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The bloody woman had been elusive then, for reasons which he had later understood, and she was elusive now, this time for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand.
‘Are you afraid of me?’ he demanded harshly and Chase roused herself from the heated torpor that had engulfed her to stare up at him.
‘What makes you think that I’m afraid of you?’ She tried to insert some vigour into her voice but she could hear the sound of it—thin, weedy and defensive, all the things she didn’t want him to imagine she was for a second.
‘The way you’re standing in the doorway as though I might make a lunge for you at any minute!’
‘I can’t imagine you would do any such thing!’
Couldn’t she? It was precisely what he wanted to do: behave like a caveman and take her, because she was tempting the hell out of him!
‘I’m afraid of what you could do.’ She backtracked quickly as her mind threatened to veer down unexpected, unwelcome paths. ‘You’ve already shown that you’d be willing to punish Beth because you... Because of me.’
‘And yet here I am now. Do you think I’m the sort of man who reneges on what he’s said? I’ve told you that I intend to pay the full, agreed price. I’ll pay it.’ Not afraid of him? Like hell. She might not be afraid of him, but he was certainly making her feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to try and shimmy further away from him.
He extended one lean hand against the wall, effectively blocking any further scarpering towards the front door. He could smell her hair. If he lowered his head just a little, he would feel its softness against his face. Of their own accord, his eyes drifted to the prissy blouse and the even prissier navy-blue jacket. He was well aware that she was breathing quickly, her breasts rising and falling as she did her utmost to keep her eyes averted.
Just as quickly he pushed himself away, retreating from her space, and he watched narrowly as she relaxed and exhaled one long breath.
He wasn’t going to lose control. He had lost control once with her and he wasn’t about to become the sort of loser who made a habit of ignoring life’s lessons and learning curves.
‘I was going to say...’ He led the way to the front door and paused as she slung her handbag over her shoulder and reached for the case on the ground. ‘There’s something missing from your house.’ He opened the door for her and stood back, allowing her to brush past him. ‘Photos. Where are the pictures of the young, loving couple, from before your husband died? I thought I might have seen the happy pair holding hands and gazing adoringly up at one another...’
Chase walked towards the waiting car, head held high, but underneath the composed exterior she felt the ugly prickle of discomfort.
‘We didn’t do the whole church thing.’
‘Who said anything about a church?’
‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she burst out as soon as they were in the car. She had kept her voice low but she doubted the driver would have heard anything anyway. A smoked-glass partition separated the front of the car from the back. Presumably it was completely soundproof. The truly wealthy never took chances when it came to being overheard, not even in their own cars. Deals could be lost on the back of an overheard conversation.
Alessandro shifted his muscular body to face her. ‘Why are you getting so hot under the collar?’
‘I...I’m not. I...I don’t like to be surrounded by memories. I think it’s always important to move on. There are photos of me and Shaun, just not on show. Do you want to talk about the shelter? I...I’ve brought all the relevant information with me. We can go over it on the way.’ Sitting next to him in the back seat of this car induced the feeling of walls closing in. She fumbled with the clasp of her briefcase and felt his hand close over hers.
‘Leave it.’
Chase snatched her hand away. ‘I thought you wanted to pick me up so that we could talk about this deal.’
‘I’m more interested in the lack of photos. So, none of the husband. Presumably you have albums stashed away somewhere? But none of your family either. Why is that?’
Chase flushed. The adoring middle-class parents who lived in the country. She was mortified at how easily the lie had come to her all those years ago, but then she had been a kid and a little harmless pretence had not seemed like a sin.
Who wanted a rich, handsome guy to know that you have no family? That your mother had died from a drugs overdose when you were four and from that point on you’d been shoved from foster home to foster home like an unwanted parcel trying to find its rightful owner. How wonderful it had been to create a fictitious family, living in a fictitious cul-de-sac, who did normal things like taking an interest in the homework you were set and coming along to cheer at sports days, even if you trailed in last.
