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She shook her head, the light above them catching the darkness of her hair, making the brown tones glow and come alive. ‘I’d like to stay here, please.’
Now he really did question his sanity. Not only had he kissed her, responded to the invitation her lips had made, but now he’d put her in the very same room Seb had last stayed in. The promise he’d made to his friend to look after Charlie, to involve her in the project was becoming more difficult to keep by the minute. As was concealing the truth.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘DID YOU SLEEP WELL?’ Alessandro’s polite enquiry pulled Charlie from her thoughts as they sat having breakfast together in the tranquillity of his apartment. The jeans and shirt he wore hugged his body to perfection and she fought hard to keep her mind where it should be—on her brother and the car she was here to help promote. Thinking about the handsome Italian she’d kissed last night wasn’t going to help her at all and she forced herself to be as rational and in control as he appeared.
‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied, taking a sip of freshly squeezed orange juice. Sleeping in the room Seb had used should have helped her, but it hadn’t. It had had the opposite effect. She’d wept silent tears for her brother, finally finding release from the grief she’d kept locked away, but little comfort. It hadn’t banished the idea that Alessandro was to blame for the accident or that he was hiding something from her.
He looked at her, his keen gaze lingering on her face just a little too long. She was aware the dark circles beneath her eyes would tell him she hadn’t slept well at all. Thankfully, he had the good grace to let it go.
‘There are a few things I need to do this afternoon in preparation for the launch, but we can either go to the office or to the test track this morning.’
Test track. Those words careered into her, dragging her back to a time when she’d always been at the test track, her father and brother at her side. It was where she’d learnt to drive, really drive, much to her mother’s disgust.
‘I’d like to see the car,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It feels as if I haven’t been at a track for a long time.’ She’d missed the thrill and excitement of the place. Her garden, whilst a safe sanctuary she’d been happy in, suddenly seemed tame.
‘Sì,’ he said as he sat forward, placing his now empty cup back on the table. ‘Seb told me it was a big part of your childhood too.’
She looked into her juice, not able to meet the intensity in his eyes. They made her feel vulnerable and she didn’t do vulnerable. ‘I spent a lot of my time there. I loved it.’
‘What did your mother think of that?’ His question nudged at issues which had erupted often when she was a teenager.
‘She didn’t have any objection to Seb being there.’ Charlie hesitated and looked up into his handsome face and instantly wished she hadn’t.
He appeared relaxed as he sat back in his seat again, but something wasn’t quite right. He reminded her of a big cat, lulling its quarry into a false sense of security. Any moment he would pounce, strike out and get exactly what he wanted with unnerving accuracy.
‘I sense a but.’ He spoke softly, then waited, the silence hanging expectantly between them.
Before she could think, his question had thrown open things she’d do better to keep to herself—because it was a very big but. How much had Seb told him? Did he know of her mother’s disapproval of her involvement in the racing world? Did he know she’d hated the lifestyle, hated the way her husband had flirted with all the women. Her mother had resented being second best so much she’d left the family home, deserting her teenage children.
‘My mother didn’t like me being there. She didn’t think I should be driving those cars and certainly not working on them. She thought I should behave more like a lady instead of a tomboy and it became a constant battleground as I grew up.’ She wasn’t bitter any more. In fact she could now see why her mother had been so against the racing world, why she’d wanted her daughter as far away from it as possible. But she wasn’t about to go into all that now, especially not with Alessandro.
He smiled, a gorgeous smile that made his eyes sparkle, full of mischief. ‘Now I understand. Your insistence on being called Charlie was to remain a tomboy.’
‘Something like that.’ She finished her juice, wondering how she had become the topic of conversation.
