THE UNCOMPROMISING ITALIAN

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Any idea of what could be going on? It could still be that our friend, as you call him, has information on Bianca and wants me to pay him for not sharing that information with Rachel.’

  ‘Does Rachel know anything about what her mother was like as...err...a young girl? I mean, when she was still married to you? I know your daughter would have been a toddler with no memories of that time, but you know how it is: overheard conversations between adults, bits and pieces of gossip from friends or family or whatever.’

  Alessio leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

  ‘As far as I am aware, Rachel is completely in the dark about Bianca, but who knows? We haven’t talked about it. We’ve barely got past the stage of polite pleasantries.’

  Lesley stared at his averted profile. Seeing them in repose, as now, she felt the full impact of his devastating good looks. His sensual mouth lost its stern contours; she could appreciate the length and thickness of his eyelashes, the strong angle of his jaw, the tousled blackness of his slightly too-long hair. His fingers were linked loosely on his stomach; she took in the dark hair on his forearms and then burned when she wondered where that dark hair was replicated.

  She wondered whether she should tell him about those random scribbles she had found and decided against it. They formed part of the jigsaw puzzle but she would hang on until more of the pieces came together. It was only fair. He was a desperately concerned father, worried about a daughter he barely knew; to add yet more stress to his situation, when she wasn’t even one-hundred per cent sure whether what she had found would prove significant in the end, seemed downright selfish.

  The lingering embarrassment she had brought with her after the mini-skirt-wearing episode faded as the silence lengthened between them, a telling indication of his state of mind.

  It would have cost him dearly to confide the personal details of his situation with his ex-wife. No matter that he had been practically a child at the time. No one enjoyed being used and Alessio, in particular, was a proud man today and would have been a proud boy all those years ago.

  Her heart softened and she resisted the temptation to reach out and stroke the side of his cheek.

  ‘I’m making you feel awkward,’ Alessio murmured, breaking the silence, but not opening his eyes or turning in her direction.

  Lesley buried the wickedly tantalising thought of touching his cheek. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘I don’t suppose you banked on this sort of situation when you agreed to the job.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you banked on it either when you decided to hire me.’

  ‘True,’ he admitted with a ghost of a smile. ‘So, where do you suggest we go from here? Quiz Rachel when she gets home day after tomorrow? Try and find out if she has any idea what’s going on?’ He listened as she ran through some options. He liked hearing her talk. He liked the soft but decisive tone of her voice. He liked the way she could talk to him like this, on his level, with no coy intonations and no irritating indications that she wanted the conversation to take any personal detours.

  Mind you, she had so much information about him that personal detours were pretty much an irrelevance: there really weren’t that many nooks and crannies left to discover.

  His mind swung back to when he had caught her wearing that dress and his body began to stir into life.

  ‘Talk to me about something else,’ he ordered huskily when there was a pause in the conversation. This was as close to relaxation he had come in a long time, despite the grim nature of what was going on. He had his eyes closed, the sun was on his face and his body felt lazy and nicely lethargic.

  ‘What do you want me to talk about?’ She could understand why he might not want to dwell ad infinitum on a painful subject, even one that needed to be discussed.

  ‘You. I want you to talk about you.’

  Even though he wasn’t looking at her, Lesley still reddened. That voice of his; had he any idea how sexy it was? No, of course not.

  ‘I’m a very boring person,’ she half-laughed with embarrassment. ‘Besides, you know all the basic stuff: my brothers; my dad bringing us all up on his own.’

  ‘So let’s skip the basics. Tell me what drove you to try on that dress.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ Lesley’s skin prickled with acute discomfort. The mortification she had felt assailed her all over again and she clenched her fists on her lap. ‘I’ve already apologised and I’d really rather we drop the subject and pretend it never happened. It was a mistake.’

  ‘You’re embarrassed.’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘No need to be, and I’m not prying. I’m really just trying to grasp anything that might take my mind off what’s happening right now with Rachel.’

  Suddenly Lesley felt herself deflate. While she was on her high horse, defending her position and beating back his very natural curiosity, he was in the unenviable position of having had to open the door to his past and let her in.

  Was it any wonder that he was desperate to take his mind off his situation? Talking relentlessly about something worrying only magnified the worry and anxiety.

  ‘I—I don’t know why I tried it,’ Lesley offered haltingly. ‘Actually, I do know why I tried it on. I was never one for dresses and frocks when I was a teenager. That was stuff meant for other girls but not for me.’

  ‘Because you lacked a mother’s guiding hand,’ Alessio contributed astutely. ‘And even more influential was the fact that you had five brothers.’ He grinned and some of the worry that had been etched on his face lifted. ‘I remember what I was like and what my friends were like when we were fourteen—not sensitive. I bet they gave you a hard time.’

  Lesley laughed. ‘And the rest of it. At any rate, I had one embarrassing encounter with a mini-skirt and I decided after that that I was probably better off not going down that road. Besides, at the age of fourteen I was already taller than all the other girls in my class. Downplaying my height didn’t involve wearing dresses and short skirts.’

  Alessio slowly opened his eyes and then inclined his head so that he was looking directly at her.

  Her skin was like satin. As far as he knew, she had yet to make use of the swimming pool, but sitting outside for the past couple of afternoons in the blazing sun had lent a golden tint to her complexion. It suited her.

  ‘But you’re not fourteen any longer,’ he said huskily.

  Lesley was lost for words. Drowning in his eyes, her throat suddenly went dry and her body turned to lead. She couldn’t move a muscle. She could just watch him, watching her.

  He would physically have to get out of his chair if he were to come any closer, and he made no move to do anything of the sort, but she was still overwhelmed by the feeling that he was going to kiss her. It was written in the dark depths of his eyes, a certain intent that made her quiver and tremble inside.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I am,’ she choked out.

  ‘But you still don’t wear short skirts...’

  ‘Old habits die hard.’ She gave up trying to look away. She didn’t care what he thought—not at this moment in time, at any rate. ‘I... There’s no need to dress up for the sort of job that I do. Jeans and jumpers are what we all wear.’

  ‘You don’t do justice to your body.’ He glanced at his watch. He had broken off working in part, as he had said, to check on Lesley and see whether she had managed to find anything in Rachel’s quarters; but also in part because he was due in London for a meeting.

  The time had run away. It was much later than he had imagined...something about the sun, the slight breeze, the company of the woman sitting next to him, the way she had frozen to the spot... He wondered whether any man had ever complimented her about the way she looked or whether she had spent a lifetime assuming that no one would, therefore making sure that she carved her own niche through her intelligence and ambition.

  He wondered what she would do if he touched her, kissed her.

  More than ever, he
wanted to have her. In fact, he was tempted to abandon the meeting in London and spend the rest of this lazy afternoon playing the game of seduction.

  Already she was standing up, all of a fluster, telling him that she was feeling a little hot and wanted to get back into the shade. With an inward, rueful sigh of resignation, he followed suit.

  ‘You’re doing a brilliant job, trying to unravel what the hell is going on with these emails,’ he said, uncomfortably aware of his body demanding a certain type of attention that was probably going to make his drive down to London a bit uncomfortable.

  Lesley put some much-needed physical distance between them.

  What had happened just then? He seemed normal enough now. Had it been her imagination playing tricks on her, making her think that he was going to kiss her? Or was it her own forbidden attraction trying to find a way to become a reality?

  It absolutely terrified her that she might encourage him to think that she was attracted to him. It was even more terrifying that she might be reading all sorts of nonsense into his throwaway remarks. The guy was the last word in eligible. He was charming, highly intelligent and sophisticated, and he probably had that sexy, ever so slightly flirty manner with every woman he spoke to. It was just the kind of person he was and misinterpreting anything he said in her favour would be something she did at her own peril.

  ‘Thank you. You’re paying me handsomely to do just that.’

  Alessio frowned. He didn’t like money being brought into the conversation. It lowered the tone.

  ‘Well, carry on the good work,’ he said with equal politeness. ‘And you’ll have the house all to yourself until tomorrow to do it. I have an important meeting in London and I’ll be spending the night there in my apartment.’ He scowled at her immediate look of relief. Hell, she was attracted to him, but she was determined to fight it, despite the clear signals he had sent that the feeling was reciprocated. Didn’t she know that for a man like him, a man who could snap his fingers and have any woman he wanted, her reticence was a challenge?

  And yet, was he the type to set off in pursuit of someone who was reluctant—even though she might be as hot for him as he was for her?

  A night away might cool him down a bit.

  He left her dithering in the hall, seeing him off, but with a look of impatience on her face for him to be gone.

  She needed this. Her nerves were getting progressively more shot by the minute; she couldn’t wait for him to leave. She went to see him off, half-expecting him suddenly to decide that he wasn’t going anywhere after all, and sagged with relief when the front door slammed behind him and she heard the roar of his car diminishing as he cleared the courtyard and disappeared down the long drive.

  She couldn’t stay. Certainly, she wanted to be out by the time his daughter arrived. She just couldn’t bear the tension of being around him: she couldn’t bear the loss of self-control, the way her eyes wanted to seek him out, the constant roller-coaster ride of her emotions. She felt vulnerable and confused.

  Well, she had found rather more searching through Rachel’s room than she had told him. Not quite enough, but just a little bit more information and she would have sufficient to present to him and leave with the case closed.

  She had seen the desk-top computer and was sure that there would be a certain amount of helpful information there.

  She had an afternoon, a night and hopefully part of the day tomorrow, and during that time she would make sure that everything was sorted, because she desperately needed to return to the safety of her comfort zone...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LESLEY FLEXED HER FINGERS, which were stiff from working solidly on Rachel’s desk-top for the past two and a half hours.

  Alessio had given her the green light to look through anything and everything in his daughter’s room and she knew that he was right to allow her to do so. If Rachel was under some sort of threat, whatever that threat was, then everything had to be done to neutralise the situation, even if it meant an invasion of her privacy.

  However, Lesley had still felt guilty and nervous when she had sat down in front of the computer to begin opening files.

  She had expected to find lots of personal teenage stuff. She had never been one of those girls who had sat around giggling and pouring her heart out to all her friends. She and her friends had mostly belonged to the sporting set, and the sporting set had only occasionally crossed over into the cheerleader set, which was where most of the giggling about boys and confiding had taken place.

  However, the computer seemed largely to store school work. Lesley had assumed that the more personal information was probably carried on Rachel’s tablet, or else her mobile phone, neither of which were in the house.

  But she had found a couple of little strands that added to the building jigsaw puzzle.

  Most of the really important information, however, had been gathered the old-fashioned way: pockets of jeans; scraps of paper; old exercise books; margins of text books; letters tossed carelessly in the drawer by the bed.

  There had been no attempt to hide any of the stuff Lesley had gathered, and that made her feel much better.

  Rachel might have given orders to a very pliant housekeeper not to go anywhere near her rooms, but had there been a little part of her that maybe wanted the information to be found? Was that why she had not destroyed notes that were definitely incriminating?

  Lesley could only speculate.

  By six that evening, she was exhausted. She ached all over, but she knew that she would be able to hand everything she had found over to Alessio and be on her way.

  She felt a little panicky when she thought about getting into her little car and driving away from him for ever, then she told herself that it was just as well she was going to do that, because panicking at the prospect of not seeing him was a very dangerous place to be.

  How had he managed to get under her skin so thoroughly and so fast?

  When it came to men, she was a girl who had always taken things slowly. Friendships were built over a reasonable period of time. Generally speaking, during that protracted build-up any prospect of the friendship developing into something more serious was apt to fizzle out, which always reassured her that the relationship had not been destined.

  But the speed with which Alessio had succeeded in filling her head was scary.

  She found that even being alone in his house for a few hours was an unsettling business because she missed his presence!

  In the space of only a couple of days, she had become accustomed to living life in the emotional fast lane; had become used to a heightened state of awareness, knowing that he was around. When she sat outside in the garden—working on her lap-top, enjoying the peace of the countryside, telling herself what a relief it was that she was not in the same room as him—she was still conscious of the fact that he was in the house. Somewhere.

  With a little sigh of frustration, she decided that she would have a swim.

  She hadn’t been near the pool since she had arrived. She hadn’t been able to deal with the prospect of him suggesting that he join her, even less with the prospect of him seeing just how angular, flat-chested and boyish her figure was.

  He might have made the occasional flirty remark, but she had seen the sort of women he was attracted to. He had handed over his computer files to her and within them were photos of him with various busty, curvaceous, five-foot-two blonde bombshells. They all looked like clones of Marilyn Monroe.

  But he wasn’t here now, and it was still so hot and muggy, even at this hour of the evening.

  When she looked at herself in the mirror, she was startled at how much it changed her appearance. However, she had seen herself in her navy-blue bikini sufficient times to be reassured that she was the same lanky Lesley she had always been.

  Without bothering to glance at her reflection, she grabbed a towel from the bathroom and headed downstairs for the pool.

  She should have felt wary venturing out with no one around,
and just acres upon acres of fields and open land stretching away into the distance, but she didn’t. In fact, she felt far more cautious in London, where she was constantly surrounded by people and where there was no such thing as complete darkness even in the dead of night in the middle of winter.

  She dived cleanly into the water, gasping at the temperature, but then her body acclimatised as she began swimming.

  She was a good swimmer. After being cooped up in front of a computer for several hours, it felt good to be exercising, and she swam without stopping, cutting through the water length after length after length.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how long she swam; maybe forty-five minutes. She could feel the beginning of that pleasant burn in her body that indicated that her muscles were being stretched to their limit.

  At this point, she pulled herself up out of the pool, water sluicing down her body, her short, dark hair plastered down...and it was only then that she noticed Alessio standing to one side, half-concealed in the shadow of one of the trees fringing the side of the veranda.

  It took a few seconds for her brain to register his presence there at all because she hadn’t been expecting him.

  And it took a few seconds more for her to realise that, not only was he standing there, but she wasn’t even sure how long he had been standing there looking at her.

  With an outraged yelp she walked quickly over to where she had dumped her towel on one of the chairs by the pool and, by the time she had secured it around her, he had walked lazily to where she was standing.

  ‘I hope I didn’t interrupt your workout,’ he murmured without a hint of an apology in his voice.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here!’

  ‘There was a slight change of plan.’

  ‘You should have warned me that you were going to be coming back!’

  ‘I didn’t think I needed to inform you that I would be returning to my own home.’

  ‘How long have you been standing there?’ She couldn’t bring herself to meet those amused dark eyes. She was horribly conscious of what she must look like, with her wet hair like a cap on her head and her face completely bare of make-up—not that she ever wore much, but still.