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‘Sit. I’ll make us some coffee. Has Sarah gone home?’
Sophie nodded and sidled to one of the chairs, and watched as Alessio strolled into the kitchen, his movements less graceful than usual. He made coffee. Instant. Two mugs. His black, hers white with no sugar. He dragged over a chair so that he was sitting close enough for her to reach out and touch him.
‘Well?’
‘I’ve been a long time...’
‘I didn’t expect you to be back downstairs in five minutes. Leonard was very upset. He would have needed calming. I should have gone...’
‘Not your responsibility. What happened was my fault entirely. I never meant to stress my father out...and I’m ashamed that I did. It was unforgivable—as I made clear to him when I took him upstairs.’ Alessio looked at her in brooding silence for a few seconds. ‘I feel like you’re caught in the middle of something you never realised you’d signed up to...’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I think you know perfectly well what I’m talking about.’ Alessio smiled wryly, but his dark eyes remained sharp and deadly serious. ‘My father and I have not had the easiest of relationships over the years.’ He paused. ‘I’ve already mentioned that. But what you just sat through...’
Sharing confidences? It was a game Alessio didn’t play. He had learnt to share only what was necessary. He had never spoken about his fractured relationship with his father to anyone. Even as a young boy, dispatched to boarding school with the memory of his mother’s death still fresh in his head, he had learnt how to carry the burden of his misery alone. Let down by his father, he had toughened up and learnt not to trust anyone.
When his father had remarried, Alessio’s emotional independence had become total. Now, however, he had to concede that the woman sitting opposite him with the big brown eyes and the cropped blonde hair had a right to know something of the situation into which she had unwittingly been brought.
His father depended on her far more than Alessio had ever suspected—but then there seemed to be an awful lot about his father he knew nothing about. The years had drifted by, and every passing year had placed another row of bricks in the wall separating them.
‘You mentioned that you two have had your differences over the years,’ Sophie said, then added quickly, ‘But there’s no need for you to...er...talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.’
‘That’s very generous of you, but considering you’ve had something against me ever since you first started working for my father—’
‘That’s not true. Of course I haven’t had anything against you.’
‘No? Maybe not all the time.When I kissed you, youdefinitelydidn’t have anything against me. Aside, that is, from your body, which seemed very keen to get a bit more friendly.’
‘You said that was never going to be mentioned again!’
‘So I did,’ Alessio murmured.
He shifted, irritated with himself for having been so easily and swiftly diverted from the matter of hand. This was a serious talk, and yet the nearness of her, that slightly floral smell that tantalised him, the silky smoothness of her skin and the calm intelligence in her eyes...
It was all messing with his head, and to someone who never allowedanythingto mess with his head, it was frustrating.
Yet, staring at her, he just couldn’t resist harking back to that kiss...that five-second, utterly earth-moving kiss that had knocked him for six.
He wanted to see her reaction to that kiss again.
He wanted to have another glimpse behind that smooth, serene mask.
He felt a soaring sense of triumph at the delicate colour that crept into her cheeks, and at the way her eyes suddenly scrupulously avoided his.
Alessio was bewildered by his own reactions.
He had not led a celibate life. He enjoyed women and women enjoyed him. It was a mutually rewarding experience. And the women he had enjoyed over the years had ranged from catwalk beautiful to downright voluptuously sexy.
He had never gone for subtle—always associating that with a woman who’d want more than he would ever be prepared to give. He liked everything upfront, all cards on the table, no mysteries to be explored.
Was he so now arrogant that the pull of the novel and the unexplored was too great to resist?
Sophie Court worked for his father, and she was the last woman on the planet in whom he should be interested.
She was a serious woman who took things seriously, and from what she had told him about herself he suspected that she would only contemplate a relationship if it came with signposts to all sorts of destinations he had no interest in exploring.
In fact, wasn’t that partly why she disapproved of him? He was certain of it.
