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Her thoughts were muddled and all over the place when, at a little after nine, she hailed a black cab to take her back to her house. When she closed her eyes and rested her head back on the seat, she could see Alessandro, a vibrant image hovering in the deepest recesses of her mind.
She had told him bits and pieces of the truth. Was that sufficient? An enormous sense of lassitude washed over her when she thought about the rest of what had been left unsaid.
So, nothing would change. He would still despise her. He would still be repelled by the person he thought she had turned out to be, but wouldn’t she feel better in herself? Wouldn’t coming clean, laying all her cards on the table, leave her with a clear conscience when she walked away? And wouldn’t a clear conscience be a far better companion when she lay down in her bed at night and allowed thoughts of him to proliferate in her head?
She had given away more of herself today with her colleagues than she had in all the years she had worked alongside them, and it had felt good.
She leant forward, told the cab driver to turn around and gave him Alessandro’s address.
She had no idea whether he would be in or not. It was a Friday night and face it, he was once again a free, single and eligible guy who might very well have jumped back on the sexual merry-go-round.
The alcohol had given her Dutch courage. Even as the taxi pulled up outside his magnificent house, her nerves didn’t start going into automatic meltdown. She had reached a point of realising that she had nothing left to lose.
Her hand only shook a little as she reached for the doorbell and pressed hard, the very same way he had pressed her doorbell when he had walked in on Brian depleting her house of all its worldly goods.
* * *
On his third whisky, Alessandro heard the distant peal of his doorbell and debated whether he should bother getting it or not. A package was due to be delivered by courier. Work related. Could he really be bothered?
His torpor exasperated him but it had dogged his every waking moment ever since he had walked out of her house. Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to shake it. The confines of his opulent office had felt restricting. He had found himself avoiding it, not caring what his secretary thought, going to the shelter practically every day.
It was Friday night and, whilst his head told him that it was time to get back on the horse, to find a replacement for the woman with whom he should never have become entangled all over again, his feet had brought him right back to his house and towards the drinks cabinet. A bracing evening diet of whisky and soda had felt eminently more tempting than shallow conversation with the airheads and bimbos who would circle him at the slightest given opportunity.
Of course, there was a limit to how long this crazy state of affairs could continue. Swearing softly under his breath, and with the glass of whisky still in his hand, he strolled to the front door and pulled it open. On his lips were a few select curses for whatever imbecile of a courier had had the temerity to keep his finger on the buzzer when he, Alessandro, was in the process of working his way down to the bottom of his glass, through which he hoped to see the world as an altogether rosier place.
‘Alessandro. You’re...’ Any hint of incipient nerves flew through the window at the sight of an Alessandro who, for the first time ever, did not seem to be completely in control of all his faculties. ‘Are you drunk?’
Alessandro leaned against the doorframe and swallowed back the remnants of whisky in his glass. ‘What are you doing here at this hour? It’s after nine. And I’m not drunk.’
The woman he had walked away from. He tried to think of all the pejorative adjectives that had sprung so easily to mind when he had last seen her. Before he had endured the most hellish week of his entire life. Where the hell had his bullish confidence gone about the fact that she was not worth his while? And where had she been anyway? He checked his watch and saw that it was actually a little before ten. Had she been out partying? A tidal wave of jealousy left him shaken.
‘Living it up, Chase?’ His mouth twisted as he focused on the much less prim and proper attire she was wearing, a fitted burgundy dress rather than her uniform of suits which was all he had ever seen her in for work.
‘I know you’re probably surprised to see me here. Shocked, even.’ Although there was a glass in his hand and it was empty. Had he company? A woman? Chase refused to let that thought take shape and gain momentum.
Alessandro noticed that she had neatly avoided answering his question. He shouldn’t even care. In fact, hadn’t he made his mind up that he wanted nothing further to do with her? That he could never trust a woman who had lied to him? Hadn’t he? ‘What are you doing here? Thought you might pay a little social call? On your way back from wherever you’ve been out partying?’
