‘I’m not leaving.’ As soon as she said the words she realised how deeply she meant them. He thought her a woman without honour and principles but she would show him just how honourable and principled she had become. She would stand by her agreement with him. She would stay as long as he needed her.
He pushed his chair back from where she was kneeling on the floor. ‘I don’t want your pity,’ he said, biting out each word as if they were something bitter and distasteful.
‘I’m not offering you pity,’ she said. ‘I think it’s terrible that you’ve been dealt this but that’s empathy, not pity.’
‘Get up off the floor, for God’s sake,’ he said irritably.
Rachel stood up and brushed the borrowed wrap back down over her thighs. ‘Is there anything you need?’ she asked. ‘Can I help you with anything?’
His dark eyes glittered as they held hers. ‘What exactly are you offering, Rachel? Your delectable body to awaken my half-dead nerves?’
Her face suffused with colour all over again. ‘That wasn’t part of the arrangement,’ she said.
‘We could make it part.’
Her eyes rounded. ‘You can’t mean that.’
‘I can do what I want, Rachel,’ he said. ‘I am the one holding the purse strings now, remember?’
‘Am I to be punished for every horrible word I ever said to you?’ she asked. ‘Is that what this is about? You want a whipping boy and I am it?’
His eyes were dark blue chips of ice. ‘Go to bed, Rachel. I will see you in the morning.’
‘Don’t dismiss me like a child,’ she said with a late show of her wilfulness. ‘You’re always doing that. It’s so annoying.’
His hands gripped the turning mechanism on his chair. ‘Are you determined to see me lose my temper?’
‘I’m not scared of you, Alessandro,’ Rachel said.
‘Then you should be,’ he said, fixing her with a searing look. ‘I can do more harm to you than ten of your worthless, spineless fiancés. One word from me and your fashion career will be over. No one in the whole of Europe will touch you with a bargepole. Am I making myself clear?’
Rachel swallowed a walnut-sized restriction in her throat. ‘If you do that you will not just be destroying me but my business partner too.’
A pulse ticked at the side of his mouth. ‘Then you had better behave yourself, hadn’t you, cara?’ he said and, without waiting for a response from her, he turned on his wheels and left.
Rachel lay in bed much later without any hope of getting to sleep. She had watched the clock go around in fifteen-minute slots, each one seeming slower than the one before. It was now close to dawn. She could see the fingers of sunlight poking through the gap in the curtains, casting the room in an incandescent glow of pink and gold.
Alessandro’s threat was still ringing in her ears. He could destroy her with a word. She had no way of knowing whether he would do it or not. He certainly had the motivation to do so. She had no choice but to do everything his way. Failing this time would not just be devastating professionally but personally as well. It would be the confirmation of all of her worst fears that she didn’t have the talent and drive to achieve anything in life.
She had heard the whirr and grind of the lift taking Alessandro to his suite of rooms a couple of hours ago. It seemed he too was late to bed. She wondered if he had been to sleep or whether he had tossed and turned as she had done. He had said he hoped to be back on his feet within a few days, but what if it took longer? She wasn’t sure what the timeframe of the syndrome was or whether it was different for every person. All she knew was that he was one of the most physically active people she had ever met. The fact that her father had exploited Alessandro’s willingness to work so hard had not really occurred to her until later when those very standards had clashed with her own. She hadn’t spoken to her father in a couple of years, not since he had asked her to bail him out of yet another gambling disaster. The fact that he had lost everything, including the house and garden her mother had loved so much, destroyed any hope of a continuing relationship with him. He would have pawned her mother’s pendant if she hadn’t caught him just in time.
She threw back the covers and wandered over to the window, pulling back the curtains with the beaded chain hanging by the side. The pool below was sparkling invitingly. Before she could change her mind she put on her rinsed out bra and knickers, and, wrapping her body in a bath sheet as a sarong, went down the marble staircase to the door that led out to the terrace.
She slipped into the water and practised her strokes. It was a beautiful morning, warm already with a promise of later heat. The water was a perfect temperature and she turned onto her back, closing her eyes as she floated.
Alessandro frowned as he read the email from Sheikh Almeed Khaled. The sheikh requested Alessandro bring his current partner to a private dinner at his luxury hotel in Paris the following week. There would be follow-up meetings during the week, but to meet privately was a good sign the sheikh was moving closer to sealing the deal. However, the invitation presented Alessandro with a problem. Turning up without a partner for the dinner, let alone the week, could make the sheikh suspicious that all was not well with him. He had seen deals brokered and lost before on the whisper of an illness. The business world he moved in was ruthless. People did not make allowances for personal issues. It was cut-throat and heartless but that was the way things worked. A deal was a deal.
He turned away from the computer to look out of the window, his brain ticking over the best way to handle the situation, when he caught sight of the miscreant mermaid floating in his pool in the early morning light. The sun had painted her slim body in an ethereal glow, her hair streaming out behind her in silken strands. He drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair as he thought of how he could work things to his advantage.
Rachel needed money.
He needed a temporary mistress.
Like all the other women in his life she would serve her purpose for the allotted time but that would be the end of it. His relationships were just like any other business transaction. Both parties teamed up for a specified time and parted with what they had agreed on at the outset. The rest of the month with Rachel would prove to him he was able to walk away without a single pang of regret.
He would feel nothing.
Zip.
Nada.
Niente.
He smiled as he made his way down to the pool. This was going to be far more entertaining that he had first thought.
Rachel turned over and saw him by the pool, her sea-glass eyes blinking the water out as she stood and shielded her lace-covered breasts with her hands. ‘I—I didn’t hear you,’ she said.
Alessandro gave her a semblance of a smile as he tapped the wheels with his hands. ‘It’s the deluxe model,’ he said, ‘streamlined and stealthy.’
She bit her lip in that childlike way of hers that undid him every time. He would have to work harder at covering it, at conquering it. She was not a guileless child. She never had been. She was a manipulating, down-on-her-luck gold-digger. She had already sold herself once. She would do it again. It would be amusing to watch her game play this time around.
‘I’ll get out to give you some more room,’ she said, and moved towards the side of the pool.
‘I am sure there is room in there for the two of us,’ Alessandro said.
She stalled with her hands on the rails that led from the steps. ‘I just thought you might like some privacy.’
He sent his eyes over her slim form, taking his time over the upthrust of her breasts before he met her gaze. He felt the stab of lust deep in his groin, his body springing to life, aching, pulsing, filling and lengthening. ‘If anyone deserves some privacy it is you,’ he said, keeping his expression deadpan. ‘Hopefully the rest of your luggage will arrive within the next twenty-four hours.’
‘I didn’t think you would be down here this early,’ she said. ‘I had a bad night. I couldn’t sleep. I thought
some exercise would help.’
He moved his chair closer to the pool. ‘It’s a great panacea for many ills.’
He was conscious of her watching him as he manoeuvred himself from the chair to the railing of the pool steps. He was able to take a couple of steps, which was better than even twenty-four hours ago. It spurred him on to work harder and harder at his exercises.
He would beat this.
He refused to consider any other alternative.
He swam a couple of lengths to loosen up his muscles and came back to where she was still standing, holding the rails of the steps. ‘I haven’t contaminated the water, you know,’ he said.
She frowned at him. ‘I wish you wouldn’t immediately assume the worst of me.’
‘Swim with me, then,’ he said. ‘We can train together. I could do with the company. It gets pretty boring going up and down by oneself.’
She stepped back down into the water. ‘You’re very good at this, swimming, I mean,’ she said. ‘No one would ever think that you … I mean …’
‘Half a man?’ he said.
‘I never said that,’ she said. ‘I never even thought it.’ ‘It’s what most people think.’
‘I’m not most people,’ she said. ‘I know you think I’m spoilt and shallow and I was before. I freely admit that. But the last few years have changed me. I don’t judge people on appearances or what they lack in terms of background or breeding. We are all the same on this earth. Everyone is equal.’
He gave a snort of derision. ‘You expect me to believe you have reinvented yourself? You haven’t got a clue how the other half lives, Rachel. You have never had to beg for a meal. You have never had to sleep rough when the cold creeps into your bones until you can barely move the next morning. You have never had to fight off predators who want your soul for the price of their next fix.’
His words seemed to hit her like physical blows and he instantly regretted revealing so much of his sordid past. As soon as he had done it last night he had wished he hadn’t. She could so easily use it against him. He’d had plenty of opportunities to tell her five years ago but he’d always held back. He hadn’t wanted to sully their budding relationship with the dark shadows of his past. He realised now part of her allure back then had been that air of sassy innocence she had perfected.
She bit her lip again. He saw the way her teeth pushed the blood away until her lip turned almost bone-white, and then how when she released it the blood flooded back, making her lips cherry-red. Damn it, why did she keep doing that?
‘I think I’ll go inside and shower,’ she said, moving back to the steps.
‘Rachel.’
She stopped and turned to look at him. ‘Yes?’
‘I have a proposition for you,’ Alessandro said.
She looked at him warily. ‘You do?’
‘I have decided to give you the backing you need,’ he said.
A gleam of excitement shone in her eyes. ‘You have?’
‘But I want something in return.’
The excitement faded. ‘Which is?’ she asked.
He nailed her with his eyes. ‘I want you to be my mistress for the rest of the month.’
Her eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed. ‘P-pardon?’
Alessandro smiled. Dio, she was good at playing the game. So coy, so convincing. ‘You heard.’
‘I’m sorry, but for a moment there I thought you said you want me to be your mistress.’ She gave her head a little shake. ‘I must have water in my ears.’
Alessandro waited for a beat. ‘I am willing to fully back your label as well as pay you generously for each day of our time together.’
Her expression tightened, her eyes narrowing in anger. ‘I knew you would do this. I knew you would change the rules to suit yourself.’
‘Whether you sleep with me will be entirely up to you,’ he said. ‘It is not a condition on the deal.’
She faltered for a moment, a frown pulling at her smooth brow. ‘I … I don’t understand … You just said you would pay me to be your mistress.’
‘In public, not necessarily in private,’ Alessandro said.
Her frown deepened. ‘You want me to act as if I’m your mistress?’
‘I am sure you can do it convincingly,’ he said. ‘After all, you have done it before, sì?’
Her mouth flattened in anger. ‘Do you have any idea of how much I hate you for doing this?’
‘Right back at you, little rich girl,’ he said.
She got out of the pool and snatched up her towel. ‘You expect me to say yes, don’t you?’ she said.
‘I expect you to think carefully before you throw away your only lifeline,’ he said.
She gave him a look that would have cut through a diamond. ‘Let me get back to you on that,’ she said.
‘I have so far managed to keep the news of my affliction out of the press,’ he said. ‘I realise that will be impossible if I am not able to regain my full mobility over the next few weeks, but I refuse to accept that outcome. I can now manage a few steps with support. My goal is to move to crutches in the next couple of days. That will make being seen in public a lot less complicated and no one will blink an eye about it. I will explain it as a sprain or something. You read and signed the disclosure contract. Do I have to remind you of the consequences of not playing by the rules?’
‘Do you think so badly of me that you think I would do something like that?’ she asked.
‘I will have another contract drawn up ready for you to sign this evening,’ he said.
‘And if I don’t sign it?’
Alessandro smiled an indolent smile. ‘You will sign it, Rachel.’
‘Your confidence is admirable but I am not for sale,’ she said with an icy look. ‘I will look at other options before I sink that low.’
‘You will sign it because you have no choice,’ he said. ‘Not unless you want to go begging on the streets for your next meal.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something? I can’t go out in public with you without clothes.’
‘Do not worry, cara,’ he said. ‘I will make sure your luggage is delivered to the door today.’
‘And if it isn’t?’
‘Then I will pay for new clothes for you,’ he said.
She glowered at him resentfully. ‘I don’t want to owe you any more than I have to.’
‘You were the one who came to me, Rachel,’ he reminded her. ‘You are here now and who knows? Perhaps we might even be friends at the end of it.’
‘You have a very strange way of recruiting friends,’ she tossed back.
Alessandro watched as she wrapped the towel around her body and flounced off. The red-hot blood of desire thundered in his veins, filling him, making him ache with a need that refused to go away. He wanted her more than he had wanted any woman. He wanted her more now than he had five years ago. It was burning like an inferno inside him; day and night it was all he could think about. How much he longed to surge inside her, claiming her as his own, showing her the pleasures of the fiery chemistry that had always been there between them. If it was more money she wanted in exchange for her body, then he would give it. He would part with a fortune to have his fill of her.
But he would still let her go at the end of it.
Rachel stormed into the shower, turning the water on full, her anger at Alessandro practically bursting through the pores of her skin. Had he planned this right from the start? Of course he had. He had lured her here to play his petty little power games with her. This was a masterstroke at payback. He couldn’t have planned a better move. He knew she couldn’t say no. Not unless she was prepared to lose everything, including all that Caitlyn had put into the company. How would she be able to face her staff and tell them it was over? She couldn’t do it. And Alessandro knew it and was humiliating her with it.
She had not long got out of the shower when he called her on the extension in her room. Her luggage had finally been located and was being delivered with
in a couple of hours. She marvelled that a single phone call from him had achieved what several from her had not. It was another reminder of the power he had at his fingertips. Power he could use to break her if he chose to.
‘I have some work to do so I would like to be left undisturbed until lunch, which I would like served at one,’ Alessandro said. ‘I hope you can find something to do to occupy your time.’
‘I’m sure I can find a doorknob or two to polish,’ Rachel said tartly.
‘Lucia is returning in the morning so your duties as a housekeeper will cease from midnight tonight,’ he said. ‘I have told her you will be staying on till the end of the month.’
‘I haven’t said I would do it yet,’ she reminded him.
He ignored her statement as he continued, ‘Lucia is also aware that our relationship is not like my usual ones.’
‘What? You mean you don’t usually blackmail your other women into doing whatever you want?’ she shot back.
‘I have not had to resort to such means in the past,’ he said. ‘Most women are perfectly happy with the fringe benefits of sharing my life for a specified time.’
‘How can you specify the duration of a relationship?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Do you have some sort of reminder in your calendar in case you accidentally run over a couple of days? Beep. Time’s up. Out you go. Next please.’
‘You need have no fear of that happening with us, Rachel,’ he said. ‘You will be back on that plane to Australia on the first of next month. I can guarantee it.’
He ended the call with an abruptness Rachel found intensely irritating. He was reminding her of her tenuous position here as little more than a servant. It was all part of his mission to extract revenge for the choice she had made, a choice that if she’d had her time over again she would have made so very differently. She put the phone extension back in its cradle and thought back to the night of her twenty-first birthday party.
The mansion was filling with guests for the black-tie affair. Rachel had taken great care over her appearance and was putting on the last touches to her make-up when her father came to see her.
His Poor Little Rich Girl Page 7
