Enthralled by Moretti

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Nothing. It’s laudable. Although...’

  ‘Although what? I suppose you’re going to tell me that my friends should all be young and frivolous? That I should be spending my free time going to clubs and drinking instead of hanging out with a woman old enough to be my mother?’

  ‘Although...isn’t there something that suggests you shouldn’t be working for someone with whom you’re personally involved? I wasn’t going to lecture you on hanging out with anyone. You choose your own friends, Chase. Interesting, however, that you never seemed to have a lot of those when I knew you eight years ago.’

  ‘I...’ She stared at him and, as their eyes tangled, she had the strangest sensation that he could see what was going on in her head. ‘How would you know what friends I had or didn’t have? You were only around part of the time. We met occasionally. You didn’t know what I did in my spare time.’

  Alessandro sat back as their food was placed in front of them. He was surprised to see that he had eaten his starter although he couldn’t even remember what he had ordered. She could barely meet his eyes and, again, he had the strangest feeling that there was something going on which he couldn’t quite see.

  He cursed himself for even being curious. ‘True,’ he concurred. ‘And yet I remember a couple of occasions when kids from your course came up to you. You barely acknowledged them. Once they asked you if you were going to a party and you turned white and got rid of them as soon as you could.’ The memory came from nowhere, as though it had been lurking there, just waiting to be aired.

  ‘I...I had a husband.’

  Alessandro found that he didn’t like thinking about her husband. In fact, the thought of that shaved head, the tattoos, set his teeth on edge.

  ‘Who would have been the same age as you were. Practically a teenager.’

  It struck him that that was one of the things that had drawn him to her, the fact that she hadn’t acted like a typical teenager. She had been old beyond her years in ways he couldn’t quite pin down.

  ‘I’ve never been into clubs and partying.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Why the thousand and one questions, Alessandro?’ Her cheeks were bright red. Once upon a time she had actually enjoyed going out. She must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time, unsupervised, hanging out with older kids because most of the kids her age had had some form of parental control.

  Schoolwork had been a breeze. She’d never had much need to bury her head in books. Absorbing information had come naturally to her. Oh yes, she had had plenty of time to go to clubs and parties. She frowned and wondered now whether she actually had enjoyed those parties, the dancing, the dim lights...and the confused, angry feeling that she shouldn’t be there, that there should be someone in her life who cared enough to try and stop her.

  ‘We’re here. Why don’t you just tell me what you want to say?’

  ‘How does saving your friend’s house sound to you?’

  ‘Saving her house? What are you talking about?’ Chase barely noticed that the starters had been removed, to be replaced with yet more exquisite food which she couldn’t remember ordering. Despite having said no, her wine glass had been filled, and with a small shrug she sipped some of the cold white wine which tasted delicious. ‘Are you going to build your mall around it?’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think that people on a quest for designer shoes would feel comfortable having to circumnavigate a shelter for women in need of help, do you?’

  Chase thought about that and laughed. It was the first truly genuine laugh he had heard from her since they had met again and, God, how well he remembered the sound of it. Even back then, she hadn’t laughed a lot, and when she had it was the equivalent of the sun coming out from behind a cloud. It was exactly the same now and he looked at her with rampant male appreciation.

  ‘I know.’ She grinned and leaned towards him confidingly. ‘But wouldn’t it be a great ploy? They’d all feel so guilty that they would contribute bags of money just to clear their conscience before they went to the shop next door to buy the designer shoes! Beth would never have any financial problems in her life again!’

  ‘It would certainly be a solution of sorts to her financial problems,’ Alessandro concurred.

  ‘But you don’t mean that, do you?’ Her laughter subsided. She nibbled at the edges of her food and decided not to bother trying to second-guess what he had brought her here for.

  ‘Not quite what I had in mind but the image was worth it just to hear the sound of your laugh.’

  ‘Then what?’ She ignored the tingling those words produced inside her. ‘Will it involve getting any lawyers in? I can’t honestly make any far-reaching decisions without reference to my boss.’

  ‘How will he feel when you tell him that you’d had no option but to sell the place to me?’ Alessandro asked curiously and Chase gave it some thought.

  ‘A favourable outcome would have been for our client to hang on to the premises. The truth, however, is that our clients don’t earn the firm money. The big money comes from our corporate and international clients. Intellectual property lawyers, patent lawyers, even some family lawyers...they earn the big money. I’m just a little cog subsidised by the big-fee lawyers, and I’m there because Fitzsimmons is a morally ethical law firm that believes in putting back some of what they take.’

  Alessandro wasn’t interested in hearing a long speech on the moral values of Fitzsimmons. ‘Wonderful,’ he said neutrally. ‘But this particular decision won’t require involvement from anyone else in your firm.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Nor is it illegal.’ Alessandro read the suspicion in her eyes and looked at her with wry amusement. ‘However, yes, it will involve the house remaining in your friend’s possession. More than that, what if I told you that I would be prepared to pay off all her debts and inject sufficient cash to make sure she can keep the shelter going for a very long time to come?’

  Chase gaped at him. For a few seconds, she honestly believed that she had misheard what he had said. Then she thoughtfully closed her knife and fork, wiped her mouth with her linen serviette and searched his face to see whether this was some way of making a fool of her.

  ‘So Beth...’ she said slowly, giving him ample time to cut her short and rubbish what she thought he had said, ‘gets to keep the house, plus you pay off her debts, plus you put money into renovating and updating the place...am I getting it right?’

  ‘That would be about the size of it.’

  ‘And you would do this because...?’ Brow furrowed, she suddenly smiled at him with genuine delight. ‘I know why. You were impressed with what you found at the shelter, weren’t you? I don’t suppose you were expecting it to be as well run as it was. Beth spares no effort when it comes to doing good for those girls. It’s hard to go there and not be moved by what you find. I’m so pleased, Alessandro.’ She reached out impulsively and covered his hand with hers.

  Alessandro looked at the shining glow on her face and was extremely pleased with himself for being the one to put it there.

  ‘Can I call and tell her?’ Chase asked excitedly. ‘No, perhaps I’d better not do that.’ She flashed him an apologetic smile. ‘You’ll have to forgive the lawyer in me, but we’ll have to get this all signed on the dotted line. But, once she knows, she’ll be over the moon. Between you and me, I don’t honestly think she was looking forward to a quiet retirement by the seaside.’

  ‘So you agree with me that this is a good idea?’

  ‘Of course I do! I’d be a fool not to.’ Even with her defences up, knowing how he felt about her after what she had done to him, she knew that there was a blazingly good streak in him. Those lectures he had given had been given for free, and he had taken considerable time out to individually help some of the students, had actually offered internships to a couple of them. He hadn’t just bee
n as sexy as hell, he had shown her a glimpse of humanity that she had never seen before and that, amongst other things, had roped her in and kept her tethered in a place she had known was desperately dangerous.

  ‘Naturally, there’s no such thing as a free lunch in life.’ Alessandro shook his head ruefully, the very picture of a man who regrets that there wasn’t. ‘I wish I could say that I was the perfect philanthropist, but you have to understand that all this will cost me a small fortune.’

  The smile died on her face. The bill was brought to them and she automatically reached for her bag but it had been settled before she could rummage out her wallet and pay her fair share. ‘Of course it will,’ she agreed coolly. ‘And you’ll want to be repaid for your largesse. Will your rates be competitive?’

  ‘Shall we go?’

  Chase could feel disappointment rising inside her as he waited for her to gather her things, standing aside so that she could precede him out of the restaurant. Once outside, she didn’t bother with her stupid jacket. He had been right when he had remarked that it was impractical for the weather.

  What had he been playing at? Stringing her along with all manner of empty promises only to yank them all back at the last minute? Didn’t he realise that, if Beth had wanted to borrow money so that she could clear her debts and get the shelter really going, she would have gone to the bank? Of course, Chase thought uncomfortably, she had tried that some time ago but to no avail. She simply hadn’t had the collateral to get a loan of the size she required, even though the bank manager had known her parents. Money was just not being lent, not to ventures that had nothing to gain. Had Alessandro checked that out himself and come to the conclusion that he could provide her with the money but jack up the interest rates?

  ‘I really believed you for a minute,’ she simmered, barely noticing that she was being ushered into the back seat of his car. ‘I really thought that you had been so impressed by what you saw that you decided to do the right thing. I really thought that there was a part of you that was the same guy who gave internships to those girls years ago, and the same guy who put in extra time helping that little group of Asian students through their language barriers with some of their papers.’

  ‘You remember. Those girls have been promoted several times. One left a year ago to have a baby and returned a few months ago to resume work. Two of the Chinese students work in my Hong Kong offices.’

  ‘You kept in touch with them.’ She fought against the pull of a connection that threatened her valued self-control. She severed the incipient connection. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To discuss my proposal further. Out of public earshot.’

  ‘Beth can’t afford to pay you back for a loan.’ Back to business, but her mind was still straying dangerously close to memories of the man she had once been so irresistibly drawn to—the man she knew still existed even if those complex sides, revealed all those years ago, would never again get an airing in her presence.

  ‘Whoever mentioned loans?’

  ‘You’re confusing me, Alessandro.’

  ‘Ditto,’ he murmured under his breath. He looked at her in silence, his searing attraction laced with a poignant familiarity that wasn’t doing his libido any favours, until she shifted uncomfortably and took notice of her surroundings. They were away from the hustle and bustle.

  ‘And you haven’t said where we’re going. This isn’t the way back to my house.’

  ‘Well spotted. It’s the way to mine.’

  ‘What?’ Chase immediately felt her pulses begin to race. She didn’t want to be here, in this car! Far less heading to his place, wherever that was! He had just pulled a cheap trick, whatever he had said about his offer not being a loan. He had really shown his true colours, aside from which she knew that she should steer clear of him. But the memory of how much she had craved to see where he lived eight years ago slammed into her with the force of a freight train. ‘Let me out of this car immediately.’

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘I’m perfectly calm.’

  ‘You’re as perfectly calm as a volcano on the point of eruption. Relax. We’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  Chase felt ill at the thought of stepping foot into his private space. She had never thought that she would see him again and, now that she had, she should be laying down clear boundaries. Instead, the lines were blurring. He had come to her house, seen the way she lived, formed his opinions. Now she was going to his.

  She watched with growing panic as the sleek, black car manoeuvred through quiet streets, finally turning into an avenue through imposing black wrought-iron gates. The houses here were beyond spectacular. No superlative could do justice to the pristine white-and-cream facades, the ornate foliage, the lush greenery, the air of indecently wealthy seclusion. The cars were all top of the range, high end.

  So this was where he lived. Never in her wildest, twenty-year-old’s dreams could she have come up with this.

  ‘I’m not comfortable with this,’ she said automatically as his driver opened the passenger door for her.

  ‘I wasn’t comfortable conducting a private conversation in a public place.’

  ‘There was nothing private about our conversation. It was a business deal.’ But she couldn’t help staring at the enormous house in front of her, the perfectly shaped shrubs on either side of the black door, the highly polished brass of the knocker. Nor could she help feeling, in some deep, dark part of her, that their conversation had been threaded with undercurrents that were anything but businesslike.

  ‘I love the way you constantly argue with me,’ Alessandro remarked drily as he opened the front door and stood aside so that she brushed past him. ‘It’s refreshing. You did that eight years ago as well. And it was refreshing then.’

  There had been times, countless times, when he had just wanted to scoop her to him and silence those feisty arguments with his mouth...just kiss them away. But he had been prepared to bide his time. He had been prepared to do way too much to attain the eventual goal of just having her. She had taught him the art of patience, damn fool that he had been.

  Chase didn’t say anything. She was too busy being impressed. It wasn’t just the size but the pristine perfection: marble flooring, the colour of pale honey, was broken by silky rugs. The paintings on the walls varied in size but were recognisable—who on earth had paintings on their walls that were recognisable? The impressive staircase leading up gave onto a landing which was dominated by a massive stained-glass window that did magical things to the sunlight filtering through it.

  She came back to planet Earth to find that Alessandro was watching her, hands in his pockets.

  ‘You have a beautiful place,’ she said politely.

  Alessandro dutifully looked around him, as though taking stock of where he lived for the first time, then he shrugged. ‘It works for me. Come through.’

  ‘I honestly don’t see why you couldn’t have laid out your terms and conditions for this so-called “not a loan” at the restaurant.’ But she followed as he led the way towards a kitchen that looked as though it had never been used. He didn’t do cooking; she remembered him telling her that way back when.

  ‘Have you ever used this kitchen?’ she asked, perching on one of the top-of-the-range chrome and leather bar stools by the counter and watching as he attempted to make sense of the complicated coffee machine.

  ‘You don’t want coffee, do you?’ he eventually asked, turning to glance at her over his shoulder.

  ‘If I did, would you be able to figure out how that thing works?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Tea would be nice.’ She hadn’t appreciated just how rich he was. These were the surroundings of a man to whom money was literally no object. She bristled when she thought of him holding her to ransom by reducing his offer for the shelter just because he could.

 
‘I’m very good with a kettle and some tea bags.’ He hunted them down, opening and closing cupboards. ‘I come in here very rarely,’ he offered by way of explanation. ‘I have a housekeeper who makes sure it’s stocked and a chef who does all my cooking on the occasions when I happen to be in.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  There wasn’t a single woman on the planet, Alessandro thought, who would have offered that sarcastic response when confronted with the reality of his wealth. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘You’re right. I don’t.’ She took the cup of tea from him. The cup was fine-bone china, weirdly shaped, with an art deco design running down one side. When she thought of him trying and failing to work out how his high-tech appliances worked, she could feel a smile tugging the corners of her mouth, but there was no way that she would be seduced by any windows of vulnerability in him.

  ‘Why do you have all these gadgets in here if you don’t cook and barely use the kitchen?’

  ‘I remain eternally optimistic.’

  Chase wished he wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t undermine her defences with his sense of humour. She didn’t want to remember how he had always been able to make her laugh. She didn’t want him to make her laugh now.

  ‘Well, now we’re here, maybe you could explain this business with the shelter?’

  Alessandro looked at her. He wondered what it was about her that just seemed to capture his imagination and hold it to ransom.

  ‘You have no idea what goes through me when I think of what you did eight years ago,’ he murmured.

  ‘You brought me here so that you could talk about that?’ Chase fidgeted uncomfortably. She wanted to drag her disobedient eyes away from him but somehow she couldn’t.

  ‘But the past belongs in the past. What’s the good dredging it up every two seconds? The best thing I could do right now is send you on your not-so-merry way, out of my life once and for all. Unfortunately, I find that there’s something holding me back.’