapproval when she turned up and recounted what had happened?
More than that, if she kept her lips tightly buttoned up, who was to say that Alessandro would conveniently disappear? The way those hard, black eyes were watching her now...
She sat back down. ‘Okay. What do you want to talk about? I mean, what do you want me to say?’
‘Now, you don’t really expect us to have a cosy little chat in a room like this, do you?’
He began prowling around the conference room: thick cream carpet aided and abetted the silence; cream walls; the imposing hard-edged table where the great and the good could sit in front of their opened laptops, conversing in computer-speak and making far-reaching decisions that could affect the livelihoods of numerous people lower down the food chain, often for the better, occasionally for the worst.
‘I mean, we have so much catching up to do, Lyla... Chase...’
‘Please stop calling me Lyla. I told you, I don’t use that name any more.’
‘It’s approaching lunchtime. Why don’t we continue this conversation somewhere a little more comfortable?’
‘I’m fine here.’
‘Actually, you don’t have a vote. I have five minutes’ worth of business to deal with. I trust you can find your way down to the foyer? And don’t...’ he positioned himself neatly in front of her ‘...even think of running out on me.’
‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Chase tilted her chin and stood up to look him squarely in the eyes. As a show of strength, it spectacularly backfired because, up close and personal like this, she could feel all her energy drain out of her, leaving behind a residue of tumultuous emotions and a dangerous, scary awareness. Her nostrils flared as she breathed in the clean, woody, aggressively masculine scent of his cologne. She took an unsteady step back and prayed that he hadn’t noticed her momentary weakness.
‘No?’ Alessandro drawled, narrowing his eyes. ‘Because right now you look like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Why? It’s not as though I don’t already know you for a liar, a cheat and a slut.’ He had never addressed a woman so harshly in his life before but, looking at her here, taking in the perfection of a face that could launch a thousand ships and a body that was slender but with curves in all the right places, the reality of their past had slammed into him and lent an ugly bitterness to every word that passed his lips.
‘I notice you’re not defending yourself,’ he murmured. He didn’t know whether her lack of fight was satisfying or not. Certainly, he wished that she would look at him when he spoke, and he was sorely tempted to angle her face to him.
‘What’s the point?’ Chase asked tightly. ‘I’ll meet you in the foyer but...’ she looked at him with a spurt of angry rebellion ‘...I won’t be hanging around for an hour while you take your time seeing to last-minute business with your secretary.’
Alessandro’s eyes drifted down to her full, perfectly shaped mouth. He used to tease her that she looked as though she was sulking when it was in repose, but when she smiled it was like watching a flower bloom. He had never been able to get his fill of it. She certainly wasn’t smiling now.
‘Actually, you’ll hang around for as long as I want you to.’
‘Just because you want to...to...pay me back for...’
‘Like I said, let’s save the cosy chit-chat for somewhere more comfortable.’
Only when he left the room did Chase realise how tense she had been. She sagged and closed her eyes, steadying herself against the table.
She felt like the victim of a runaway truck. In a heartbeat, her life seemed to have been derailed, and she had to tell herself that it wasn’t so; that because Alessandro was the man with whom she was now having to deal, because their paths had crossed in such a shadowy manner, it didn’t mean that he was out to destroy her. His pride had been injured all those years ago and what he wanted from her now was answers to the questions he must have asked himself in the aftermath of their break-up. Not that they had ever really had a relationship.
Of course, she would have to be careful with what she told him, but once he was satisfied they would both return to their lives and it would be as if they had never met again.
She left the conference room in a hurry. It was almost twelve-thirty and there were far more people walking around than when she had first entered the impressive building. Workers were going out to lunch. It was a perfect summer’s day. There would be sandwiches in the park and an hour’s worth of relaxing in the sun before everyone stuck back on their jackets and returned to their city desks. Chase had always made sure to steer clear of that.
In the foyer, she didn’t have long to wait before she spotted Alessandro stepping out of the lift. As he walked towards her, one finger holding the jacket that he had tossed over his shoulder, she relived those heady times when she had enjoyed kidding herself that her life could really change. Every single time she had seen him, she had felt a rush of pure, adrenaline-charged excitement, even though all they ever did was have lunch together or a cappuccino somewhere.
‘So you’re here.’
‘You didn’t really expect me to run away?’ Chase fell into step alongside him. It was a treat not to tower over a guy but she still had to walk quickly to match his pace as they went through the revolving glass doors and out into the busy street.
‘No, of course I didn’t. You’re a lawyer. You know when diplomacy is called for.’ He swung left and began walking away from the busier streets, down the little side roads that gave London such character. ‘And, on the subject of your career, why don’t we kick off our catch-up with that?’
‘What do you want to know?’
Alessandro leaned down towards her. ‘Let’s really get into the spirit of this, Chase. Let’s not do a question-and-answer session, with me having to drag conversation out of you.’
‘What do you expect, Alessandro? I don’t want to be here!’
‘I’m sure you don’t, but you’re here now, so humour me.’
‘I...I...got a first-class degree. In my final year I was head-hunted by a firm of lawyers—not the ones I work for now, but a good firm. I was fast-tracked.’
‘Clever Chase.’
Chase recognised that it hadn’t been said as a compliment, although she could only guess at what he was imp
lying. He loathed her so, whatever it was, she had no doubt that it would be offensive.
Yet, she was clever. In another place and another time, she knew that she would have been one of those girls who would have been said to ‘have it all’: brains and looks. But then, life had a way of counter-balancing things. At any rate, she had relied far more on her brains than she ever had on her looks. She had worked like a demon to get her A-levels, fought against all odds to get to a top university, and once there had doggedly spared no effort in getting a degree that would set her up for life. And all that against a backdrop that she had trained herself never to think about.
‘Thank you.’ She chose to misinterpret the tone of his voice. ‘So, I got a good job, did my training, changed companies...and here I am now.’
‘Fitzsimmons. Classy firm.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She could feel fine prickles of nervousness beading her forehead.
‘And yet, no designer suit? Don’t they pay you enough?’
Chase cringed with embarrassment. He had never made any secret about the fact that he came from money. Was that how he could spot the fact that her clothes were off the peg and ready to wear from a chain store? ‘They pay me more than enough,’ she said coolly. ‘But I prefer to save my money instead of throwing it away to a high-end retailer.’
‘How noble. Not a trait I would tend to associate with you.’
‘Can’t you at least try and be civil towards me?’ Chase asked thinly. ‘At any rate, most of my work is pro bono. It’s sensible not to show up in designer suits that cost thousands.’ It was what she had laughingly told someone at the firm ages ago and her boss had applauded her good sense.
They were now in front of an old-fashioned pub nestled in one of the quieter back alleys. There were gems like this all over London. When they entered, it was dark, cool and quiet. He offered her a drink and shrugged when she told him that she would stick to fruit juice.
‘So...’ Alessandro sat down, hand curved round his pint, and looked at her. He honestly didn’t know what he hoped to gain from this forced meeting but seeing her again had reawakened the nasty questions she had left unanswered. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. Or maybe we should pick it up at the end—at the point when you told me that you were married. Yes, maybe that’s the place we should start. After we’d been meeting for four months... Four months of flirting and you gazing at me all convincingly doe-eyed and breathless, then informing me that you had a husband waiting in the wings.’
Chase nursed her fruit juice. She licked her lips nervously. Her green eyes tangled and clashed with cold eyes the colour of jet. ‘I don’t see what the point of this is, Alessandro.’
‘You know what the point of it is—you’re going to satisfy my curiosity in return for the full agreed price for your shelter. It’s a fair exchange. Tell me what happened to the husband.’
‘Shaun...was killed shortly after I got my first job. He...he was on his motorbike at the time. He was speeding, lost control, crashed into the central reservation on the motorway...’
‘So you didn’t ditch him in the impersonal confines of a divorce court.’ Nor would she have. Alessandro downed a mouthful of beer and watched her over the rim of the glass. Not, as she had told him on that last day in exhaustive detail, when he’d been her childhood sweetheart and the love of her life. ‘And I take it you never remarried.’
‘Nor will I ever.’ She could detect the bitterness that had crept into her voice, but when she looked at him his expression was still as cool and unrelenting as it had been.
‘Is that because there’s no room for a man in the life of an ambitious, high-flying lawyer? Or because you’re still wrapped up with the man who was...let me try and remember... Oh, yes, I’ve got it: the only guy you would ever contemplate sleeping with. Sorry if you got the wrong idea, Alessandro. A few cappuccinos does not a relationship make, but it’s been a laugh...’
‘We should never have seen each other. It was a terrible idea. I never meant to get involved with anyone.’
‘But you didn’t get involved with me, did you?’ Alessandro angled his beautiful head to one side as he picked up an unspoken message he wasn’t quite getting.
What was there to get or not get? he thought impatiently. The woman had strung him along, led him up the garden path and then had casually disappeared without a backward glance. Hell, she had made him feel things... No, he wasn’t going to go there.
‘No! No, I didn’t. I meant...’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘You don’t understand. I shouldn’t even have even to you. I was married.’
‘So why did you? Were you riding high on the knowledge that you’d managed to net the rich guy all the groupie students were after?’
‘That’s a very conceited thing to say.’
‘I value honesty. I lost track of the number of notes I got from girls asking for some “extra tuition”.’
If there hadn’t been notes, she thought, then he surely would have clocked the stares he’d garnered everywhere he went. The man was an alpha male with enough sex appeal to sink a ship. Throw in his wealth, and it was little wonder that girls were queuing up to see if they could attract his attention. She’d never, ever been at the university longer than was strictly necessary but, if she had been, she knew that she would have become a source of envy, curiosity and dislike.
‘So was that why you decided to keep your marital status under wraps? To take the wedding ring off? To string me along with the promise of sex?’
‘I never said we would end up in bed.’
‘Do me a favour!’ He slammed his empty glass on the table and Chase jumped. ‘You knew exactly what you were getting into!’
‘And I didn’t think... I never thought...’
‘So you lied about the fact that you weren’t single or available for a relationship.’
‘If I remember correctly, you once told me that you weren’t interested in commitment, that you liked your relationships fast and furious and temporary!’
Alessandro flushed darkly. ‘Weak reasoning,’ he gritted cuttingly. ‘Did you lie because you thought that you might try me out for size? See whether I wasn’t a better bet than the stay-at-home husband? Is that why you strung me along for four months? Were you hedging your bets?’ He shook his head, furious with himself for losing control of the conversation, for actually caring one way or another what had or hadn’t been done eight years previously.
‘No, of course not! And Shaun was never a stay-at-home husband.’ Again, that bitterness had crept into her voice.
‘No? So what was he, then?’ Alessandro leaned forward, the simple shift of body weight implying threat. ‘Banker? Entrepreneur? If I recall, you were a little light on detail. In fact, if my memory serves me right, you couldn’t wait to get out of my company fast enough the very last time we met.’
Alessandro was surprised to find that he could remember exactly what she had been wearing the very last time he’d laid eyes on her: a pair of faded skinny jeans tucked into some cheap imitation-suede boots and a jumper which now, thinking about it, had probably belonged to the ‘childhood sweetheart’ husband. On that thought, his jaw clenched and his eyes darkened.
It hadn’t taken her long to spill out the truth. Having spent months of innocent conversation, tentative advances and retreats and absolutely no physical contact—which had been hell for him—she had sat down opposite him at the wine bar which had become their favourite meeting place; at a good bus ride away, it was far from all things university. With very little preamble, and keeping her eyes glued to his face while around them little clusters of strangers had drunk, laughed and chatted, all very relaxed in the run-up to Christmas, she’d informed him that she would no longer be seeing him.
‘Sorry,’ he recalled her saying with a brittle smile. ‘It’s been a laugh, and thank
s for all the help with the economics side of the course, but actually I’m married...’
She had wagged her ring finger in front of him, complete with never-before-seen wedding band.
Shaun McGregor, she had said airily. Love of her life. Had known him since they were both fifteen. She had even pulled out a picture of him from her beaten-up old wallet and waxed lyrical about his striking good looks.
Alessandro had stared long and hard at the photo of a young man with bright blue eyes and a shaved head. There was a tattoo at the side of his neck; he’d probably been riddled with them. It had been brought home to him sharply just what a fool he had been taken for. Not only had she strung him along for fun, but he had never actually been her type. Her husband had had all the fine qualities of a first-rate thug.
‘Shaun did lots of different things,’ Chase said vaguely. ‘But none of that matters now, anyway. The fact is, I’m sorry. I know it’s late in the day to apologise, but I’m apologising.’
‘Why did you use a different name?’
‘Huh?’
‘You used the name Lyla. Not just with me, with everyone. Why?’
‘I...’ How could she possibly explain that she had been a different person then? That she had had the chance to create a wonderful, shiny new persona, and that she had taken it, because what she could create had been so much better than the reality. She had still been clever, and she had never lied about her academic history but, she had thought, what was the harm in passing herself off as just someone normal? Someone with a solid middle-class background and parents who cared about her? It hadn’t been as though she would ever have been required to present these mysterious and fictitious parents to anyone.
And she had always made sure never to get too close to anyone—until Alessandro had come along. Even then, at the beginning, she had had no idea that she would fall so far, so fast and so deep, nor that the little white lies she had told at the beginning would develop into harmful untruths that she’d no longer be able to retract.
‘Well?’ Alessandro prompted harshly. ‘You lied about your single status and you lied about your name. So let’s take them one at a time.’ He signalled to a waitress and ordered himself another glass of beer. There went the afternoon, was the thought that passed through his mind. There was little chance he would be in the mood for a series of intense meetings and conference calls later. He was riveted by the hint of changing expressions on her face. He felt that he was in possession of a book, the meaning of which escaped him even though he had read the story from beginning to end. Then he cursed himself for being fanciful, which was so unlike him.
Enthralled by Moretti Page 3
