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‘I know what shopping is, Alessandro. I just can’t imagine it’s the sort of thing you would enjoy doing on a Saturday.’
Megan savoured this further indication of advancement in their relationship. Hope was shooting up inside her like the proverbial beanstalk from the fairy story.
‘It’s not how I usually pass my time on a Saturday,’ he agreed, ‘but needs must.’
‘You mean, you don’t trust me to buy my own clothes?’
‘I mean, I intend to buy whatever you need for you. If I tell you to go shopping with my credit card, you’ll spend the next five hours arguing why you won’t. Don’t even think of it, Megan,’ he said, seeing her open her mouth as this new thought dawned on her. ‘I’m paying because you’ll be coming to something at my request. You can wear whatever you want—bearing in mind that there’s no green-and-red dress code….’
‘Well…I guess I’m not doing anything much tonight….’
‘Good.’ He stood up, his mouth curving into a smile of triumph. ‘Then let’s go. You can leave that rucksack thing of yours here. No point going back to your house to change. You can come back here. We leave at six.’
Like someone suddenly finding that a gentle fairground ride was turning out to be a roller coaster stomach-churner, Megan was vaguely aware of a certain amount of manipulation. But when she tried to follow through with that suspicion, she found that all she could actually think about was the fact that this was the first really normal thing they had done since they had locked themselves away in their little bubble of sexual gratification.
She looked at the rucksack lying on the ground, as if it might just deliver the answer to the question she was asking herself—which was whether she should open this door or not. But she knew that she would. She had fought to be sensible, but the fact that he had broken off his engagement with Victoria because of her, because of the attraction he still felt to her, must mean something. That was the steady drip, drip, drip continually eroding her good intentions.
‘We’ll start at Selfridges, shall we?’ Alessandro said, before she had a chance to change her mind. Suddenly it was very important that she yield to what he wanted. ‘Unless you have somewhere else in mind?’
‘I guess I could do Selfridges….’
Several hours later and Megan had discovered that she could do a great deal more than Selfridges. Shopping with a wealthy Alessandro was a completely different affair from shopping with a broke Alessandro, and although she refused to allow him to buy her anything that wasn’t going to be worn that evening to the theatre, she still found herself the owner of a new pair of shoes, a fabulous dress, jewellery which she insisted she would wear just the once and then give back to him—because she couldn’t possibly accept a gift with that kind of price tag—a coat of the warmest, softest cashmere, and a selection of make up which she would never have been able to afford in a million years.
Over lunch, she made sure to stress her returns policy. ‘That jewellery is ridiculous, Alessandro,’ she said, toying with a fat, juicy prawn. ‘Anyway, where on earth would I ever wear it after tonight? And the coat…Well, it’s beautiful, but it just doesn’t feel right to accept stuff from you.’
Alessandro shrugged and declined to mention that he was accustomed to spending far, far more on the women he had dated in the past—women who had never had any qualms about accepting the tremendously expensive gifts that had been lavished upon them. Somehow he didn’t think that the observation would have gone down too well. He also declined to tell her that this was the first time he had ever physically gone shopping with any woman. It was a task which he preferred to leave to his personal assistant. And he decided to keep to himself the fact that he had actually enjoyed the expedition—enjoyed watching her parade in a selection of outfits for him to see, enjoyed seeing the way her eyes opened wide at the sheer beauty of some of the dresses. It had all given him a kick.
‘You can give it all back if it makes you feel better,’ he told her ‘But if you do it’ll all end up stuffed at the back of a wardrobe somewhere. I, personally, have no use for women’s clothing or jewellery.’
Megan looked at him. This was a different animal from the one she had known. Urban, sophisticated, blasé about the things money could buy—things that were well beyond the reach of most ordinary mortals. From out of nowhere came the uneasy thought that she was now out of his league even more than she had been seven years ago. At least then they had been broke together.
