Alessandro watched her exit the room without fuss. No way was he going to follow her. He had a positive dislike of demanding women, and what could be more demanding than a woman who laid her cards on the table and threatened a walk-out unless her conditions were met?
He hadn’t been lying when he had told her that he’d needed to get her out of his system. Whether she wanted to be realistic or not, he also hadn’t been lying when he had told her that the same applied to her. If she wanted to ditch what they had, then so be it.
He decided that it just proved beyond the shadow of a doubt how much of a liability a woman like her was. She didn’t accept things. She stridently made her opinions felt, even if she could see the opposition all around her. Did he need a woman like that in his life, however good the sex was?
He was assailed by a host of conflicting emotions, but when he tried to pin them down, he found that he couldn’t. He could hear her rustling above him, collecting her things. There was a part of him that wanted to try and stop her, but of course, he wasn’t going to fall victim to that pathetic instinct. Much more overwhelming was his sense of pride, and with pride came a gut-deep certainty that this was a narrow escape.
Finally he heard her half running down the stairs, and she reappeared in the doorway, once more in the clothes in which she had gone out shopping. The dress and all the other accessories had, he assumed, joined the discarded jewellery category.
‘I won’t tell you that you’ve blown this out of all proportion,’ he heard himself say, in defiance of everything his head was telling him.
‘You just did. And if that’s your opinion, then you’re welcome to voice it.’
‘I think you’re making a big mistake,’ Alessandro said stiffly. For him, this felt like a major concession.
‘Oh? And that would be…why? Exactly?’
‘What are you going to do when you walk out of this house? Do you imagine that your life is going to slot back to the place it was before we happened to meet? Before we became lovers?’
‘No. I don’t think it will for a minute, Alessandro.’
Megan looked at him evenly. She was only now really appreciating how different he was from the man she had so stupidly fallen in love with seven years ago, and with whom she was now still so stupidly in love. Alessandro made love like a dream, and could make any woman feel like the sexiest woman on earth, but he was essentially a coldly logical man. He saw only the practicalities of marriage, and didn’t shy away from an institution that would further enhance his standing. He was getting older, and how seriously could any man, however brilliant, intuitive and filthy rich, be taken by the People Who Mattered if he approached his forties still with the reputation of being a playboy? For someone whose work was his ruling passion, every scandalous inch in a gossip column would be seen as an erosion into his credibility.
Hence Victoria. She had been his perfect match, because she would never have interfered with his working life.
Realistically, Megan knew that she exercised some power over him—but only in a sexual sense. Her mistake had been to think that he would ever allow passion to rule his life. He hadn’t seen her as enhancing his life, more as invading it, and everyone knew what happened to invaders. They were eventually repelled.
It was her misfortune that his role in her life was completely different. If he had been an invading force, then she had been a joyful captive, waving the white flag before he had even had the chance to take up residence. She hadn’t so much surrendered before the first tank as begged to be taken on board.
‘You said that we needed to get each other out of our systems.’ Megan smiled sadly. ‘I think I can honestly say that I’ve done that. I’ve got the measure of you, and if my life doesn’t go back to the place it was, then I’m hoping that it moves on to an even better place.’
‘You’ve got the measure of me?’ That sounded very much like criticism to Alessandro, and he was duly outraged. In fact, for the first time in his life he was rendered totally speechless. Not only had she thrown that uncalled-for insult at him, but she was now turning away, clearly seeing no need to follow through with the remark.
‘At least,’ she said, with a wry smile and one hand on the doorknob, ‘there won’t be any awkward moments at school. We won’t bump into one another.’
For Megan, it had felt dignified to have the last word. She had also succeeded in not making a spectacle of herself. However, those two high points in the evening were lost over the next week or so, as reality set in with a vengeance.
She found it difficult to concentrate at school, and things were made worse when, only ten days after she had staged her walk-out on Alessandro, she was unhelpfully shown a centre spread in one of the tabloids by Charlotte. It featured an extremely riotous-looking Alessandro in the company of several beauties, all of whom were rich young things with family pedigrees coming out of their ears.
He might not be rushing to find another Victoria replacement, she thought bitterly, but he was certainly intent on enjoying himself on the way.
While she had been pining and rehashing their break-up in her head, to the point where she seemed to have a permanent headache, he had been out having fun. She had made her great long speech about putting him behind her and moving on to a better place, but actually all it had amounted to was blah, blah, blah.
‘Okay.’ She looked up from the newspaper to Charlotte, who had tactfully turned away and was reading instructions on the back of a packet of a microwave meal. ‘You win. I’m going to get out there and start having some fun of my own.’
Charlotte immediately lost interest in the container in her hand and spun round with a broad grin.
‘I know some clubs,’ she said, reeling in her fish before it had time to wriggle off the hook. ‘I can give you mellow and smoky—not literally, of course, with the smoking ban. Or I can give you funky, or upmarket classy…Take your pick.’
Megan, who had always enjoyed going out, and had always seen it as a cure-all for depression, wondered what her friend would say if she were to pick the option of staying in, yet again, with only her thoughts for company. She would probably, Megan thought, throw the microwave meal at her unresponsive head.
After a couple of days of sisterly-style sympathy, Charlotte had adopted the sergeant-major approach to the situation, with lots of bracing advice on moving forward and stirring suggestions on how that might be accomplished. To date Megan had steadfastly ignored them all, because she wanted to enjoy her misery, but now, seeing Alessandro in grainy black-and-white print, laughing, with a drink in one hand and the other hand round the waist of a brunette with legs to her armpits, she decided that it was time to dust herself down and at least make an effort to get on with her life.
‘Anywhere,’ she said, ‘where there are no teenagers. The last thing I need is to feel old as well as miserable.’
‘A qualified yes,’ Charlotte said, rubbing her hands together in triumph, ‘is better than no yes at all. We’ll start with your hair….’
It was a form of being managed, and over the next few days, as a particularly hectic week of fractious children eased towards the weekend, Megan was surprisingly relieved to be taken in hand. She spent Saturday morning at the hairdressers, where Charlotte kept a watchful eye on what was being done to her hair like an anxious mother taking her only child for its first haircut. Then they went shopping, where she was made to try on clothes that she would have worn seven years previously but which had gradually morphed into more sensible outfits in keeping with her lifestyle.
‘I’m not saying that you need to look like mutton dressed as lamb,’ Charlotte assured her, ‘but you’re not exactly old, so anything in a dark colour, baggy, high-necked or mid-calf is out.’
‘I can’t afford all of this,’ Megan protested half-heartedly.
‘It’s therapy,’ Charlotte informed her, ‘of the retail kind, and all therapy comes at a price. Believe me, Megan, the cost of a hairdo and an outfit is a whole lot cheaper than a
couple of hours with a shrink….’
But not even an evening of clubbing—or three evenings of clubbing, for that matter—could relieve the dull ache inside her that seemed to be never-ending. Not that she confessed any of that to Charlotte, because her friend’s efforts were valiant, and if they weren’t entirely successful then it wasn’t her fault.
When half-term began looming on the horizon, the week without demanding children that she usually anticipated so eagerly took on the aspect of a nightmare. Enforced leisure time which she didn’t want.
Not that there weren’t some avenues for enjoyment which she could usefully explore.
As an exercise for meeting guys—which was the foundation of much of Charlotte’s strenuous efforts in getting her out of the house—the socialising scene hadn’t been a total waste of time. True, the men she had met—friends of friends—hadn’t come close to having the sort of dynamic and immediate effect on her nervous system as Alessandro had. But that, she assured herself, was a good thing. Remember the motto, she told herself, about frying pans, fires and jumping!
Which was why, in the space of a couple of weeks, she had actually gone out twice with her ‘Pick of the Day’, so to speak—a lawyer called Stuart, who was a rising star in his firm. He was a tall, good-looking man, with an easy smile and a quiet, affable manner that didn’t threaten her nervous system. They had been out once for a meal, which had been fun, and once to the cinema, to see one of those chick flicks which she would have had to have dragged Alessandro to see, kicking and screaming. Megan saw that as a very good omen. A man who would voluntarily sit through a weepie must have a core of sensitivity, and a sensitive man wasn’t going to be a heartbreaker.
The Friday before half-term, during which she had decided to get away from London for a few days and clear her head in the Lake District, staying at a B&B she had stayed at years before, on her journey down to London, Stuart phoned to ask her out again. Megan had no hesitation in accepting his invitation. She had already packed her overnight case, which was waiting by the door for her to grab when she left in the morning, and having some fun with a guy who thought she was bright and funny would be just the right start for a relaxing week away from London.
She pulled one of her more glamorous outfits from the batch which she had so optimistically bought when she had been seeing Alessandro, which she had flung into a bin bag and stuffed at the back of her wardrobe the second she’d walked out on him. It was a pale blue dress which was designed to be worn with other soft, falling layers above and underneath, all belted at the waist. At the time it had seemed a good investment, because layers could be added or subtracted according to the weather. Back then, she had been thinking summer. What a joke that now seemed! They hadn’t even managed to leap into spring!
Stuart came promptly at seven-thirty, and was charmingly flattering about her outfit. He continued to flatter and cajole her into feeling happier than she had since she’d walked away from Alessandro. By ten-thirty, when they arrived back at her house, she felt at ease about accepting the lips that met hers.
But the kiss wasn’t electrifying. Not like…No! She wasn’t going to go there! She wrapped her arms around his neck and really, really tried to inject some passion into returning his kiss. But her mouth wouldn’t oblige, and when he stepped away from her there was a rueful smile on his face.
‘Not working, is it, Megan?’ Stuart said.
‘It might. In time.’
‘And pigs might fly. In time.’ He brushed her cheek gently with one finger. ‘Actually, in time but with another guy. I’d wait around, because you’re the kind of girl a man would wait around for, but somehow I don’t think I’ll ever fit the bill. So…friends…?’
‘Sure. Friends!’
Friends. She could foresee the years stretching ahead, during which time she would make lots and lots of friends and always end up the bridesmaid but never the bride.
And who did she have to blame? Herself. Alessandro had ripped her life apart twice, and she couldn’t help but think that whilst once could be excused as an unfortunate event, twice bordered on downright reckless.
And Stuart would have been such a good catch! She kissed him regretfully on the cheek, and then hugged him before waving him off in the direction of the underground.
The house was dark and quiet without Charlotte around. Megan went to the kitchen, and was gazing thoughtfully at the kettle while it boiled when she heard the sharp peal of the doorbell. Now that Stuart had gone, having had quite a touching farewell, she was a little irritated that he might have returned for a repeat performance. She chastised herself for being so harsh. He was a nice guy, and if he wanted to carry on chatting for a while then she would welcome him in.
She pulled open the door with a smile pinned on her face—and her mouth fell open at the sight of Alessandro, standing on her doorstep. She had been thinking of him only minutes before, as she had waited for the kettle to boil, and she had to blink to dispel the illusion that her feverish imagination had conjured up a ghost.
‘I seem to make a habit of turning up on your doorstep,’ Alessandro told her wryly, breaking the spell. ‘A bit like a stray. I’ve been trying to work out why that is.’
His inclination was to push past her, get inside the house, demand to find out who the guy was he had seen with her outside only ten minutes before, the guy she had been kissing on the mouth, but he hung back. For starters, since when was it acceptable for an ex to be lurking outside his girlfriend’s house, spying? For another, since when did he, a man who could have any woman he wanted, ever do something as weird as that?
But Alessandro had pretty much given up on finding answers to his behaviour as far as Megan was concerned. The past few weeks had been hellish. He had done his utmost to take the reins by getting out there, reminding himself that there were plenty other fish in the sea. But not only had the plentiful fish been spectacularly disappointing, he had not even been tempted to sample any.
Was this love? He didn’t know. He had just reached a point when he knew that he had to see her. And he had. With another man. Kissing him. But he wouldn’t go there.
The knowledge that he might be too late, that she might have moved on, hit him in a tidal rush of urgent panic.
No, he definitely wouldn’t mention the other guy, because that would be certain to get her back up and right now Alessandro just wanted to win some Brownie points.
‘Forget it.’ It took enormous strength to say that, but Megan was rapidly making an assessment of the situation.
Alessandro had been out partying and having fun, had maybe—no, probably—slept with some of those beauties she had seen in the newspaper, hanging on to his arm for dear life, but she was still on his mind. And for all the wrong reasons. Sex, lust, unfinished business—not to mention a healthy dollop of flattened male pride because she had been the one to do the walking this time. He hadn’t had his chance to get sick of her, and now he was back to finish what he had started.
She began closing the door, but he inserted himself neatly into the open space, and pushing against him was like pushing against the Rock of Gibraltar. Megan gave up and glared at him.
‘Didn’t you hear what I said, Alessandro?’ she asked tightly. ‘I don’t want to see you. I’ve said everything I wanted to say and I’ve moved on with my life now.’
Moved on with another man. It was like a punch in the gut. He wondered whether she and the guy had got round to sleeping together yet, and the thought of it sent a red haze of rage through his mind.
‘And you’ve moved on with yours,’ she couldn’t resist adding.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing.’ She tried to inch the door shut, but he pushed against it and stepped into the hallway. He didn’t know what it was, but this woman drove him to the brink of madness.
‘You can’t make a statement like that and then refuse to qualify it.’
‘You know what I’m talking about!’
Now that he
was finally inside, Alessandro felt less like a man teetering on the edge of a precipice. At least he had her full attention. ‘I don’t.’
‘In which case you’re stupid. But we both know you’re not that!’ Megan pressed herself against the wall, her hands behind her back, her eyes blazing with defiant anger. ‘I saw all those pictures of you plastered in the newspapers.’
She knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth that he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. He had never, even at university, read the tabloids. He had only ever read the broadsheets. Nothing had changed, and she could have kicked herself for opening herself.
‘What pictures?’
Megan took a deep breath and looked at him scornfully. ‘Pictures of you having a riotous time with a bevy of beautiful women. And I don’t have any objection to that,’ she bit out, ‘because we’re no longer together. In fact, I’ve been having a riotous time of my own, as a matter of fact.’ She thought of Stuart and the riotous time she had had kissing him and trying to kid herself that it hadn’t felt like kissing a slab of wood.
Alessandro felt his spirits soar with satisfaction that she had been following his movements, had been jealous of the women with whom he had pointlessly tried to have a good time. It felt great—until he thought about the riotous time she claimed she had been having. Then he crashed back down to earth with supersonic speed.
‘You shouldn’t read those trashy newspapers,’ he gritted. ‘And you should know better than to believe that they ever report the truth.’
‘Meaning what?’ Megan flung at him.
‘Meaning that I went out, sure, but if you thought from what you saw that I was having a good time, then you were wrong.’
‘Guess what? I don’t believe you.’ But she wanted to.
‘I can’t blame you.’
Alessandro raked his fingers through his hair and looked at her with unrestrained frustration. He could manipulate any opportunity, had ruthlessly practised the art in many a boardroom, but just at the moment he felt like a man in a straitjacket, desperately struggling to find a way out so that he could swim to shore.
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