‘What?’ It was a barely whispered response. She cleared her throat and did her utmost to remember that this was just an opponent whom she happened to have known a long time ago. It didn’t work. She still found herself hanging onto his every word with shamefully bated breath, watching him watching her, and letting those deep, dark looks penetrate every fibre of her being. Dampness pooled shamefully between her legs, physical proof of something she was loath to admit, and her nipples tingled, sensitive and taut against her lacy bra. ‘What’s holding you back?’ She shifted, felt her slippery wetness making her panties uncomfortable.
‘You.’ Alessandro allowed that one word to ferment in the lengthening silence between them until it was bursting with significance.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course you do,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘We can both waste a little time while I indulge your desire to feign ignorance but what would be the point? We’ll end up getting to the same place eventually. Despite what happened between us, despite the fact that my levels of respect for you are lamentably non-existent, I find that I’m still sexually attracted to you. And I wouldn’t be telling you this now if I didn’t know that it was a two-way street.
‘And don’t bother trying to deny it. I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think my attention is somewhere else and I’ve seen the way you respond whenever I get within a two-foot radius of you. We had it once and we have it again. It’s a shame but...’ He shrugged with graceful elegance.
‘You’re...you’re mad...’ Her words said one thing; her treacherous body however, was, singing a different refrain.
‘Am I? I don’t think so.’
Chase watched, mesmerised, as he slowly stood up and breached the short distance separating them to plant his hands on either side of her chair, locking her into place so that she could only raise her eyes upwards to stare at him. She could feel the pulse in her neck beating wildly, a physical giveaway that every word he was saying struck home.
‘I’m the lawyer working for Beth; sure, we know each other...’ The word faltered and died in her throat as he cupped her cheek with his hand and stroked it with his thumb.
Years ago, their chaste relationship had pulsated with unexplored passion and unspoken, untested lust. Now, as his hand remained on her cheek, she shuddered and resisted the urge to sink into the caress.
‘Please, Alessandro, don’t.’
‘Your body is telling me something different.’
‘I don’t want to start any kind of relationship with you.’
‘Relationship?’ Alessandro queried huskily. ‘Who’s talking about a relationship? I could no more have a relationship with you than I could with a deadly snake. No, I’m not interested in a relationship. I’m interested in having sex with you, plain and simple. Just like you’re interested in having sex with me. Don’t you want to touch what you spent months staring at eight years ago? Don’t you want to finish what you started? I do. A lot.’
Chase opened her mouth to tell him to get lost but nothing emerged. His cool, brilliant dark eyes held her in a trance even though she knew that every word that left that perfect mouth was offensive and insulting.
And yet...her imagination was going crazy. The fantasies she had had of him touching her all those years ago sprang from the box into which they had been firmly locked and attacked her on all fronts. She weakened at the thought of his fingers stroking the wetness between her legs, his mouth kissing the twin peaks of her breasts, nipping the tight buds of her nipples, suckling on them while he continued to stroke her dampness...
‘So here’s the deal.’ Alessandro was finding it hard to contain his excitement at the prospect of netting the prey that had once escaped him and putting to bed, once and for all, feelings that had no place in his life. Her skin was like satin beneath his fingertips. ‘You sleep with me for as long as I want you to and the shelter stays. Renovated, updated and modernised. Your friend’s debts will be cleared.’
‘You want to pay me for services rendered?’
‘I want to take what you want to give. In return, you get the shelter. And please don’t try and tell me that you don’t want to touch me. You do.’ His mouth met hers and Chase braced her hands on his shoulders, determined to push him away. But instead she was horrified to find that she was caressing him; that her mouth was returning his kiss with equal urgency; that she was sinking into him like a person starved of nourishment; that she was whimpering, little mewling sounds that shocked and excited her in equal measure and, worse, when he finally pulled back that the sudden space between them felt cold and unwelcome.
‘I think I’ve proved my point.’ There was a betraying unsteadiness in his voice. He might not like her or respect her but, God, did he want her. More than anything or anyone. ‘Let’s finish this business. A couple of weeks, tops, and you can disappear back to whatever life you have, having made your friend a very happy bunny.’
Chase had withdrawn and was rising to her feet, arms tight around her body.
‘I’ll never do that, Alessandro!’
Alessandro shrugged and tried to wrestle back his self-control, even though just watching her was affecting him in ways he could barely quantify. ‘You have forty-eight hours to give me your answer then the deal is off the table.’
‘I’ve already given you my answer!’
‘Forty-eight hours...’ he repeated, his eyes roving over her flushed face and her defiant yet tellingly shaken expression. ‘And let’s just wait and see if your answer remains the same after you’ve...thought things through.’
CHAPTER FIVE
BETH TELEPHONED THAT evening. She could barely contain her excitement. She might be able to hang on to the shelter!
‘What do you mean?’ Chase asked tentatively. She had spent the past few hours unable to get down to work. Alessandro’s offer kept playing in her head over and over again, like a tape recording on a loop. She had stalked out of his house, her head held high, and he had made no attempt to stop her. She thought that that, in itself, displayed a level of arrogance that should really have had her turning her back on him for ever. She loathed arrogance.
Unfortunately, along with her determination not to be browbeaten into making a pact with the devil, there lurked the uncomfortable awareness that, devil or not, he roused something in her she didn’t want but couldn’t resist. He had kissed her and her whole world had felt as though it had been tilted on its side. It was the same something that had been there eight years ago; the same something that had made her behave in a way she had known she shouldn’t. Sexual attraction: he had put his finger on it. Sexual attraction and more...
‘I had a call from Mr Moretti.’
‘Ah...’ She drifted over to the sofa and sat down.
‘He’s a lot more compassionate than I originally gave him credit for. You know, when this whole business started, well, I just thought of him as a human bulldozer, not caring what or who got in his way.’
Chase smirked. ‘What did he say?’
‘That he’s spoken to you and you’ve both come up with a plan to secure the future of the shelter; you’re both trying to iron out the creases. Chase, my dear, I can’t tell you how overjoyed I would be if this worked out. I’ve been dreading telling the girls that they’ll have to go, plus the waiting list is so long of people who need us. Not to mention the seaside idea. Never could quite see myself retiring by the coast and having coffee mornings with all the other retirees.’
‘I’m sure there’s more to life by the coast than coffee mornings.’ Her mind was in a whirl. She was also incensed. So much for the forty-eight hours after which her decision would be final! How could she have been foolish enough to believe that Alessandro wouldn’t exert influence over a decision he wanted? ‘Lots of people go down there to...er...sail...’ she said vaguely.
‘Can’t think of anything worse. Drive me mad!’
‘Did he mention what this idea of...ours happens to be?’ Chase prodded gently.
‘Not a word!’ Beth hooted. ‘Said it was something he wanted kept up his sleeve. Probably to do with tax!’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, don’t these awfully rich people enjoy tax breaks by giving money to charity? We are a registered charity...’
Chase sighed and decided to lay off the details of any such scheme. Despite a sharp brain and her degree in engineering, Beth’s interest in all things financial was sketchy at best.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, noncommittal.
‘At any rate, it all sounds very promising. I know what you’re going to say, my dear! Don’t count your chickens... But I get a good feeling from that young man. Did the minute I met him. Showed a real interest in everything we do here at the shelter.’
Alternatively, Chase thought, the man was a skilled actor with a golden tongue. Take your pick.
She spent another twenty minutes on the line as Beth waxed lyrical about Alessandro, and as soon as her friend was off the phone she hunted down the business card he had given her and telephoned him on his mobile.
‘Well, that was a low trick!’ was the first thing she said the minute she heard his voice on the other end.
At a little after nine, Alessandro had just finished wrapping up a two-hour conference call and was about to leave the office, which was deserted aside from him. In the act of reaching for his jacket, he flung it down on the leather sofa instead and relaxed to take her call. ‘So Beth called you,’ he drawled without an ounce of shame. ‘I thought she might. She certainly was over the moon when I spoke to her. Charming woman.’
‘You’re a low-down, sneaky rat!’
Alessandro grinned. Whatever Chase’s downsides, she was by far and away the most outspoken, feisty woman he had ever met in his entire life. It would probably be a tiresome trait in the long run, but just for the moment it was certainly invigorating.
‘Now, now, now...is that any way to speak to your friend’s knight in shining armour?’
Chase detected the wicked grin in his voice and gritted her teeth in frustration. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘Long conversation. I’ll fill you in when we next meet.’
‘How could you?’
‘How could I what? Make that delightful woman one very happy lady?’
‘Try and twist my arm into accepting your...your... No, I take that back; I understand perfectly how you did that!’
‘It’s comforting to know that you can read me like a book. That way, there will be no mixed messages between us. Now, why don’t you carry on working and I’ll call you in the morning?’
‘I haven’t been able to do a scrap of work today!’
‘Too busy thinking about me?’
Chase made an inarticulate sound of pure frustration and racked her brains for a clever riposte.
‘Well, why don’t you get some well-deserved beauty sleep and we’ll talk in the morning...or later, if you’d like. After all, your forty-eight hour deadline won’t yet be up. Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.’
She was left clutching the phone which had gone dead because he had hung up on her. He’d barely heard her out! She felt that there was a lot more anger to be expressed. Unfortunately, without an adversary at which to direct her attack, she was left simmering and fuming on her own as she flounced down in front of the television, having abandoned all attempts at reviewing her caseload.
She was barely aware of what she was watching. It appeared to be a crime drama with an awful lot of victims and an extremely elusive murderer. She had fully zoned out of the story line when, at a little after ten, she heard the insistent buzz of the doorbell and was jerked into instant red alert.
Alessandro.
Surely he wouldn’t have the cheek to show up at this hour at her house?
Of course he wouldn’t. Why would a shark bother to stalk a minnow when it knew full well that the minnow would swim into its gaping jaw of its own free will?
Much more likely that it was Beth; as she slipped on her bedroom slippers and padded out to the front door, she was already trying to work out what she might say to begin killing her friend’s already full-blown optimism.
She pulled open the door to Alessandro and her mouth fell open in surprise.
‘Rule one,’ he said, strolling past her to take up residence in the sitting room before she had had a chance to marshal her thoughts into order. ‘When living in London, never open the door unless you know who’s going to be standing on your doorstep.’ He turned towards her, which instantly made her feel like a guest in her own home. ‘I could have been anyone.’
‘And, unfortunately for me, you’re not!’ She folded her arms and looked at him with gimlet-eyed stoniness. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You said that you were finding it impossible to get down to work because you were thinking of me, so I thought I’d drop by.’
‘I never said any such thing!’ He was not in work clothes but in a pair of black jeans and a grey polo-necked shirt. He looked drop-dead gorgeous, which did nothing for her composure, because she felt far from drop-dead anything in her tatty old jogging bottoms and a tee-shirt that had lost its shape in the wash years ago. She also wasn’t wearing a bra and she was conscious of her nipples poking against the cotton of the tee-shirt.
‘I must have misunderstood. My apologies. But I’m here now, so maybe you could offer me a cup of coffee? Nothing stronger. I’m driving.’
‘I wasn’t about to offer you anything!’
‘Don’t you want to let off steam? You were breathing brimstone and fire down the line less than an hour ago.’
‘Because you went behind my back and led Beth to believe that you were going to save her shelter—worse, led her to believe that the decision lies with me!’
‘Oh, but it does, doesn’t it?’ He stared at her with a mixture of cool certainty and mild surprise that she should question the obvious.
‘What on earth did you tell her?’
‘That you and I were working on a plan to see whether the place could be saved and money invested.’
‘Because you’re such a good guy, right?’
‘Let’s not go down the tortuous route of moral ethics, Chase. However non-existent you think mine are, you’re not exactly in a position to point fingers.’
Chase chewed her lip and glared impotently at him. ‘I’ll make you some coffee.’ She shrugged and turned away. He was here now, in her house, smug and self-satisfied at the awkward position into which he had shoved her; sooner or later they would have to talk, so why not make it sooner? She couldn’t see herself getting to sleep in a hurry.
She returned with two mugs of coffee to find him ensconced in one of the deep chairs, the very picture of a man totally relaxed in his surroundings.
‘You gave me your word that I would have forty-eight hours.’
‘And nothing’s changed on that front,’ Alessandro said smoothly. ‘You still do. I’ve just thrown an extra something into the mix.’
‘And that wasn’t fair.’
‘Between us, the gloves are off. You’re as scheming as I am, so don’t even bother to try and play the wounded party with me.’ He had not been able to get her out of his head and, the more he thought about her, the more urgent his need to have her became. The sooner he had her, sated this voracious lust, the faster he would be rid of her. He couldn’t wait.
Nudging the back of his mind was the uncomfortable truth that he was not a vengeful man by nature, that this sort of revenge was born from emotions which he had handed over to her eight years ago only to find them thrown back in his face. She had shown him his vulnerability and the force of his reactions now lay in that one,
unmentioned reality. It was something he could hardly stand to admit even to himself and it lay there, buried like a pernicious weed, even when he had told himself over the years that he had had a narrow escape; that getting involved with a woman such as she had turned out to be would have been an unmitigated disaster.
‘You think you know me,’ Chase muttered bitterly, and Alessandro narrowed his eyes to look at her.
‘By which you mean... Tell me.’
‘Nothing,’ she said in a harried undertone. ‘This is an impossible situation.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s the sound of the wheel turning full circle.’
‘You don’t like me, you don’t respect me, so why on earth would you want to sleep with me? You must be able to snap your fingers and have a thousand women standing to attention and saluting. Why bother with the one who doesn’t want to fall in line?’
Chase projected into the future. So she turned him down and the shelter became a shopping mall with her friend retreating to the seaside, where she would live out the rest of her days, bored, grumbling and dissatisfied. Furthermore, what would happen to their friendship? Alessandro had put her in an invidious position, for would her friend ever forgive her for being the one who failed to ‘iron out the crease’ that would have enabled her to hang on to what she loved?
She would never be able to tell Beth what that particular crease was and eventually the wonderful friendship they had would wither and die under the weight of Beth’s misunderstanding and simmering resentment. How could it not?
‘I’ve always considered myself a man to rise to the challenge,’ Alessandro said coolly.
‘And I’m your challenge.’ There was no point moaning about the unfairness of fate. He had seriously upped the ante by involving Beth and now she had to step up to the plate one way or another. He might well consider himself a guy who couldn’t resist a challenge, but when had she ever been the sort of woman to back down? Her days of doing that had been put behind her.
Enthralled by Moretti Page 8
