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Suddenly backed into a corner, Chase nodded brightly. ‘I’ll begin packing while you’re in the shower.’ She waited for him to relent, to tell her that they should stick to the original timetable; what did a few hours matter? He didn’t.
And what happened with them when they returned? It was a question she was reluctant to ask.
* * *
It hovered at the back of her mind for the remainder of the night and through into the following morning. Flights had been rescheduled and still nothing was said and she refused to weaken. His mood had disappeared as fast as it had come. On the surface, everything was bright and breezy. When she looked back at the villa from the back of the limo as they were driving away, she felt a pang of intense sadness that she would never see it again.
He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and she acknowledged that he was probably projecting ahead, thinking about those deals of his that wouldn’t go away unless he was on the scene to sort them out.
The silence between them became oppressive but it was only when they had touched down at Heathrow that she turned to him and said lightly, ‘So, what happens next...?’
Alessandro had had no idea how tense he had been until she asked that question. He had been infuriated with himself for not much liking her air of casual insouciance. Did the woman give a damn one way or another? But now, his keen ears tuning in to a thread of nervousness in her voice, he was satisfied that she did, and that did wonders for his ego.
‘I’ll call you.’ He curved a sure hand on her cheek and bent to place a hungry kiss on her lips.
Chase was ashamed of the enthusiasm with which she returned his kiss. If she could have, she would have dragged him off to the nearest hotel room and picked up where they had left off in Italy. Instead, she pulled away with a sigh. ‘I’ve never had much time for those women who hang around waiting for the phone to ring.’
Alessandro laughed. Her kiss conveyed a thousand messages and all of them were good. ‘I haven’t had enough of you by a long shot. I’ll call you tomorrow. Save you doing too much waiting by the phone...although, if you do find yourself waiting by the phone, then give my imagination something to go on. It would work if you waited there in your birthday suit...’
* * *
So what if she hadn’t said anything? Would he have posed the question himself? Would he have wanted to know what happened next? Was this going to be her destiny for the foreseeable future—a day-to-day existence, only coming alive when Alessandro was around; not daring to breathe a word of how she really felt; living in fear of the phone calls stopping, grateful for whatever crumbs continued to drop her way? Was this what she had spent the past eight years working towards?
She took a taxi back to the house. She couldn’t face the vagaries of the underground.
It was a little after two in the afternoon by the time she was paying the taxi driver. A thin, annoying drizzle had started, accompanied by a gusty wind, and as she fumbled in her handbag for her keys there was nothing on her mind other than getting inside the house and out of the rain.
She certainly wasn’t expecting the man that stepped out of the shadows at the side of the house. When he spoke, all thoughts of the rain, getting inside and even of Alessandro flew out of her head. She gaped in horror as he smiled and pulled his hoodie down a little lower so that most of his face was in shadow.
‘Long time no see, Chase. Been anywhere exciting...?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHASE WOKE WITH a start to the sound of her alarm going off. She had a few seconds of intense disorientation and then memories of the afternoon before broke through the barrier of forgetfulness and began pouring through her head. She had no idea how she had managed to get through what remained of the day, how she had managed finally to get to sleep.
She began getting ready for work on autopilot, showering, fetching her smart grey suit from the wardrobe, twinning it with a crisp white shirt. When half an hour later she looked at her reflection in the mirror, on the surface she was the same diligent, nicely dressed professional her colleagues would be expecting back at the office after a few days in the sun, with a companion or companions unknown.
Under the surface, she was barely functioning.
She had not expected to return to her house and find Brian Shepherd on her doorstep. In fact, she had not expected ever to have set eyes on Brian Shepherd again, but then didn’t bad things have a habit of bouncing right back? Wasn’t it true what they said, that you could run but you couldn’t hide?
She had foolishly imagined Brian Shepherd to be nothing but a distant memory from the bad old days. ‘Blue Boy’ had been his nickname, because of his bright-blue eyes. He had been Shaun’s closest friend growing up, the one who, from the age of ten, had shown him all the clever ways they could break and enter houses and all the tricks of the trade for getting their hands on valuable scrap metal. Six years older than Shaun, he had been his mentor until finally she and Shaun had moved to London, leaving behind Blue Boy for good. Fat chance, as it turned out.
