‘So…’ Alessandro drawled, handing Laura a glass. ‘Are you going to remain standing by the door like a sentry or are you going to sit down and say what you have to say?’

His fingers had brushed against hers, and every muscle and nerve in her body had reacted.

‘You never mentioned how long you intend staying in Scotland…’ She inched her way towards the table and sat down.

‘Undecided. Why? Do I make you feel uncomfortable? I wouldn’t want to put a spoke in the wheel, but…’ He shrugged, sipped his drink and looked at her over the rim of his glass. ‘Needs must.’

‘What needs?’

‘That’s a somewhat leading question, wouldn’t you say?’

If they were referring to his needs, then he might very well meet them by staying. Because suddenly he had a vivid image of her in his bed, sprawled in all her glorious, lush beauty, her delicate heart-shaped face heated with desire, her body his for the taking.

CATHY WILLIAMS can remember reading Mills & Boon® books as a teenager, and now that she is writing them she remains an avid fan. For her, there is nothing like creating romantic stories and engaging plots, and each and every book is a new adventure. Cathy lives in London and her three daughters—Charlotte, Olivia and Emma—have always been and continue to be the greatest inspiration in her life.

A Pawn in the

Playboy’s Game

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my three wonderful and inspiring daughters

Contents

Cover

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘DON’T KNOW WHAT you’re doing here.’ Roberto Falcone glared at his son. He had shuffled to the front door and now he remained standing in front of it like a bouncer blocking entry to a club. ‘Told you not to bother coming and meant it.’

Alessandro felt that familiar tension invade his body, the way it always did on those occasions when he was in his father’s company. Usually, though, they at least managed pleasantries before he felt like spinning on his heel and walking as fast as he could in the opposite direction. This time, there was no polite surface small talk and Alessandro braced himself for an impossibly difficult weekend.

Which they would both have to endure because there was no choice.

‘Are you going to let me in or are we going to have this conversation on the doorstep? Because if we are, I’ll get my coat from the car. I’d rather not die from frostbite just yet.’

‘You won’t die from frostbite,’ Roberto Falcone scoffed. ‘It’s practically tropical here.’

Alessandro didn’t bother to argue. He’d had a lot of experience when it came to disagreeing with his father. Roberto Falcone might be eighty years old but there was nothing he gave up without a fight, and arguing about whether eight degrees Celsius counted as cold or not was just one of those things. He was a hardy soul who lived in Scotland and thought that blizzard conditions were a bracing challenge. Real men cleared snowdrifts half-naked and barefoot! His son was a softie who lived in London and switched on the central heating the second the sun went behind a cloud.

And never the twain would meet.

Which was why duty visits were limited to three times a year and lasted as long as it took for the limited well of polite conversation to run dry.

Except this was more than a duty visit and he had known that his father wasn’t going to make things easy.

‘I’ll get my coat.’

‘Don’t bother. Now that you’ve landed here, I suppose I don’t have much choice but to let you in, but if you think that I’m going to be heading down to London with you, then you’ve got another think coming. I’m not budging.’

In the cold, gathering gloom, they stared at one another, Alessandro’s expression veiled, his father’s fiercely determined.

‘We’ll discuss this when I’m inside,’ Alessandro said. ‘Why have you answered the door? Where’s Fergus?’

‘It’s the weekend. Man deserves a break.’

‘You had a stroke six months ago and you’re still recovering from a fractured pelvis. The man’s paid enough to give up his breaks.’

Roberto scowled but Alessandro didn’t back down. Frankly, this wasn’t the time for pussyfooting round the issue. Like it or not, his father was going to return to London with him in three days’ time. The contents of the house could be packed up and shipped south once the place had been vacated.

His mind was made up and once Alessandro had made his mind up on anything, he was not open to discussion, far less persuasion. His father could no longer cope with the rolling Victorian mansion, even if he could afford an army of hired help if he chose. Neither could he cope with the acres of lawns and garden. He liked plants. Alessandro would introduce him to the marvels of Kew Gardens.

The brutal truth was that Roberto Falcone was now frail, whether he wanted to admit it or not, and he needed somewhere small, somewhere closer to Alessandro, somewhere in London.

‘I’ll get my bag,’ Alessandro said abruptly. ‘You go in and I’ll join you in the sitting room. I take it you haven’t dispatched all the help...because you felt they needed some time out from doing what they’re so handsomely paid to do?’

‘You might be lord of that manor of yours in London,’ Roberto retorted, ‘and I wouldn’t think of questioning you if you chose to give whoever works for you a weekend off, but this is my manor and I can do whatever I want.’

‘Let’s not kick off this weekend on an argument,’ Alessandro said heavily. He looked at the elderly man in front of him, still leonine in appearance with his thick head of steel-grey hair, his piercing dark eyes and his impressive height, at six foot one only a couple of inches shorter than him. The only hint of his frailty was the walking stick and, of course, a thick wad of medical notes residing in the hospital ten miles due west.

‘Freya is here. There’s food in the kitchen, which is where you will find me. Had I known you were going to descend on me, I might have asked her to prepare something a little less simple, but you’re here now and salmon and potatoes is going to have to do.’

‘You knew I was coming,’ Alessandro pointed out patiently. A sharp gust of wind, carrying the sort of bitter cold rarely experienced in London, blew his dark hair away from his face. ‘I emailed you.’

‘Must have slipped my mind.’

Clenching his jaw in pure frustration, Alessandro watched as his father shuffled away, leaving the front door wide open.

The move to London was going to be a big step, for both of them. They barely had anything to say to one another. Lord only knew how more frequent meetings were going to play out, but there was no way he could continue making laborious trips to the depths of Scotland every time his father had a mishap, and there were no siblings with whom he could share the burden.

Just him. An only child shunted off to boarding school at the age of seven, returning back to their vast, cold mansion every holiday, where nannies and cooks and cleaners had picked up the role of parent because his father had rarely been in evidence, appearing only at the end of the day when they had dined at opposite ends of the formal dining table, waited on by the very people with whom Alessandro had spent his day.

Until, of course, he had become old enough to begin spending the occasional holidays with friends. His father had not once objected. Alessandro suspected that he had probably been quietly relieved. There was only so much polite conversation to be made across the length of a twenty-seat table.

The polite conversation was still made but at least now Alessandro could take it in his stride, at least he had stopped trying to find reasons behind his father’s coldness, stopped wondering whether things might have been different had he remarried after the death of Muriel Falcone, stopped trying not to be a disappointment. That particular youthful sentiment had long disappeared.

Hitching his overnight bag over his shoulder and remotely locking his glossy black SUV, Alessandro decided that he would have to find some hobbies for his father the second he arrived in London.

Hobbies that would take him out of the luxurious three-bedroom ground-floor apartment in a small, portered Georgian block, which had been bought for him. A man with hobbies would be a happy man. Or at least a relatively invisible one. Too much visibility was not going to work for either of them.

Returning to Standeth House, for Alessandro, was like returning to a mausoleum. Same cold feel, although now that it would shortly be put on the market he found that he could better appreciate the impressive flagstoned hallway and all the period features that he would never have dreamed of having in anywhere he personally owned but which, he conceded, had a certain something.

And, with as much money as you could fling a stick at, it had been well maintained. His father had been born into wealth, had maintained and increased it in his lifetime and had not stinted when it came to spending it on his surroundings. He had always been generous financially if parsimonious when it came to everything else.

He found his father in the kitchen, where, despite what he had said, there was no housekeeper.

Alessandro frowned. ‘You said Freya would be here to take care of the food.’

Roberto looked at his son from under grey, bushy brows. ‘Left at four. Note on the cooker jogged my memory. Forgot to mention it.’ He ladled a generous portion of food onto his plate and went to the kitchen table, leaving Alessandro to help himself. ‘Sick dog. Had to take it to the vet. It happens. And before you launch into a conversation about how you’ve come here to tear me away from my house and my land, eat some food and talk about something else. Been months since you ventured up here. You must have something to talk about aside from rescuing me from my old age.’

‘Work’s fine.’ Alessandro looked at the slab of salmon on his plate with distaste. Freya was in her mid-sixties and had been his father’s cook for the past fifteen years. She was as thin as a rake, only smiled on high days and bank holidays and would never be asked to cook for the queen. Or anyone with halfway decent tastebuds. Her productions were as spartan as she was. Potatoes, some vegetables and fish, which were unadorned with anything that could fall under the heading of tasty.

‘I’ve added a niche publishing house to my portfolio, along with three small hotels on the other side of the Atlantic. It’s a little comic relief from my IT companies and telecommunications.’ He might have benefited from being the son of a wealthy man, might have been to the finest schools, been given the most pocket money, treated to the fastest car at an age when fast cars and young boys should never have had even a nodding acquaintance, but he had refused point-blank to show the slightest interest in his father’s empire. When it came to earning a living, Alessandro had always known that he would go it without any help from his austere and distant parent.

Not that Roberto had asked. Until a decade ago he had still been running his empire himself.

Neither had Alessandro accepted any start-up money. He had used his brains to super-achieve at university and he had continued using his brains to super-achieve at everything that had followed. As far as he was concerned, the less he had to do with Roberto Falcone, the better. They maintained contact, paid lip service to their relationship, and that was that. It worked.

‘And still chasing the same idiots you were chasing when I last saw you? What was the name of that one you dragged up here? Acted as though she didn’t recognise what mud was and refused to go near the garden because it had rained and her high heels couldn’t take the strain.’ Roberto guffawed.

‘Sophia,’ Alessandro said through gritted teeth. This was the first time his father had come right out and voiced his scathing disapproval of the women he had met in the past, girlfriends Alessandro had taken with him because a third party, even an intellectually challenged third party, was worth her weight in gold when it came to smoothing over pregnant pauses.

And it had to be said that the women he dated more than made up for their sometimes limited conversation with their looks. He liked them leggy, long-haired, slender and outrageously good-looking. The size of their IQs didn’t really come into it. Just as long as they pleased him, looked good, said yes when he wanted them to say yes and didn’t get attached.

‘Sophia...that’s the one. Nice-looking girl with all that bouncy hair but difficult to have a conversation with. I’m guessing that doesn’t bother you, though. Where is she now?’ He looked around him as though suddenly alert to the possibility that the six-foot-tall brunette might be hiding behind the kitchen door or underneath the counter.

‘It didn’t work out.’ The gloves were certainly off if his father was diving into his personal life. Polite was beginning to look like a cosy walk in the park in comparison. Was this how Roberto intended to retaliate to the winds of change? By getting too close to the bone for comfort?

‘Reason I brought that up...’ Roberto finished his salmon and shoved the plate to one side ‘...is if that’s the kind of people who hang around the rich in that city of yours, then it’s just another reason why I won’t be joining you. So you can start looking for tenants for that apartment you bought.’

‘There are lots of different kinds of people in London.’ And who, exactly, were his father’s friends here anyway? He’d met one or two couples, bumped into them while out to dinner locally with his father over the years, but how often did he mix with them?

Like vast swathes of his father’s life, that was just another mystery. For all Alessandro knew, his father could be cooped up in his country estate from dawn till dusk with nothing but the hired help and his plants for company.

He had long trained himself to feel no curiosity. The door had been shut on him a long time ago and it wasn’t going to reopen.

‘And some of them might have more to talk about than the weather, the tidal changes and salmon fishing. On another note, I see Freya is continuing to shine as a cordon bleu chef...’

‘Simple food for a simple man,’ Roberto returned coldly. ‘If I wanted anything fancier, I would have employed one of those TV chef types who have fish restaurants in Devon and use ingredients nobody’s ever heard of.’

For the first time in living memory, Alessandro felt his lips twitch with amusement at his father’s asperity.

But then he reminded himself that humour wasn’t behind this conversation. These were all little warning jabs before the real battle began in the morning.

He stood up, irritated that on a Friday evening there was no one around to at least clear the table. Alessandro didn’t have anyone working for him, aside from a cleaner three times a week and his driver, but if he had he would have damned well made sure that they were available to work when he needed them, instead of skipping off to give their dog cuddles and cough syrup.

‘I have some work to get through by ten tonight.’ He looked at his watch and then at his father, who had not moved a muscle to stand up.

‘No one’s keeping you.’ Roberto fluttered his hand in the general direction of the kitchen door.

‘Heading up to bed now?’

‘Maybe not. Maybe I should have a late-night walk through the grounds so that I can appreciate the open space before you start manhandling me into a flat in that city of yours.’

‘Freya in tomorrow? Or will her dog still require her urgent attention?’ Alessandro wasn’t going to be provoked into a simmering argument that he would take to bed with him. ‘Because if she plans on spending the weekend with her sick dog, I’ll head into town first thing in the morning and stockpile some food that’s easy to cook.’ He stood up and began clearing the table. ‘Just enough to last the weekend,’ he threw over his shoulder.

‘Don’t need you cooking for me. Perfectly capable of throwing something in a pan.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘If she doesn’t come, she might send someone in her place. Sometimes does that.’

‘How reliable is this bloody woman?’ Alessandro turned to his father’s face and scowled. ‘I had a look at the accounts the last time I was here, and she’s paid a fortune! Are you telling me that she skives off when she feels like it?’

‘I’m telling you that it’s my money and I’ll spend it any damn way I want to! If I want to pay the woman to show up every other weekend and dance on the table, that’s my shout!’

Alessandro looked at his father narrowly and eventually shrugged.

‘If she doesn’t show up,’ Roberto inserted grudgingly, ‘she’ll send someone in her place.’

‘Fine. In that case, I’ll leave all the dirty dishes so that she or her replacement has something to do when they get here. And now I’m heading off to do some work. I take it you won’t be needing your study?’

‘What would an old, feeble man with an old, feeble brain need a study for?’ He waved his hand, dismissing Alessandro without sparing him a glance. ‘It’s all yours.’

* * *

Laura Reid finally hopped on her bike and headed out of the terraced house she shared with her grandmother forty-five minutes later than planned.

Things moved at a different speed here. She had now lived here for nearly a year and a half and she was still getting used to the change of pace. She wasn’t sure whether she would ever completely get used to it.

On a bright, cold Saturday morning, her intentions might have been to start the day at the crack of dawn, get all the little chores done and dusted by nine and then cycle up to the big house, but intentions counted for nothing here.

People had dropped by. Her grandmother had taken herself off to Glasgow to visit her sister for two weeks and every well-wishing friend had popped around to make sure she was all right, as if her grandmother’s absence might herald all sorts of untold disasters. Was she making sure to eat properly? Curious, concerned eyes peered into the kitchen in the hope of spotting a pie or two. Had she remembered that the garbage people had changed their collection day because old Euan’s son had gone to hospital and his brother was covering?

Was she remembering to make sure the logs were kept dry? Edith would have a fit if she returned to find them soaked through and who knew what the weather would bring in the next ten days. And make sure to lock all the doors! Mildred had told Shona who had told Brian who had told his daughter Leigh that there had been a spate of petty thefts in the neighbouring village and you couldn’t be too careful.

The wind on her face felt great as she began cycling away from the town.

It meant freedom and peace and was always a time when she replayed her life in slow motion in her head, the way it had turned full circle so that she was right back where she had started.

The young girl who had gaily gone to London to take up a position as PA to a CEO in an upwardly mobile, just-gone-public company was no more. At least now, when she thought of that time in her life, her mouth no longer filled with bitterness and despair. Instead, she could put it all in perspective and see her experiences as a valuable learning curve.

She had worked for a busy, aggressive company, which, coming from this small town, had been a first. She had seen the bright lights and felt the buzz of big-city excitement. She had hopped on the Underground and jostled with the crowds at rush hour. She had eaten on the run and gone to wine bars with new friends.

And two years into her bright, shiny life she had met a guy, someone so wildly different from every guy she had ever met that was it any wonder she had fallen hopelessly in love with him?

The only downside was that he had been her boss. Not directly her boss, but far, far higher than her in the company food chain, recently transferred back to London from New York.

And naive as she had been, all the warning signs that would have been flagged up to any woman with just a bit more experience had passed her by.

Rich guy...top job...cute, with little dimples and floppy blond hair...thirty-four and single...

Laura had been over the moon. She hadn’t minded the weekends he’d been unable to spend with her because he’d visited his ailing father in the New Forest area...hadn’t cared that meals out had always been in small, dark places miles away from the city centre...hadn’t really twigged when he’d told her that once an arrangement was made, it was set in cement...no need for her to call him and, besides, he was just one of those guys who hated long, rambling telephone conversations on mobiles.

‘There’s never a time when it’s convenient!’ he had joked teasingly. ‘You’re either in the supermarket, about to hand over your credit card...or on the Underground, hanging on to a strap for dear life...or about to step into the shower... Leave the calling to me!’

She had for nearly a year until she had seen him out, quite by chance, with a sandy-haired woman hanging on to his arm and a little toddler sucking a lollipop, twisting round from her pushchair to look at him.

So much for love. She’d fallen for a married guy, had fallen for surface charm and a clever way with words.

She had worked out her notice and left and now she was ninety-nine per cent convinced that it had all been for the best. Secretarial work hadn’t been for her. The job had been buzzy and well paid but the teaching job she did now was much more emotionally rewarding.

Plus everyone had to have a learning curve. She would never make the mistake of even looking twice at any man who was out of her league. If it looked too good to be true, it probably was.

It was a dull, cloudy morning and she could feel icy fingers trying to wriggle through the layers of her clothes...the vest, jumper, padded sleeveless waterproof that bulked her up so that she looked like a beach ball in search of a stretch of sand.

When she glanced over her shoulder, the little town had been left behind and there was roaming, rambling countryside all around her, stretching as far as the eye could see.

She slowed down. There was no place on earth as beautiful as Scotland. No place where you could practically hear the silence and the small sounds of nature, living, breathing nature. This was where she had grown up. Not this precise spot in this exact town, but in a very similar small town not a million miles away. She had moved to live with her grandmother when her parents had died. She had been just seven at the time. She had adjusted over time to the loss of her parents and it had taken her a lot less time to adjust to life in this part of Scotland because the scenery was so familiar to her.

She crested a hill, on either side of which russets, browns and stark, naked fields, stripped bare of colour, filled her with a sense of freedom, and there, just ahead of her, she could see the entrance to the long drive that led up to Roberto’s house.

She slowed down, took her time pedalling her way up the drive. She never tired of this familiar route. In summer it was stunning, vibrant with green, the trees bending over the drive. In winter the bare trees were equally impressive, stretching up like talons reaching for the clouds.

The unexpected sight of a black SUV brought her to a halt and she slowly began walking the bike towards the front door.

Surprises were rarely of the good kind and this was a surprise because Roberto seldom had visitors. At least, not ones that weren’t of the local variety. He had friends in the village...her grandmother was very pally with him, somewhat more than pally, she suspected, and of course he went to the usual things arranged for older people because there was quite a thriving community in the village for the over-sixties, but strangers appearing out of nowhere...?

Which only left one possibility and that made her heart sink. She’d never met the son and, in fairness, Roberto didn’t dwell on him very much but the little he had said had not left a good impression either with her or with her grandmother.

She rang the doorbell and waited, heart beating fast.

* * *

Inside the house, specifically inside the office to which he had retreated after a tense breakfast with his father that had achieved less than zero, if that was possible, Alessandro heard the sharp ring of the doorbell and cursed fluently under his breath.

The vanishing hired help had remained vanished. His father, who was hell-bent on not listening to common sense, had taken himself off to his massive greenhouse, where, he said, he could have more fruitful conversation with his plants. Alessandro’s plan to buy some food and do something with it had changed. He had decided to take his father out for dinner in the town because if his father was in a restaurant, there was just so far he could go when it came to dodging the inevitable conversation.

He reached the front door and pulled it open, his mood already foul because he could see the word wasted stamped all over his weekend.

The girl standing in front of him, gripping the handlebars of a bike that looked like a relic from a different era, took him momentarily by surprise.

She was a short, round little thing with copper-coloured hair that had been dragged back into a ponytail and eyes...

The purest, greenest eyes he had ever seen.

‘About time.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Laura had been expecting Roberto to answer the door. Instead, finding herself staring up at the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life, her breathing had become jerky and her pulse was all over the place.

This would be the son and he was nothing like the mental picture she’d had in her head.

Her mental picture had been of a pompous, puffed-up, frankly ugly little guy who had his nose stuck in the air and never ventured out of London if he could help it. He hardly showed his face in Scotland and when he did, Roberto was always subdued afterwards, as if recovering from a virus.

Unfortunately, the man staring down at her with a glacial expression was too disturbingly good-looking for anybody’s good. He positively towered over her and every inch of his body was hard-packed muscle. The black, long-sleeved T-shirt lovingly advertised that, as did the faded, low-slung black jeans.

‘Finished staring?’ he asked coolly, and Laura went bright red. ‘Because if you are, you can come in, head directly to the kitchen and begin doing what you’re paid to do.’

‘Sorry?’ Laura blinked and stared at him in bewilderment before remembering the way he had sneered at her for staring, which made her immediately shift her gaze to the ivy clambering up the wall behind him.

Alessandro didn’t bother answering. Instead, he stepped to one side and headed to the kitchen, expecting her to follow him.

Laura stared at his departing back with mounting anger.

‘I’d like to know what’s going on,’ she demanded, having flung her bike to the ground and sprinted in his wake.

‘What’s going on...’ Alessandro turned to face her and spread his arms wide ‘...is a kitchen that needs tidying. Which is what you’re paid to do. Correct me if I’m wrong.’ He leaned against the granite counter and looked at the round little bundle poised resentfully by the door. No one liked being reprimanded, but needs must, he thought. ‘I understand that Freya couldn’t make it to work yesterday because her dog was feeling under the weather, but it beggars belief that she couldn’t be bothered to send her replacement until today and it’s even more astonishing that her replacement can’t be bothered to turn up until after ten in the morning!’

Placid by nature, Laura was discovering that it was remarkably easy to go from cool to boiling in seconds. She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘If the kitchen needed tidying, why didn’t you tidy it yourself?’

‘I’ll pretend I just didn’t hear that!’

‘I’d like to see Roberto...’

‘And why would that be?’ Alessandro drawled silkily. He folded his arms and stared at her. ‘You might be able to get past him with some fairy-tale sob story about not being able to do the job you’re paid to do because the dog’s cousin got a cold or the rain was falling in the wrong direction so you just couldn’t make it on time, but I’m made of tougher stuff. You should have been here at eight, as far as I’m concerned, and your pay will be docked accordingly!’ Not, in all events, that that was going to be much of a concern considering his father would be out of the house, if not this weekend, then certainly by the end of the month.

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact and frankly you should consider yourself lucky that I don’t sack you on the spot.’

‘This is too much! Where is Roberto?’

‘Roberto?’ He couldn’t remember Freya addressing his father by his first name. Eyes narrowed now on her flushed face, Alessandro slowly pushed himself away from the counter and strolled towards her.

Like a predator with prey in its sight, he circled her before coming to a stop right in front of her, arms still folded, and this time his expression was thoughtful.

‘Interesting,’ he mused softly.

‘What? What’s interesting?’ Laura inched back a little because his presence was so suffocating. She worked out that it wasn’t just to do with the fact that the man was sinfully, unfairly sexy. There was also something about him, something intangible that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.

‘Interesting that the hired help is now on a first-name basis with my father, who is a very rich man indeed.’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘Young girl...reasonably attractive...elderly man...loaded... I’m doing the maths and not liking the solution to the conundrum.’

Blood leached out of her face and there was a roaring in her ears. ‘Are you accusing me of...of...of...?’

‘I know. Incomprehensible, isn’t it? My father is pushing eighty, has more money than he knows what to do with, and a whippersnapper who couldn’t be more than...what?...twenty-two addresses him by his first name and seems pretty desperate to see him because, presumably, you know he’ll rescue you from an uncomfortable situation. Smacks of unhealthy cosiness but, then, maybe I’m just being unfairly cynical.’

‘Twenty-six, actually. I’m twenty-six.’ A gold-digger? Was that what she was being accused of? A reasonably attractive gold-digger? Could there be any more insults stashed up his sleeve?

‘Twenty-two...twenty-six. Doesn’t really make much of a difference. You’re still young enough to be his granddaughter. Thank God I’ve come along and seen for myself what goes on here.’

‘And I’m not the hired help.’

‘No?’ Alessandro’s eyebrows shot up. Hired help or no hired help, the woman was still an opportunist, although he had to admit that the old man had reasonably good taste. Up close, her eyes were even more amazing, her skin satiny smooth with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her mouth...

His eyes dipped lazily to her mouth, which was full and perfectly shaped.

She might not be a model but she certainly wasn’t a woman you would throw out of your bed on a rainy night.

She was fresh-faced and that in itself was oddly appealing. No wonder she had managed to inveigle herself into his father’s good graces. God knew how much she had managed to con out of him thus far.

‘No!’ Her skin burned under his scrutiny but she maintained eye contact, even though every nerve in her body was reacting with tight hostility to his accusations.

‘So who are you?’

‘I’m Laura. I’m a friend. As you would discover if you went and got him!’

‘Oh, I’ll get him,’ Alessandro said in a voice that made her teeth snap together in impotent fury. ‘Just as soon as you and I have had a nice little chat. So why don’t you have a seat at the table, Laura, and we’ll...how do I put this?...get to know one another... No, wrong choice of words. I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to understand where I’m coming from.’

He smiled and she stared back angrily at him because chilling though the smile was it was still horribly, horribly sexy.

‘Fine,’ she snapped, because if he wanted to have a word with her, he’d find that she had a few words of her own to share. She stalked off towards the kitchen table and in one easy movement yanked off the annoying waterproof and turned to face him with a toss of her head. ‘And then I want to see your father.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU KNOW WHO I AM.’ This was getting better and better. He had no idea who she was and yet she knew who he was. If she was a friend, then she was a special one, because he knew his father and one thing was for sure—Roberto Falcone was tight-lipped when it came to conversation. He was a man, and had always been a man, who spoke only when the situation demanded speech.

Alessandro could remember many a meal consumed in silence once the formalities of polite conversation had been exhausted.

‘Of course I know who you are. Why wouldn’t I? You’re Alessandro, the son who never comes up to Scotland if he can help it.’

Alessandro flushed darkly. ‘My father said that?’

‘He didn’t have to. You import your father down to London when you want to see him because it’s easier. When was the last time you were here anyway?’

‘How do you know my father?’ Alessandro asked abruptly, cutting short any attempts to try to derail the conversation. So she wasn’t the hired help and he should have recognised that from the get-go. Hired help didn’t look like her and they certainly didn’t have that stubborn tilt to their heads. His eyes roved over a body that, now that it was divested of the bulky parka, was rounded in all the right places. Small, voluptuous and...especially when you combined it with her fresh-faced, make-up-free look...downright sexy.

He sat down at the opposite end of the table. The kitchen was one of the few really informal places in the splendid mansion and Alessandro had never ceased to be amazed that his father had given the go-ahead for it to be furnished with weathered pine, a softly upholstered sofa to the side, an oven that was well-worn and distressed cupboards. Not at all a reflection of the stern, tight-lipped man he was.

‘I’m not here for an inquisition. I don’t have to answer your questions. Where is he? I came to ask whether there was anything he needed from the shops. I didn’t expect to find you here.’

Alessandro found pretty much everything she said highly offensive, from the tone of her voice to her refusal to answer his questions to the implication that he was somehow vaguely responsible for his father’s non-appearance. Did she think that he had stashed Roberto away in a cupboard somewhere? To be retrieved a little later when it suited him?

‘And furthermore,’ Laura added for good measure, ‘I resent your insinuation that because I’m young I’m only friends with your father because he’s rich. You have no right to accuse me of something like that. You don’t even know who I am!’ She leaned forward, her cheeks flushed, more angry than she had ever been in her life. Angrier, it felt, than when she had discovered that the so-called love of her life was a married man with a toddler. Every single thing about the arrogant man staring at her with forbidding iciness got under her skin and made her see red.

‘Frankly, I don’t really care whether you resent my insinuations or not,’ Alessandro said coolly. ‘I intend to protect my father’s interests and if that means seeing off a friend, then so be it. Answer my questions and we can move forward. Sit there foaming at the mouth...and back on your bike you go.’

‘I am not foaming at the mouth!’

‘How long have you known my father?’

Frustrated, Laura yanked her hair out of its constricting ponytail and ran her fingers through its thick length, and for a few seconds the air was sucked out of his lungs. It was a rich mane of colour and very long, longer than fashionably chic, cascading over her shoulders. He tore his eyes away and frowned, unsettled.

‘Off and on for years.’ Laura reluctantly gave him the information he wanted because she had a feeling that he wouldn’t stop until she had told him what he wanted to know. Frankly, he probably wouldn’t let her out of the kitchen until she told him what he wanted to know. He would probably strap her to the chair, shine a torch on her face and keep asking his wretched questions until she answered him.

And maybe he had a point. Roberto was very, very wealthy and could potentially be a target for gold-diggers. And she was, after all, seriously young to be his friend, even if she was only passably attractive. It was one thing to have no illusions about the way you looked. It was another thing to have someone point out your physical shortcomings without even bothering to be nice about it.

She knew that she wasn’t blessed with knock-’em-dead looks. She had lived in London long enough to realise that the tall and skinny ruled the roost when it came to what was deemed sexy and attractive.

But had there been any need for him to point it out? The throwaway insult hovered at the back of her mind like a thorn. Odious man.

‘Years...’ Alessandro said, frowning. She wasn’t lying. Her face couldn’t have been more transparent, and yet how was it that he hadn’t even known of her existence?

‘Before I went to London,’ Laura confirmed. ‘He belonged to the same gardening group as me and...as me. He loves horticulture, you know. And playing chess. Ever since I returned from London I’ve been playing chess with him once a week. He’s a brilliant chess player.’

‘You’re telling me that the only interest you have in my father is as fellow chess player and gardener.’

‘It’s not solely about the gardening.’ Laura bristled. ‘It’s the thrill of spotting rare plants, trying to produce interesting hybrids...’ She noted the blank expression on his face. ‘I don’t suppose you have any plants where you live,’ she tacked on. ‘Roberto says that you live in a flat.’

‘Penthouse apartment, and, no, no plants that I can think of offhand,’ Alessandro responded automatically. ‘So you play chess and talk about plants.’

‘Pretty much.’ The silence stretched between them until she began to fidget uncomfortably. ‘It’s called having hobbies. You must have some of those...’

‘I work,’ Alessandro replied shortly. ‘And...’ he suddenly smiled and just like that his face was transformed, the harsh, unyielding lines smoothed out to give a picture of mind-blowing sexiness ‘...I play. I consider both to be my hobbies...’

Colour had invaded her cheeks. Her green eyes were locked to his face. When she nervously licked her lips, she saw the way his eyes absently followed the movement and that made her go even redder. ‘Play?’ she asked feebly. Her brain seemed to have gone AWOL. He was still half smiling, his head inclined slightly to one side, and she was still beetroot red, uncomfortable in her own skin and not liking the sensation.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’m very good at playing.’

Laura blinked and came back down to earth. ‘Well, your father enjoys his chess and his plants and...’

‘And?’

‘This and that. He’s had to take it easy after the stroke and, of course, he’s only really now back on his feet properly after the fall, but he’ll be back in the swing of things in no time at all.’

‘What’s this and that?’ Trampolining? Abseiling? White-water rafting? He’d had no idea that his father was an active member of the local horticultural society so the this and that could literally, in his books, have applied to anything at all.

Laura shrugged evasively. ‘Usual. The point is that he can start back doing all the stuff he enjoys now. So you can go back down to London, safe in the knowledge that he’s well looked after. No need to feel duty bound to rush up here and check him over. Not to mention check over his friends and the people who work for him. No need for you to think that you have to keep an eye and give people the sack or dock their pay or whatever else you think might be necessary...’

Alessandro looked in wonderment at the pink-faced woman glaring defiantly at him. When was the last time he had encountered someone with such barefaced cheek? Actually, had he ever? Whatever angle women took with him, it never included being lippy.

‘Before we get on to the juicy bit of what I have to say...’ Alessandro relaxed back and crossed his legs, ankle resting lightly on his knee, hands linked on his lap. ‘I’m curious.’

‘What about?’ Laura didn’t care for his loose-limbed, relaxed pose because it resembled the looseness of a predator just before it homed in for a kill.

‘About what brought you back from London to this...’ he looked around him, as though in search of an inspiring adjective ‘...backwater.’

Laura bristled. He was doing it again. Turning her into a self-defensive, shrieking harridan, which was not her at all.

She breathed in deeply and tried to think Zen thoughts. ‘This isn’t a backwater.’ Her voice was quiet and even, even if her blood was boiling. ‘If you took the time to really look around you, you’d see that it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. There’s everything you could possibly hope to want in Scotland. There are castles, lochs, rivers and lakes, mountains... It’s a wonderfully peaceful place...’

‘Interesting travelogue. I’m more of an urban guy myself but is that an invitation to show me the sights and win me over?’

‘It most certainly is not!’

Alessandro laughed, really laughed, with humour, his dark eyes lazy and amused as they rested on her flushed face.

‘Shame,’ he mused pensively. ‘A personal tour might really go the distance in winning me over to its charms. So you moved here because there are castles and lakes and it’s peaceful.’

Laura didn’t actually think that her reasons for moving back to Scotland were any of the man’s business but would he keep pressing? Secrets always engendered curiosity in other people and naturally she didn’t care one way or another whether he was curious or not but still...why make things harder for herself?

‘Partly, and also because my grandmother had a turn...’ Which was somewhat true and left out the bigger part of her reason, namely her ill-advised, foolish love affair.

‘Had a turn?’

‘Was getting dizzy spells, suffering with her balance. She lives on her own and I wanted to be here for her.’ She looked wistfully off into the distance. ‘She was there for me when my parents died. I didn’t begrudge returning to be here for her.’

Alessandro swiftly dispelled the glaring contradictions between them. He was here on behalf of his father, to take him down to London even though he might protest the move. It was for his own good! For a start, there was just so much choice when it came to various medical treatments, and having had both a stroke and a fall, who knew what medical treatment the future held for him? In London, he would receive the best!

‘Big of you,’ Alessandro murmured. ‘I can only think that it must have been a wrench leaving the bright city lights and returning to all this peace and tranquillity. What was your job in London?’

He wasn’t interested. Not really. He was simply establishing her credentials, working out whether she was a threat to his father’s fortune or not. She knew that.

She wondered what had possessed her to come cycling here today and, having seen that SUV skewed in the courtyard, what had further possessed her to ring the doorbell, knowing that Roberto’s son would be on the premises.

Fate had really decided to have a laugh at her expense.

‘I worked as a PA.’ She lowered her eyes, a little flicker of movement that Alessandro’s keen antennae picked up.

‘What company?’

‘I don’t know what that has to do with anything!’ she snapped, bright spots of colour on her cheeks.

‘You’re right. It hasn’t. And I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known that I was getting too close to state secrets.’

‘It’s no big deal.’ And yet, for some reason, she was reluctant to say the name of the firm out loud. Was it because she would be reminded of Colin? And the mortification of finding out that he had been lying to her? The horror of realising just how naive she had been to have handed over her trust to a smooth-talker? The shame when she thought that he had seen how green round the gills she’d been and had known that she would have lacked the experience to figure out what a bastard he really was?

She surfaced to find Alessandro’s dark eyes pinned thoughtfully to her face and she tilted her chin stubbornly and told him the name of the company.

‘Not,’ she repeated, ‘that it’s any of your business.’

‘I know the company,’ he murmured, still looking at her in a way that made her feel as though he could see right down deep into the very core of her. ‘And naturally I’m interested in finding out about one of my father’s friends... Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I didn’t think you were ever interested before,’ Laura pointed out. ‘I mean, you could have come to visit when there have been things going on...joined in...’

‘Things? What sort of things?’

‘Oh, you know...we yokels try to have a barn dance at least once a month and let’s not forget the annual hog roast while we all stand outside and admire the peaceful countryside...’

He burst out laughing. Suddenly those thoughtful eyes were dark with lazy appreciation.

Sexy, sharp-tongued, lippy...funny.

‘I prefer the barn dances in London,’ he told her with mock seriousness. ‘And the hog roasts are good, too, although, of course, we all tend to stand outside and admire the pollution. Happy times...’

Laura didn’t want to laugh but she had to fight the urge. ‘It’s good of you to visit him,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘I suppose you’ve been worried but, like I said, there’s no need. I try to check on him every day after work.’

‘Oh? You managed to find yourself another PA job here?’ He wasn’t even sure what companies existed in the small town. He definitely wouldn’t have put it down as somewhere with a flourishing employment sector.

‘I realised that working as someone’s personal assistant wasn’t what I wanted to do.’

‘No?’

‘When I came back here, I landed a teaching job and it’s very fulfilling. I teach at the local primary school. It’s small and there are only a handful of kids in each class, but it’s extremely rewarding.’

‘Teacher.’

‘The hours are convenient and, of course, there are the holidays and half-terms, and because it’s a small village school I know all the mums on a one-to-one basis.’ It was a terrific job, nothing to be ashamed of, and yet Laura couldn’t stop the feeling of being just a little drab, just a tiny bit of a country bumpkin.

‘Cosy.’

‘I expect you must find it all very boring, but not everyone is consumed with wanting to live in a city and make pots of money.’

‘I can’t recall saying anything about finding what you do boring, although I question how much personal satisfaction you must get in a place as small as this, especially after living in London.’

‘I got sick of the rat race,’ she told him shortly, and his eyebrows shot up.

‘Bit young to be jaded about that, wouldn’t you say? Normally that’s something that tends to afflict the over-forties. What about all the excitement?’

‘I’d had it with excitement.’

‘Ah,’ Alessandro murmured, and she shot him a sharp, narrowed look, which he returned with bland innocence.

‘Is that all? Have you finished questioning me? Maybe you could point me in the direction of your father, if, of course, I’ve passed the test.’

‘He’s in his greenhouse.’ Alessandro jerked his head in the general direction of the back gardens but his eyes remained pinned to her face.

So she’d returned to her grandmother to lick her wounds. Maybe her grandmother really had had some kind of turn but he was sharp enough to get the lie of the land...she’d had some sort of unpleasant experience in London involving a guy, probably someone she worked with, judging from the shifty way she had talked about her place of work. She might wax lyrical about the peace and tranquillity and lakes and rivers, but the truth was that she’d had her heart broken and had returned to her comfort zone to patch herself up.

He found himself wondering what sort of guy she had got involved with and promptly nipped his curiosity in the bud because after this weekend he doubted he would ever lay eyes on the woman again.

Which was something of a shame. In fact, something of a shame he hadn’t laid eyes on her before, on one of his rare forays into the Scottish wilds. She would certainly have made his duty visits a lot more alluring. Biting winds, depressingly bleak and empty countryside and his father’s challenged conversational skills would definitely have been easier to endure...

‘Right.’ Laura stood up and thought that she should be feeling more relieved to be out of the presence of this odious man than she actually was.

‘I wouldn’t bother having the food conversation, though.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You mentioned that you had cycled over to do your Good Samaritan duty...an offer to go food shopping for him, as if my father doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay someone to do that on his behalf. Actually—and I’m sure you know this—he could pay a chef to buy the food and cook it if he wanted. It would certainly spare him the stuff Freya churns out...’

Laura did her best not to agree with him. She had a good enough relationship with Freya, who occasionally cracked a half-smile in her presence, but no one could say that the woman produced haute cuisine.

‘Your father likes plain, simple food.’

‘Just as well. With sour-faced Freya at the helm, it’s all he’s ever likely to get.’

‘Why shouldn’t I ask him if he needs anything?’

‘Because there’s no point filling the cupboards only to empty them again in the space of a few days. Waste of time.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’ Laura stared at that drop-dead-gorgeous, arrogant face and subsided back into her chair like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.

‘There’s a reason I’ve come up here,’ Alessandro explained calmly. ‘I’ve spoken to my father about this on a number of occasions, and I’ve emailed him...’ He sighed heavily and flung his head back, half closing his eyes as he thought about the frustration of dealing with someone who didn’t want to face the inevitable. It shouldn’t be like this. He knew that. Of course, history couldn’t be altered any more than the present could be changed...but it shouldn’t be like this, a constant uphill struggle.

‘I’m confused,’ Laura said urgently. ‘Spoken to him about what? Emailed him about what?’

Alessandro opened his eyes and looked at her in silence for a few seconds. ‘He hasn’t confided in you, then. Odd, considering you’re supposed to be best buddies.’

‘Please stop being sarcastic and tell me what’s going on.’

‘I’ve come up here to take my father back down to London with me.’

‘Take him?’ Laura looked at him in complete bewilderment. ‘Take him down for a few days?’

‘Not quite,’ he said gently. ‘Brace yourself. Roberto’s stint here in Scotland is at an end. I’m taking him down to London with me and he won’t be returning. The house will be packed up, necessities shipped down to London, the rest removed for auction. I’ve bought him an apartment in Chelsea. It’s the right size and if he’s in London I can keep an eye on him.’

Laura was finding it hard to keep track of what he was saying because none of it made any sense.

‘You’re kidding. Aren’t you?’

‘I never kid about things like that. Hasn’t he mentioned any of this to you? On any of your Little Red Riding Hood visits?’

For a second, Laura wanted to throw something at him. How could he just sit here, discussing the future of an old man, talking about it in a voice that was dry and cool and caustic?

‘You,’ she hissed in a driven undertone, ‘are the most...the most...’

‘Spit it out. I assure you I won’t take it personally.’

‘The most obnoxious person I have ever met in my entire life! It’s no wonder that...’

‘That what?’

They stared at each other in silence. Laura could hear the pounding of her heart, could feel the blood rushing hotly through her veins. ‘That nothing...’ she muttered, casting her eyes downwards. She had raced towards a cliff and almost flung herself over the side. What did she know of the relationship between father and son? She surmised. Roberto had never come out and said anything derogatory about Alessandro, but the cold distance between them was as obvious as a neon sign in a dark street.

The truth was that it was not really her business. And because the man sitting opposite her rattled her, it did not give her the excuse to say things that shouldn’t be said or to voice thoughts that should remain in her head.

Alessandro chose to let that go.

Did he really want to find out what might have been said about him behind his back? No! This was how it was between his father and himself but he wasn’t going to put himself through unnecessary irritation by having an outside party share their opinion on the situation. No way.

He looked at her coldly, noting her discomfort and choosing not to relieve her of it.

‘He hasn’t breathed a word of this to me or to... Well, I’m shocked. Beyond shocked. I can’t believe you’re going to try to wrench poor Roberto away from everything he...he holds dear and fling him into the mad chaos of London life. You can’t. You just can’t!’

‘No need to panic,’ Alessandro murmured in a soft voice that sent chills racing through her. ‘It’s a spacious three-bedroom apartment. All mod cons, including en suite bathrooms. I’m sure he’ll keep a bedroom free for his special friends.’ He was repulsed by the thought of her having anything to do with his father beyond the purely platonic. Yes, she had denied that connection, but if that were the case, why the horror and dismay?

Why the extreme reaction? She looked as distraught as Chicken Little when the sky was falling down.

His lips thinned and she knew exactly what he was getting at. Where was a heavy object when you needed one? she fumed.

‘And if he hasn’t mentioned anything to you,’ Alessandro inserted smoothly, ‘I put that down to denial. Because I’ve been having this conversation with my father for the past six months.’

Laura looked at him in stunned silence.

‘He’s old...’

‘My point exactly! The stroke...the fractured pelvis... He can’t deal with this bloody great big mansion. He needs somewhere more compact. He needs to be able to make it to his bedroom from the kitchen in under three hours.’

‘Please don’t exaggerate. Like you said, Roberto could afford as much help as he wants to. At the moment he just has Freya and Fergus, but I’m sure he would employ someone else to help him if he thought he needed it.’

‘This isn’t a subject that’s open to debate. I’m not thrusting him into a rabbit hutch in the centre of the city. He’ll adjust. London is full of exciting things.’

‘Old people don’t want excitement,’ Laura said flatly. ‘They want routine. They want stability. They want to be surrounded by the people and faces they’re familiar with.’

Alessandro stared at her with incredulity. Were they talking about the same man?

‘And how often are you going to visit him?’ she pursued, ignoring his closed expression. ‘Are you going to make sure he settles in? Will you be taking him under your wing? Or will you be visiting him four times a year but happily with a much shorter journey?’

Alessandro scowled. ‘Your concern is touching but I assure you...he’ll be just fine. And, incidentally, who are these familiar faces he needs to surround himself with?’

‘He has lots of friends in the village.’

‘Aside from you?’

‘Yes, aside from me! What do you think he does during the days? I mean, I know his health hasn’t been great recently, but before that? And now that he’s on the mend?’

Alessandro looked at her blankly.

‘You don’t know, do you? You haven’t got a clue. You want to drag him away from his home and you can’t even be bothered to find out what he’ll be missing! What his life here is all about!’

‘You’re shouting.’

‘I never shout!’ Her voice reverberated in the silence and she glared at him. ‘I usually never shout,’ she amended, ‘but I’m just so...angry. And stop staring at me. I suppose you’ve never been shouted at by anyone in your life before?’

‘Correct.’

Drawn out of her state of shock, Laura peered suspiciously at him. ‘No one ever gets mad at you?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Ever?’

‘You’re looking at me as though you find that hard to believe,’ Alessandro returned coolly. Taking away the physical side of things, on every level this woman offended him on all fronts. He had no thoughts one way or another on other people and the choices they made in terms of relationships. As far as he was concerned, the rest of humanity could hurl themselves into pointless marriages like lemmings jumping off a cliff, only to find themselves picking up the pieces and counting the pennies when those marriages crashed and burned. Which most of them did.

As for himself, he had no intention, and never had, of getting wrapped up with any woman. He had led a life that was ruled by his head and he liked that. Maybe the cold withdrawal of his only parent had pointed him down that path. It wasn’t something he had wasted his time analysing. He just knew that, for him, women were there to be savoured and enjoyed until the time came for him to push on. They were his stress-free zone, a welcome break from the enjoyable frenzy of being at the top of the game in the world of business.

A woman who shouted did not constitute a stress-free zone.

‘I do,’ Laura said truthfully.

‘Women, especially, fall into that category.’

‘I find that even harder to believe.’

‘I don’t encourage temper tantrums,’ he said smoothly. ‘There’s something about a screaming woman I don’t find a turn-on.’

Just as well my aim isn’t to turn you on, Laura thought. The pulse in her throat kicked up a steady beat. She took in his lazy sprawl, the brooding night-dark gaze of his eyes, the harsh, perfect contours of his face, and something inside her flared into unwelcome, unexpected life.

Suddenly confused, she banked it down.

‘I just think that before you start trying to pull the rug from underneath someone’s feet, you should make an effort to understand where they’re coming from and what they would lose. Doesn’t your father have any say in this? Or are you going to stampede through his objections and do what you think is best?’

‘This conversation is going round in circles.’ Alessandro raked his fingers impatiently through his hair, spared her a searing glance and then stood up to help himself to a bottle of water from the fridge, which he drank in one long swallow. Then he leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at her. ‘I’ll do what I consider best for my father and you can pull all the hysterical, emotive language out of the bag, but nothing is going to change that. Like I told you, I’ve talked to my father about this. If he chose not to keep you in the loop, then what can I say?’ He shrugged and stared at her flushed face.

‘There’s something you should know,’ Laura said grudgingly, and Alessandro stilled.

‘I’m all ears.’

‘It’s not just that your father has a social life in the village, and if...’ she looked at him with a flare of uncharacteristic rebellion in her wide, green eyes ‘...he chose to keep you out of the loop, then what can I say? He’s also...well...you probably have cut-and-dried opinions on love, but he’s involved with someone locally...’

For a few seconds, and for maybe the first time in his life, Alessandro was rendered speechless. Her words filtered into his consciousness, tried to take shape but then dissolved before they could link up and make any sense.

‘Did you just hear what I said?’

‘I heard you. I’m just not following... You’re telling me that my father has a girlfriend?’

‘My gran.’

Perplexed, Alessandro shook his head in an attempt to get the connections in his brain to start working.

Laura saw his bewilderment and suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt a sharp pang of sympathy and compassion for him. Didn’t this say everything there was to say about the kind of relationship he had with Roberto? One in which nothing personal was ever discussed? In which no emotion was ever allowed to surface? How on earth had that happened?

‘My father is going out with your...your grandmother? How does that even make sense?’

‘It’s easy,’ Laura said drily. ‘They met ages ago and have been friends for a long time, but in the past few months, a bit longer, actually, they’ve begun seeing one another. Going on dates, that kind of thing...’

‘My father goes on dates?’

‘It happens. Two people have a solid friendship...one thing leads to another... He’s still an attractive guy. I’d bet there are a few ladies in the gardening club who have had their eye on him.’

Alessandro walked back to the table, sat down, stared off for a few frowning moments into space, then focused on the woman looking at him, head inclined, her soft lips parted.

‘Details.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘How long exactly has this dating game been going on? And your grandmother...where does she live? Widowed? Divorced? How old is she?’

Laura tensed, predicting the direction of his assumptions. ‘You’ve accused me of being a gold-digger,’ she said coldly. ‘You couldn’t have been further from the truth. And don’t you even dare think of implying that my grandmother is after your dad’s money, either! They’re just two people who get along and enjoy one another’s company. If you want the bare details, here they are.

‘My grandmother lives in a little house on the outskirts of the village about twenty minutes away. She’s lived here all her life and, yes, she’s widowed. My grandfather passed on more years ago than I care to think. She never really thought about ever finding anyone else, least of all someone she’s known since for ever, but, then, it’s really only in the past ten years or so that your father has really begun integrating himself into the community. He was quite reclusive before that. I guess work kept him away a lot...and of course my gran would have been busy working in the neighbouring town. She ran the garden centre there. Only gave up five years ago because the travel was getting a bit of a nuisance, especially in the winter. ’Course, she drove there, but you have no idea how freez—’

‘I’m getting the picture. Age?’

‘Huh? Oh. Right. Seventy-six. So that’s just one of the reasons why it would be heartbreaking for you to charge up here and try to force him to leave.’

‘Charge? Force? Heartbreaking?’

But this put a new spin on things. Maybe he should personally check out the situation. His father was dating someone whose granddaughter was his best buddy. Cynicism was ingrained in Alessandro, as much a vital part of him as drawing breath. Could this pair be working in tandem? It was far-fetched but sometimes far-fetched turned out to be reality and it always paid to be on the safe side, especially when tens of millions of pounds were at stake.

‘You’re right.’

‘I am?’ Laura looked at him warily, trying to see behind that thoughtful, speculative expression.

‘If my father is to leave this place, then it’s not up to me to be heavy-handed. I need to persuade him that there’s life beyond the Scottish boundaries...’

‘He won’t be persuaded, I’m sure of that.’

Alessandro dealt her a slashing smile. So this weekend might not happen, but that was fine. He was the kind of guy who could think outside the box when it came to dealing with unexpected situations. Like this. And, being perfectly honest, the lush appeal of the woman currently looking at him as though she expected him to produce a bomb from up his sleeve would certainly introduce a bit of entertainment to the menu.

‘But worth a try, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, you’ve spent the past hour wringing your hands and wailing that I’m being unfair. So I’m sure you’d have no objections to...showing me first-hand this fuzzy, warm social life my father would be so loath to leave behind...’

CHAPTER THREE

‘BOY’S LATE. PROBABLY changed his mind. Probably decided that it’d be better to airlift me out of my own damned house than go through this charade of pretending he’s interested in anything I do!’

Laura looked at Roberto anxiously. Alessandro was half an hour late and who better than she to know the vagaries of transport? Trains that laughed in the face of timetables. Cabs that got stuck in traffic and crawled along as though they were submerged in treacle. Planes that hovered and circled and hovered and circled because they were at the back of a queue.

‘He said he’d come,’ she told him firmly while sneaking a glance at her watch. It was nearly six and the two of them were hovering like maiden aunts waiting for their wayward charge to return home.

It was ridiculous.

‘My son has his own damned personal schedule! Lives for his work!’ He repositioned his tie and banged his walking stick on the wooden floor. ‘Probably got a call and, of course, any call would take precedence over coming to Scotland! Never could stand the place! Always preferred that namby-pamby London life!’ He threw her a sly look. ‘’Course, something else could have held him up!’

‘Yes?’ She looked at Roberto affectionately. He still belonged to an era when ties were de rigueur, whatever the occasion, and trousers were always belted firmly at the waist. He was dressed in a jumper with the crisp white shirt underneath neatly buttoned to the neck, the knot of his dark, striped tie crisply in place and a pair of his most casual slacks, which were still pressed into submission with no-nonsense creases down the middle of the legs. His shoes gleamed. He looked such a vision that she had taken a picture of him on her phone so that she could send it to her grandmother. He had, naturally, grumbled, although she’d noticed that he had surreptitiously neatened his thick silver hair with his hand before the shot.

‘Floozy.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Floozy. Has enough of them chasing behind him! Met one or two myself. Silly little airheads but sometimes even the smartest of men can’t resist a—’

‘I get the picture, Roberto!’ She led him away from that subject back to plants and gardens and the cookery club her grandmother wanted him to join.

The last thing she needed was to hear about Alessandro and his so-called floozies.

In fact, the last thing she wanted was to be here, on a Friday evening, wearing a long-sleeved, knee-length dress and boots and waiting for a guy who had managed to get under her skin in a very, very irritating way. She had spent the past week thinking about him, hadn’t been able to shake him out of her head, and having to face him again was not what she wanted.

But here she was because Roberto had told her that the three of them would be going out.

‘Got it into his head that the old man’s life’s suddenly interesting!’ Roberto had announced. ‘Told him it was a damned sight more interesting than one that was just work, work, work and some floozies in between!’ After that he had sat her down and explained the whole business of the move he didn’t want and wasn’t going to be forced into. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to discuss it with her grandmother and she wasn’t to say a word. He would talk to Edith himself when she returned, not, he insisted, that he was going anywhere.

‘But if the boy wants to try to move me, then he can try all he wants! He’ll soon find out that this old bugger won’t be going anywhere!’

Laura had picked up the thread of trepidation running through his bravado and had instantly agreed to be by his side when Alessandro arrived. She would not, emphatically would not, be sticking around for the entire weekend but, yes, she would accompany them to dinner at the newly opened fish restaurant in the neighbouring town.

Now Roberto was fretting but before she could start soothing him all over again they heard an overhead roar and they both hurried over to the big bay window, peered out and registered the presence of a helicopter, which was circling, finding the right spot in the immense garden outside, before landing. The blindingly bright beam cutting through the darkness was an impressive sight. Laura would put money on every single person in the town craning their necks out of their windows and wondering what the heck was going on.

‘Might have guessed he wouldn’t have come like any other person!’ He was already hobbling out of the sitting room, where they had been chatting in front of a pot of tea, and Laura sprinted after him, reaching the front door just as it was opened and there he was, as tall, as sinfully good-looking, as aristocratically arrogant as she remembered.

‘Hope you haven’t set that thing down on any of my plants!’ Roberto bellowed as the rotors wound down to a noisy din.

Alessandro glanced wryly past him to catch Laura’s eye and her skin was suddenly on fire.

‘And thank you for that warm welcome.’ Alessandro turned back to signal something to his pilot, then stepped into the hall, shutting the door behind him. His sharp eyes didn’t miss a thing. His father still had the same mutinous expression on his face as he had had the weekend before, when Alessandro had tried to get him to talk about moving, and Laura...

She’d been on his mind. He hadn’t been able to work that one out. Was it because, in a sea of predictable women, she had been the only one to have ever contradicted him? Had the novelty of being criticised got under his skin and provoked a reaction? Like nettle rash? Something annoying you couldn’t ignore? Or had the lack of a female presence in his life had something to do with it? It had been a couple of months since he had seen off his last girlfriend.

He didn’t analyse the reaction. He just knew that the weekend planned had lain in front of him, glittering like a gem on the horizon. And that, in itself, was spectacular, considering how reluctant his visits had been in the past, obligatory visits to be endured before returning to the sanity of city life.

‘You’re late. Was about to head to the kitchen and take something out of the fridge!’

He glanced at Laura to see whether she, like him, was irritated with his father’s impatience, but when he looked at her it was to see that she was smiling indulgently at Roberto, her hand resting lightly on his forearm, a gesture of affection that his father appeared to take for granted.

‘If Freya stocks the fridge,’ Alessandro said evenly, ‘then I wouldn’t count on the contents to be inspiring. I’ll be ten minutes at the most. I need to send a quick email.’

Laura frowned. She knew that Roberto had been dressed and waiting for the past hour and a half. She’d helped him with his tie and she’d seen, from the other three ties draped over the back of the chair, that he’d had a task choosing the one he wanted to wear.

‘I think we should head off sooner rather than later,’ she murmured, catching Alessandro’s eye and holding it. ‘Roberto always has an early night.’

‘Roberto can go to bed whenever he damned well wants to!’ Roberto announced, but she felt him relax a little when Alessandro immediately nodded and dumped his case on the floor.

‘I’m having a car delivered to me in the morning.’ Alessandro fished his mobile out of his pocket. ‘What’s the number for the local taxi company?’

‘No need,’ Laura said briskly. She hooked her arm through Roberto’s and then turned to him and tucked his scarf neatly into his overcoat.

‘You’re always faffing and fussing, girl!’

But again Alessandro was made aware of a relationship he had never even known existed, a relationship from which he was made to feel like an outsider. His father, grumbling and chiding, was clearly pleased to have her fuss over him.

‘Someone has to when my grandmother isn’t around,’ she murmured, and Roberto shot his son a sidelong look before shooing her away. ‘There’s no need to call a taxi.’ She stood back, head cocked, making sure everything was up to her inspection with Roberto’s outfit. ‘I’ve brought my car.’

‘You’re going to drive us?’ Alessandro let them pass and slammed the door behind them.

‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel comfortable with a woman behind the wheel,’ she said with saccharine sweetness. ‘Because if that’s the case, then you’re a dinosaur.’

‘Girl speaks her mind!’ Roberto chortled smugly. ‘Something you’ll have to get used to, my boy!’ He absently patted her hand as they trundled towards the side of the house.

‘You intend to take us out in that?’ Squatting directly under one of the security lights that surrounded the house was an ageing Morris Minor. ‘I thought those cars were extinct,’ he murmured. ‘Along with the dinosaurs you mentioned.’

‘It’s very reliable,’ Laura told him tartly.

‘Except for last winter,’ Roberto pointed out, and for the duration of the drive they launched into an extended anecdote about the unpredictability of her car, which, Alessandro assumed, he was supposed to find uproariously hilarious. He wondered why his father didn’t just buy her something more reliable and then grimaced because had he done that, Alessandro knew that he would have been the first to point out that his father was being ripped off.

He had intended to bring up the matter of the move but, over a surprisingly good meal, he found every effort thwarted.

They had in-jokes. They talked about people in the village. They spent way too long discussing some orchids someone or other had done something or other with, only desisting when Alessandro was forced to butt in and shut down that particular topic or risk falling asleep. He heard his father laugh. Twice. The sound was so unusual that he wondered whether his ears had been playing up but, no, at the end of an hour and a half he could see for himself that the life he had envisioned his father having might have been slightly off target.

And he had known nothing about it.

‘So how long will you be staying?’ Laura asked politely, when, engine still running, they were back at the manor house.

‘This has been the most uncomfortable journey of my life,’ Alessandro informed her as he levered his big body out of the back seat. ‘Why is your engine still running? I take it you’re coming in.’

‘I hadn’t intended to.’

‘Girl’s got to be on her way!’ Roberto announced.

‘In that case,’ Alessandro countered, ‘we can have some time to discuss your move.’

‘Not tonight, my boy. This old man needs his beauty sleep!’

‘I’ll come in for a couple of minutes.’

Roberto, on his way to the front door, paused to look at the two of them, eyes narrowed. ‘Can’t think Edith will want you gallivanting all over the country at this time of the night!’

Laura laughed as she joined them to walk to the front door. Roberto’s bushy brows were drawn together in a frown. ‘Hardly gallivanting all over the country,’ she soothed. ‘My grandmother worries too much.’

‘With good cause,’ Roberto muttered, rapping his walking stick on the front door impatiently as Alessandro jangled a bunch of keys, hunting out the right one. ‘After all those shenanigans in London!’

‘Here we go!’ Laura trilled, hoping to drown out that utterly, utterly inappropriate remark and mentally vowing to warn her grandmother about any more confidences while Alessandro was on the scene, earwigging. ‘Back home and I must say the meal was delicious!’

Much as she didn’t want to spend time in Alessandro’s company, she knew that she would have to, at least for half an hour or so. First, she wanted to find out how long he intended staying in Scotland, because having a car delivered was not a good sign. Second, she was desperate to know whether he was rethinking his silly decision to try to browbeat Roberto into moving down to London.

She had seen the way Roberto had deflected all attempts to manoeuvre the conversation to the move and she knew that whatever relationship the two had, it would crash and burn completely if Alessandro kept hammering away at his father, trying to force a move that wasn’t wanted.

Couldn’t he see that?

Did he care?

And how on earth had these two ended up at such loggerheads...?

She was curious. She shouldn’t be but she was. She was waved aside when she offered to walk Roberto up the stairs and it was only when he had disappeared from sight that she felt the power of Alessandro’s presence wrap around her like a stranglehold.

In the busyness of leaving the house and driving to the restaurant and then doing her utmost to carry the conversation to any topic that would demonstrate Roberto’s ties to the community, she had forgotten how uncomfortable she felt in the dress.

Now, as those dark eyes settled on her, she had to stop herself from tugging it down.

‘Drink?’ He looked at her for a few seconds. She was wearing a dress that was never going to win prizes at a fashion show. It was an awkward length and, twinned with serviceable boots, gave the impression of someone who wasn’t into clothes. His was a rich diet of catwalk models but he had still found his eyes straying time and time again over dinner to the way the fabric stretched over her full breasts, the way the neckline offered just a glimpse of cleavage, enough for his imagination to take flight. ‘Because I’m guessing that the only reason you volunteered to come in was because there’s something you want to say to me. A stiff gin and tonic might move things along.’

Laura scowled. With no Roberto around, he was back to being the arrogant, obnoxious guy who thought it was amusing to needle her. She could also tell from the way his eyes had skimmed over her that he found her get-up funny—the dress, which hadn’t seen the light of day since London, and even then had only been worn once, the boots, which were sturdy, useful and most of all warm, but hardly the height of fashion.

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