Alessandra sighed.
She had run from Alek yet again.
Early in the morning before the sun fully rose in the sky and everything was still, she had called Roje in his room downstairs and rushed into clothes. No time was wasted to summon the resort’s maid to assist her, and she shoved the rest of her costly designer frocks inside her suitcase. She flew, knowing she was missing the early-afternoon brunch signaling the end of the weekend-long celebration. In her haste, she left Hill and her family behind.
Everyone’s grown with vehicles. No one is stranded.
From behind her rimless shades Alessandra looked out the left passenger-side tinted window at the sun glistening on the lake. Even with the distance from the street, she could see a small fishing boat and knew it was Lance Millner, a local reclusive author, who fished every morning.
* * *
Roje made the left turn down Dalmount Lane, the private mile-long paved street leading to their sprawling twenty-five-acre estate. Her father commissioned a one-of-a-kind hybrid rose in honor of her mother that he named the Dalmount, which made it eligible to be the name of the private street. Soon she spotted the twelve-foot-tall wrought iron gate with the letter D in bronzed scroll in the center. Roje pulled up to the security panel and lowered his window to enter his pass code.
Moments later the gates rolled open and he eased forward with a brief wave to the security guard on duty who monitored the gate by video surveillance from the mansion. It was another half mile down a tree-lined paved road before the three-story, 24,000-square-foot stone French Tudor came into view. To the left he passed the six-car attached garage with the security office above it before following the curved driveway in front of the mansion. Roje made the left to steer the Jaguar under the carport where deliveries were made, passing the side entrance leading directly into the gourmet kitchen and continuing down the long path to the 1,500-square-foot guest cottage.
Alessandra smiled.
The estate had many amenities, including an Olympic-size infinity swimming pool centered to the rear of the mansion with a four-thousand-square-foot pool house behind it. There were also outdoor tennis courts, a basketball court, an indoor and outdoor home theater, an outdoor kitchen and a horse stable. The rear of her family’s estate overlooked the public lake, and there was a landing with two bowrider boats for fishing or water sports.
Even with all of that it was the little guest cottage with three bedrooms and two and a half baths that was her happy place. She rushed from the back of the car before Roje could leave the driver’s seat and assist her. She heard him chuckle as she zoomed past him to open the door and raced inside, barely noting the way the bright light of the summer sun bounced off the neutral decor with pops of bright color and wood accents.
She entered her bedroom suite, kicking off her leopard-print heels as she reached behind her to unzip her strapless crimson Valentino jumpsuit—it was the first of Shiva’s garment bags she grabbed in the darkness that morning to put on. Next went the bra.
“Your luggage, Ms. Dalmount,” Roje called from the front doorway.
She began unclipping the tracks from her hair. “Enjoy the rest of your day off, Roje,” she called back, before digging her fingers into her own hair and massaging her scalp.
Alessandra heard the front door close securely.
“Yesssss,” she sighed, naked and feeling free as she entered her en suite to remove her thong. Although she wore no makeup, she scrubbed her face with her favorite skin-care regimen.
When she finally emerged from her guesthouse via the side entrance, she had on cutoff shorts and a tank top, her shoulder-length hair was in an unruly ponytail, and she wore her favorite tortoiseshell round spectacles that always slipped down to the tip of her nose. Barefoot, she made her way to her small fenced-in garden. Her smile was full and bright as she felt the warm earth between her toes before she knelt to begin tending to her vegetables.
Soon perspiration coated her body and she used the back of her forearm to wipe the sweat from her brow as she tilted her head back to accept the rays of the sun.
Peace reigned.
Her equilibrium was restored.
This was her happy place to decompress from the stressors of her family life and her career, and to enjoy some semblance of the life she wished she’d been able to claim as her own. Here she relished her privacy and was able to put away the facade she used to flourish in business. Here she was just Alex. Painting, reading and gardening were her joys.
* * *
“I needed this,” Alessandra said, sitting back on her haunches to look across the small plot where she planted cucumbers.
They hung from the vine, long and thick, some curving a bit with the bundles of leaves surrounding them just like the soft hairs of a man’s groin.
Just like Alek, she thought.
She shook her head to clear it of the all-too-vivid memory of the sight of his nudity.
She failed.
It’s so big.
Alessandra felt her face flush at the memory of her words just before she leaned in to lick the tip of him. Her core warmed at how he had cried out as he flung his head back.
“Damn it,” she swore, rising to her feet in frustration that she couldn’t free herself of wanting Alek Ansah.
She snatched off her gloves, making her way back up the path to her house as she pulled her iPhone from her back pocket to check the time. Hours had passed. It was late afternoon. She looked up the drive to the main house. Are they back?
Alessandra dropped her gloves onto the cedar bench running along the side of the house. Her family was loud and boisterous. It was normally the last thing she was looking for on her weekends off, but maybe sitting back and watching the top-rated Bravo reality show that they could be would keep thoughts of Alek off her mind.
She walked over to the all-black golf cart parked in front of her two-car garage and drove it up the path to the main house. She jerked her foot down on the brake at the sight of her cousin Victor’s twin boys standing on the balcony of their parent’s suite urinating. Elisabetta was flipping through a glossy magazine and smoking an e-cigarette as she relaxed on a padded lounge chair and basically ignored her toddlers.
“Hello, Alessandra,” the boys yelled when they spotted her, both tossing water balloons as they stuck out their tongues.
Elisabetta looked up and waved her hand before returning her attention to her magazine.
She opened her mouth to reprimand the children and their mother, but then shut it. “You know what,” she mumbled. “Not today. Not one bit of it. Hell no.”
She continued up the drive but stopped again at the sight of Marisa, naked as she pleased, jumping into the pool. Her left eye started twitching and her hands gripped the steering wheel, wishing it were her cousin’s neck.
This time she threw the golf cart in Reverse and headed back to the guesthouse. “I can’t. I shan’t. I won’t.”
I can tomorrow, though, because it’s time for a family meeting.
She wouldn’t tolerate her kindness being taken for weakness. There were no provisions in the will ordering her to financially take care of her extended family, and definitely nothing saying to let them have the mansion so that she could find peace and enjoy her solitude. She did it because her father had done so, but she had to make it clear that it was her goodwill that kept them all wealthy. Nothing else.
Back in her house, she turned her phones on silent, fixed a turkey sandwich with cranberry relish on a toasted brioche bun, and poured herself a large glass of Côte de Beaune Montrachet chardonnay before settling down on her sofa with a book from her crowded shelves flanking the stone fireplace. She was determined not to think of Alek—not even her disappointment over the board requesting they confer as the joint heads of the company and decide on who should concede. Neither Alek nor Alessandra would budge, so the vote was delay
ed, with an urging for them to compromise with each other.
That battle would wait until tomorrow, too.
She took a bite of her sandwich and a deep gulp of her wine.
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
Alessandra cut her eyes at the door and frowned. She closed her book and sat it on her sofa before she rose to cross the room. She opened the door. “Alek?” she said in confusion, before adamantly shaking her head and stepping back to close the door.
* * *
Alek quickly moved past his shock at the fresh-faced sight of Alessandra to step forward and block her from closing the door. “Alessandra, we need to talk,” he insisted, surprised at the weight she placed against the door to keep him from opening any wider.
“How did you get past security?” she asked, not relenting in the pressure she put against the door.
“Your aunt Leonora gave them permission to let me past the gate,” he said.
“Six figures a year for security just wasted,” she mumbled in disgust.
“I’m not a threat, Alessandra,” he insisted.
“Alek, just go. The way my life is set up right now I cannot deal with you today. Seriously, Alek,” she stressed.
He closed his eyes, wondering if he should use his strength to overpower her and push the door open. He decided against it. “Alessandra, I’d rather we talk today than do it tomorrow at the office or even pretend last night never happened,” he said, tempering his voice.
After a few moments of silence, the door opened and he stepped inside. He eyed her from ponytail to bare feet, pausing at the sight of the back-and-forth motion of her buttocks in her cutoff shorts as she crossed the room to pick up her glass of wine. This pared-down version was more like the little Alex he remembered, but still his appreciation of her was not diminished. Not one bit. He liked that she was capable of going from Instagram-model-level beauty to a regular girl just chilling at home with a fresh face.
She took a sip, looking at him over the rim.
His heart tugged. She was adorable. He looked around her living room, searching for a distraction from the butterflies in his stomach.
“One comment on my appearance, today or any other day, and I will spare no cost to find out something just as embarrassing about you,” Alessandra told him with a hard stare over the top of her glasses as she sat down, tucking one foot beneath her bottom.
“You have no reason to be, Alessandra,” he said, coming around the living room to stand beside the sofa and look down at her.
You’re beautiful.
His heart skipped a beat.
What’s wrong with me?
“I think we both know last night was a mistake that we should blame on the alcohol and just move forward—”
“Our first drink was the champagne toast.” He cut her off smoothly, denying her excuse.
Alessandra took another sip of wine and then placed her glass on the table. She looked nervous.
“And alcohol doesn’t explain away the last few weeks, Alessandra,” Alek reminded her, sliding his hands into the pockets of the denims he wore with a crisp white button-up shirt.
“What do you want, Alek?” she asked, rising to her feet. “Because I can tell you that what I want from you has nothing to do with what happened last night. I can’t earn my respect from you on my back. So I will not sleep with you, Alek. I will not. I won’t. No.”
He stepped close to her and instantly felt drawn into her. “Are you convincing yourself or me?”
Her gaze fell to his mouth but she jerked it back up to his eyes and took a step a back from him. “Both,” she admitted softly. “I am your equal, your partner, and should be your ally but you have never wanted that even though I deserve it for so many reasons, Alek Ansah.”
He bit his bottom lip and nodded his head, pushing away the desire to smooth away the tightness of her jaw. He moved over to the bottle of wine on the counter, seeking distance from her for his own clarity. “I was wrong, Alessandra,” he confessed, his back to her as he noted her wine selection. “You have proven to be more adept at business than I thought.”
“Say what now?” she asked in rush, the words blending together.
He looked over his shoulder and smiled at her shocked expression. He saw her stance soften, and she pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose.
“This has not been easy for me, Alek,” she said, her eyes becoming bright with unshed tears. “I just need you to respect that. I won’t lie. I was so afraid and...and I knew I had to work twice as hard as you, and I did. I couldn’t fail. I didn’t fail, Alek, even when everyone sat back and waited for me to fall flat on my face.”
She closed her eyes and raised her face to the vaulted ceiling as she released a long and shaky breath and her shoulders drooped under the weight of her feelings.
A pain radiated across his chest as he forced himself not to go to her and pull her into his embrace. He wanted to comfort her. To alleviate her pain. He balled his hands into fists in his pockets, futilely trying to erase the desire to touch her.
She looked at him. “Don’t you understand that you have treated me as nothing but an enemy when I had no choice in this,” she stressed, splaying her hands, as she eyed him with eyes filled with the fire of her emotions. “I gave up so much of myself to do this for my father, and I will not fail him.”
Alek nodded in understanding, turning from her as her confession struck a nerve about his own feelings of sacrifice and obligation. He moved to stand in front of her window seat. “I wanted to sail, to captain my own boat. To pave my own way in this world,” he admitted with a little grunt. “My father and I were not getting along at the time of his death because of it. I, uh, could either accept the position or my father’s shares would be sold and all proceeds donated to charity.”
He’d never told that to anyone before. No one knew but his father’s attorney and with so much ease, he handed Alessandra his biggest secret. It felt like a misstep.
“Oh, Alek,” she sighed in compassion, coming over to stand beside him, and grabbed his arm as she looked up at him.
He looked down into her eyes and felt comforted by her understanding.
“You were forced into it, and Samira wants to be a part of the company—”
His body stiffened and he frowned deeply. “What do you know about my sister?” he asked, his tone hard.
“This weekend Samira asked for my help in gaining a position at ADG,” she explained. “I looked at her résumé and I plan to help her, Alek.”
He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Samira will not undermine my decision through you, and if she does I will cut her off,” he said, feeling disrespected and annoyed.
Alessandra eyes widened in disbelief. “You cannot be that archaic, Alek. That closed-minded backward-ass thinking should not sit well with you,” she spat, her ire matching his. “What do you have against women?”
“My issue is not all women, just unqualified ones,” he shot back, and then felt small and petty. Damn.
“Unqualified,” she said, standing in front of him to poke her finger into his chest.
“You must be out of your mind, Captain Crunch, when you just admitted you’d rather be sailing a doggone boat, but I and your sister with a Harvard degree and internships at some of the top companies in the world are unqualified?”
“Alessandra,” he began, feeling regret.
“Alek, what kind of mess is that?” she asked, her face incredulous.
Again, the urge to comfort her filled him. “I spoke in anger about you and my sister,” he confessed, as his eyes dropped to her mouth. “I can’t think straight around you, Alessandra.”
“Is that why you’re so averse to women in the workplace, because you can’t control your urges?” she asked him, moving to cross the room and pick up her wine goblet. “Well, bully for you, because I’m
a woman who can control hers, and I don’t date or screw anyone in the workplace. Not you or anyone else.”
Alek eyed her standing there with one hand on her hip and one knee bent as she sipped from her wine, her chest heaving with her anger.
Damn, she’s sexy.
“What?” she said, looking down at herself and then up at him in confusion.
The tension around them was thick and heady; passion and anger swirled in the air creating energy that pulsated against the walls of the house and their bodies.
He continued to stare, his eyes feasting on her. A tendril of hair escaping from her ponytail and caressing her neck. Even her bottom lip pressed against the glass. The fit of her tank on her full and high breasts. The high cut of her shorts, exposing her shapely thighs.
She squinted before her face filled with understanding. “No, Alek. No,” she stressed.
“Your body says different,” he said, taking in her nipples hardening and straining against the thin material.
She looked dismayed and covered her breasts with her forearm. “Go home, Alek,” she said, quickly moving to the front door to open it wide.
“I will,” he said, coming to stand before her. “But this thing between us will happen one day. I will make love to you, Alessandra, and we will enjoy it together.”
She stepped back and felt the door, taking a deep swallow as she released a shaky breath.
She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her as he stepped close to her. It was hard to miss as she looked into his hot eyes. “It’s better sooner than later so we can get it out of systems and focus on work, right? You’re just as curious as I am. Will it be as good as we think?”
Alessandra’s eyes dropped to his mouth and lingered there.
“Is curiosity killing that cat?” he taunted softly, his breath fanning against her mouth from their closeness.
A Billionaire Affair Page 9
