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It seemed ironic now that the life she had built for herself could have been undone by something as crazy as someone taking a picture of her with Alessandro at an airport. There was no point dwelling on what was fair or what was unfair, she thought. The only way was to move forward. She kept her voice as modulated and toneless as she could.
‘He was waiting for me when I got back to my house from Italy.’
Alessandro felt rage wash over him, a perfectly normal reaction to the thought of any thug lying in wait for a helpless victim.
‘He told me that he wanted money and...that’s when I asked you. I didn’t want to, and if you had lent me the money I would have paid you back every penny.’
‘You mean from the proceeds of the job you jacked in? Why did you do that?’
‘I thought it best to resign just in case... I’ve never brought my past to my work. What would happen if Brian decided to show up at Fitzsimmons...?’
‘Catastrophe—because they too were victims of your lies. They believed what you told them about your background, just like I did, didn’t they?’
‘I’ve never discussed my private life with anyone,’ Chase mumbled, feeling even more of a hopeless liar, even though her lies had been through omission of the absolute truth. ‘I’ve kept myself to myself. I fought hard to get where I was.’
‘If you had told me the truth, I might have been inclined to give you the money.’
Chase shrugged. ‘He would have come back for more. He knew where to find me. It was stupid of me to even... Well, in moments of panic we sometimes do stupid things.’
‘He won’t be back.’
‘I know. And...and I’m very grateful to you for scaring him away. You probably threatened him with the one thing he would have taken notice of.’ She wanted to smile, because who would have thought that a billionaire businessman from a cushy background could have had sufficient forcefulness to intimidate someone like Brian Shepherd into running scared? ‘Look, I know you probably hate me for all of this...’
‘You mean the fact that you were prepared to perpetuate a piece of fiction about yourself?’ Alessandro strolled to stand in front of her, legs planted apart, hands at his sides.
Chase looked up at him reluctantly.
‘What other pieces of fiction did you perpetuate?’ he asked softly. ‘No. There’s just one more thing I need to get straight in my head.’
‘What’s—what’s that?’ she stammered uncertainly. She watched as he slowly leant over her and she half-closed her eyes as she inhaled his familiar scent. It rushed to her head like incense.
‘This...’ His mouth crushed her in a savage, punishing kiss and Chase helplessly yielded. She arched back in the chair, pulling him towards her, tasting him hungrily. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew that it should be impossible to feel this driving, craven lust for a man who felt nothing but scorn towards her, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
There was a refrain playing at the back of her head that was telling her that this was the last time she would feel his lips on hers.
He pulled her to her feet and somehow they found themselves on the sofa, still entwined with one another. She was breathing heavily and she didn’t stop him when he began undoing the buttons on her shirt, very soon losing patience. She heard the pop as a couple were ripped off. She wanted him so badly that she was shaking. Pride or no pride, she felt that she needed this final joining of their bodies. Her hands scrabbled to open his shirt so that she could feel the breadth of his chest and she moaned when, eventually, her fingers were splayed against it.
Her nipples tingled against her lacy bra. He cupped her breast with his hand and then pushed it underneath the bra, shoving the bra up so that he could suck on her nipple, drawing the stem into his mouth and swirling his tongue against it until she was half-crying for more.
As he suckled, he nudged her legs apart and then his hand was there, not even bothering to pull down her undies but delving underneath them, finding her wetness and exploring every inch of it with his fingers.
He still hadn’t taken off a stitch of his own clothes. She had managed to undo a few buttons on his shirt and had yanked it out from the waistband of his trousers. She feverishly tried to complete the task of undressing him but he wasn’t helping. She couldn’t get to the zip of his trousers, although she could feel the bulge of his erection.
She gave up as he continued driving his fingers against her, pausing in the rhythmic movement only to insert them into her, into that place where she knew she wanted his rock-hard shaft to be instead.
He reared up and yanked down his trousers and, with his hand tangled in her hair, he guided her to his erection and stifled a groan when she took him into her mouth.
