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Megan looked at him with surprise. ‘Were you eavesdropping on my conversation?’ she asked lightly.
‘I prefer to call it taking a healthy interest in what’s happening around me. You never told me that you were planning to bolt back to the countryside. Back up to Scotland?’
‘You make it sound as though I’ve already bought the rail ticket and packed my bags. And, no, I don’t think I’ll be moving back to Scotland any time soon. You could say I’ve become accustomed to the tropical weather down south.’
Megan watched, entranced, at the people moving between the seats, programmes in their hands. She had forgotten how exciting the atmosphere in a theatre could be—the feeling of pleasant anticipation that hung in the air just before the curtain was raised, the orchestra at the front, trying out a few bars, getting the note just right for when they launched into the first number.
‘But London doesn’t suit you…’ Alessandro murmured.
‘It suits me at the moment. But, no, I can’t see myself staying here to live for ever.’
‘Because it suits people like me? People who enjoy the jungle warfare of the business world?’
Megan looked sideways at the man sitting next to her. In his dark suit and trademark white shirt, with his gold watch peeping from under the cuffs of the shirt and his dark hair slicked back and curling, slightly too long, against his collar, he should have been just another very rich, very well-dressed, above averagely good-looking businessman. But there was something raw and untamed lurking just beneath the urbane, sophisticated exterior—something that made heads swing round and made people falter in their footsteps. Jungle warfare? He couldn’t have chosen a better metaphor.
‘Guess so,’ she told him. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy the fast pace of living in London! You’d go nuts if you were stuck out in the countryside with nothing better to do than laze around watching nature.’
Megan thought how nice it would be just to take time out of the low-level stress that came from being involved with a man when she knew that he would break her heart—just as he had done the first time round. This was what it had been like seven years ago. Fast, furious, sizzling excitement. It had been wild and heady, but it hadn’t been relaxing then and it wasn’t relaxing now. Her only relaxation came from her private daydreams, in which she constructed a happy ending based on nothing more substantial than the fact that he was with her now and it was his conscious choice.
She hadn’t, until right now, even considered the possibility of moving out to the countryside. Melissa had raised the subject and she had replied out of politeness. But, thinking about it, it was beginning to seem more appealing by the second.
She had spent the day on cloud nine, shopping with Alessandro, fighting hard to maintain a cool, detached exterior while her heart had been racing. And just at the moment she was keenly and painfully aware of him next to her, leaning into her so that he could whisper into her ear. His warm breath against her neck made every nerve-ending in her body tingle. Was all of that desirable? Moreover, she seemed to have no control over what he did to her. Her body and her mind seemed to lose the ability to function normally the minute he was around. Was that a good way to be?
‘But me,’ she said, not looking at him and warming to the idea of a life that wasn’t lived in a permanent state of nervous anticipation, ‘I’d love the countryside. I’d love to have a little cottage with clambering roses on a white picket fence, and a milkman delivering milk to the door every day. I could teach at a small village school. Maybe,’ she elaborated wistfully, ‘I would take up knitting.’
Alessandro gave a burst of laughter that had a few eyes turning in their direction. A few, having seen him, lingered a little longer than was necessary.
‘I thought you’d already done the rural school fantasy. And knitting? You?’
‘It’s a possibility!’ Megan snapped in a low, irritated voice.
‘I think your personality might get in the way of such a placid pastime.’ Alessandro smirked, thinking of her dressed in that wisp of red and green, with one impractical red shoe sailing through the air. ‘I’m not sure if a woman who enjoys running around a muddy football pitch would be content to spend two months in front of a television, knitting a scarf. Seven years ago your dream was to go hang-gliding. How does that equate with knitting?’
‘Okay, maybe not knitting,’ she said. ‘Maybe rambling, or…or…’
‘Or…or…bird-watching…or…or…embroidery…or…or…Get a grip, Megan. The picket fence and the clambering roses might sound fine in theory, but in reality you’d be bored stiff. Isn’t that why you came down to London? To escape a serious case of open-field syndrome?’
