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‘Lyla Evans...’ He strolled towards her, one hand in his trouser pocket. ‘Should I have clocked the surname? Maybe I would have if it hadn’t been preceded by Chase...’ He was standing right in front of her now. She looked as though she was about to pass out. He hoped she wouldn’t expect him to catch her if she fell.
‘Alessandro... No one said... I wasn’t expecting...’
‘So I see.’ His smile was cold and devoid of humour. Of their own accord, his eyes travelled to her finger. No wedding ring. Not that that said very much, all things considered.
‘Will you be here on your own, or can I expect the rest of your team...?’ Chase tried desperately to regain some of her shattered composure but she couldn’t. She was driven to stare at the harsh, sinfully sexy contours of a face that had crept into her head far too many times to count. He was as beautiful as she remembered. More so, if that were possible. At twenty-six, he had been sexy as hell but still with the imprint of youth. Now he was a man, and there was nothing warm or open in his face. She was staring at a stranger, someone who hated her and who was making no attempt to mask his hatred.
‘Just me. Cosy, as it turns out. Don’t you think? So many years since last we saw one another, Lyla...or Chase, or whoever the hell you really are.’
‘Chase. My name is Chase. It always was.’
‘So the pseudonym was purely for my benefit. Of course, it makes sense, given the circumstances at the time...’
‘Lyla was my mother’s name. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit.’ She tottered over to the chair and collapsed on it. The stack of files in front of her, her briefcase, her laptop, they were all reminders of why she was in this conference room in the first place, but for the life of her she couldn’t focus on them. Her thoughts were all over the place.
‘So, shall we play a little catch-up, Lyla? Sorry...Chase? A little polite conversation about what we’ve been doing for the past eight years?’ Alessandro perched on the edge of the sprawling conference table and stared down at her: the one and only woman he had wasted time chasing, only to be left frustrated when she’d failed to fall into his bed. For that reason alone, she occupied a unique spot in his life. Add all the other reasons and she was in a league of her own.
‘I’d rather not.’
‘I bet. In your shoes, I’d plead the fifth as well.’
‘Alessandro, I know what you must think of me, but—’
‘I really don’t need to hear any sob stories, Lyla.’
‘Stop calling me that. My name is Chase.’
‘So you became a lawyer after all. I take my hat off to you—although, thinking about it, you did prove you were the sort of girl who would get what she wanted whatever the cost...’
Chase’s eyes flickered up to him. The expression on his face sent the chill of fear racing up and down her spine, yet how could she blame him? Their story had been brief and so full of things that had to be hidden that it was hardly surprising.
‘And I notice that there’s no telling wedding ring on your finger,’ he continued in the same mildly speculative voice that wouldn’t have fooled an idiot. ‘Did you dispose of the hapless husband in your ever-onwards and upwards climb?’
When he had met her—sitting there in the university canteen with a book in front of her, a little frown on her face, completely oblivious to everyone around her—she had knocked him sideways. It was more than the fact that she’d stood out, that she possessed head-turning looks; the world was full of girls who could turn heads. No, it had been her complete and utter indifference to the glances angled in her direction. He had watched as she had toyed with her sandwich before shoving it to one side and heading out. She had looked neither right nor left. The canteen could have been devoid of people.
Standing here now, looking at her, Alessandro could recreate that feeling of intense, incomprehensible attraction that had swept over him then as though it had been yesterday.
Significantly, she hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring then either.
‘I’m not here to talk about my past,’ Chase said, clearing her throat. ‘I’ve brought all the paperwork about the shelter.’
‘And I’m not ready to talk about that yet.’ He sat on one of the chairs alongside her and angled it away from the table so that he had a bird’s eye view of her as she stared down at the bundle of files and papers in front of her and pretended to concentrate. ‘So...’ he drawled. ‘You were about to tell me where the wedding ring’s gone...’
‘I don’t believe I was,’ Chase said coolly, gathering herself. Eyes the colour of bitter chocolate bored straight through her, bypassing the hard, glossy veneer she had taken so much time and trouble to build like a fortress around herself. ‘You might be curious about what I’ve been up to for the past few years, Alessandro, but I have no intention of satisfying your curiosity. I just want to do what I came here to do and leave.’
