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‘You remember. Those girls have been promoted several times. One left a year ago to have a baby and returned a few months ago to resume work. Two of the Chinese students work in my Hong Kong offices.’
‘You kept in touch with them.’ She fought against the pull of a connection that threatened her valued self-control. She severed the incipient connection. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To discuss my proposal further. Out of public earshot.’
‘Beth can’t afford to pay you back for a loan.’ Back to business, but her mind was still straying dangerously close to memories of the man she had once been so irresistibly drawn to—the man she knew still existed even if those complex sides, revealed all those years ago, would never again get an airing in her presence.
‘Whoever mentioned loans?’
‘You’re confusing me, Alessandro.’
‘Ditto,’ he murmured under his breath. He looked at her in silence, his searing attraction laced with a poignant familiarity that wasn’t doing his libido any favours, until she shifted uncomfortably and took notice of her surroundings. They were away from the hustle and bustle.
‘And you haven’t said where we’re going. This isn’t the way back to my house.’
‘Well spotted. It’s the way to mine.’
‘What?’ Chase immediately felt her pulses begin to race. She didn’t want to be here, in this car! Far less heading to his place, wherever that was! He had just pulled a cheap trick, whatever he had said about his offer not being a loan. He had really shown his true colours, aside from which she knew that she should steer clear of him. But the memory of how much she had craved to see where he lived eight years ago slammed into her with the force of a freight train. ‘Let me out of this car immediately.’
‘Calm down.’
‘I’m perfectly calm.’
‘You’re as perfectly calm as a volcano on the point of eruption. Relax. We’ll be there in ten minutes.’
Chase felt ill at the thought of stepping foot into his private space. She had never thought that she would see him again and, now that she had, she should be laying down clear boundaries. Instead, the lines were blurring. He had come to her house, seen the way she lived, formed his opinions. Now she was going to his.
She watched with growing panic as the sleek, black car manoeuvred through quiet streets, finally turning into an avenue through imposing black wrought-iron gates. The houses here were beyond spectacular. No superlative could do justice to the pristine white-and-cream facades, the ornate foliage, the lush greenery, the air of indecently wealthy seclusion. The cars were all top of the range, high end.
So this was where he lived. Never in her wildest, twenty-year-old’s dreams could she have come up with this.
‘I’m not comfortable with this,’ she said automatically as his driver opened the passenger door for her.
‘I wasn’t comfortable conducting a private conversation in a public place.’
‘There was nothing private about our conversation. It was a business deal.’ But she couldn’t help staring at the enormous house in front of her, the perfectly shaped shrubs on either side of the black door, the highly polished brass of the knocker. Nor could she help feeling, in some deep, dark part of her, that their conversation had been threaded with undercurrents that were anything but businesslike.
‘I love the way you constantly argue with me,’ Alessandro remarked drily as he opened the front door and stood aside so that she brushed past him. ‘It’s refreshing. You did that eight years ago as well. And it was refreshing then.’
There had been times, countless times, when he had just wanted to scoop her to him and silence those feisty arguments with his mouth...just kiss them away. But he had been prepared to bide his time. He had been prepared to do way too much to attain the eventual goal of just having her. She had taught him the art of patience, damn fool that he had been.
Chase didn’t say anything. She was too busy being impressed. It wasn’t just the size but the pristine perfection: marble flooring, the colour of pale honey, was broken by silky rugs. The paintings on the walls varied in size but were recognisable—who on earth had paintings on their walls that were recognisable? The impressive staircase leading up gave onto a landing which was dominated by a massive stained-glass window that did magical things to the sunlight filtering through it.
She came back to planet Earth to find that Alessandro was watching her, hands in his pockets.
‘You have a beautiful place,’ she said politely.
Alessandro dutifully looked around him, as though taking stock of where he lived for the first time, then he shrugged. ‘It works for me. Come through.’
