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He leaned against the kitchen counter in silence for a few seconds, as though marshalling his thoughts. Then, ‘You’re...taken aback...’ he began, at which Sophie gave a dry bark of laughter.
‘Taken aback, Alessio?Taken abackis when something you’re expecting in the post arrives a day late! I’m nottaken aback. I’m...utterly bewildered at what happened just then.’
‘You know what happened.’
Alessio padded across to the table where she was sitting and sat on the chair closest to her, adjusting it so that they were directly facing one another.
Sophie’s body instantly responded to his proximity, primed to be turned on the second he was within touching distance of her.
She realised, with dismay, just how vulnerable she had let herself become. She had gone from cautious to smitten in record time and she could have kicked herself.
How could she have known Alessio for what he was and still allowed herself to be bowled over by his charm? His wit? His intelligence? His sex appeal?
How could she have moved so swiftly from a position of self-defence to a place where she’d laid down her arms and thrown down a welcome mat?
Leonard had rushed to conclude that his son had been the seducer, but Sophie recognised with painful honesty that she had practically flung herself at him.
She blinked, dragged herself back to the present, and focused on the man sitting so close to her now—close enough for his unique masculine scent to waft over her, making her heart skip a beat.
Disastrously, he reached for her hand and linked his fingers lightly with hers as he proceeded to stare at her with earnest honesty.
‘Alessio...’
‘I know what happened might have been a little unexpected...’
‘To say the least.’
‘But when I saw my father on the landing...realised that he had probably woken up and heard a noise from the bedroom when he was on his way to the kitchen for God only knows what reason...well, I had to think on my feet...’
‘But how could lying to him have been a good idea?’
‘There was no alternative.’
‘There’salwaysan alternative to lying, Alessio.’
He had the grace to flush, but there was determination in his dark eyes as he held her stare.
‘Yes, there is. Of course there is. But let’s consider that alternative.’
Sophie stared down at their entwined fingers. If she had spent the past few days on a rollercoaster ride, then it now felt as though that ride had sprouted wings and was flying off into orbit at the speed of light.
In her head, she kept seeing Leonard’s face when he had looked at her. She had sensed the disappointment and recoiled from it, butlying?
Alessio’s voice was low and hypnotic, and she remained silent as he gazed at her. ‘The main thing to consider is my father’s health. Would you agree?’
‘Yes, of course. But all the same...’
‘When he clocked what was happening—that you were in my bedroom—his face went ashen. I thought he was going to keel over.’
‘He must have been shocked to the core,’ Sophie said jerkily, on the verge of tears. ‘He might have been big in business, and he might have been through two marriages, but there’s a side to him that’s very traditional.’
Alessio opened his mouth to contradict that, to point out that however traditional his father might be he was fully aware of the bees and the birds and what happened between a man and a woman when mutual attraction decided to strike.
But then it hit him that Sophie saw a different side to his father, a gentler side, and if shethoughtthat he was traditional, then perhaps what she saw was an old man whowasdeeply traditional.
Alessio was one hundred per cent sure that if his father had interrupted him with one of his string of blondes reclining in rumpled disarray in his bed, he would have snorted in resigned disgust and moved on.
But Sophie was different.
