With the whole outfit put together—the classic jewellery round her neck, the perilously high shoes adding a further four inches to her frame, the dress which clung in all the right places—she felt like a million dollars. And she felt even better when she saw the expression in his eyes as he stood watching her descend the staircase.

‘Stop that,’ he said unsteadily, and Megan gathered herself sufficiently to answer.

‘Stop what?’

‘Looking so damned sexy. An outing to the theatre doesn’t stand a chance when your mouth is begging to be kissed… along with every other part of your body. Maybe,’ he growled, taking her in his arms, ‘we should just keep the taxi waiting a few minutes.’

Megan laughed and touched the extravagant string of diamonds at her neck. ‘I’m not missing a minute of this play, Alessandro Caretti!’

‘Are you telling me that I take second place in your life to a bunch of actors on a stage?’

She sighed. ‘I’m not your property, Alessandro.’

‘When it comes to my women, I don’t do sharing.’

Cathy Williams is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband, Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

Recent titles by the same author:

RUTHLESS TYCOON, INEXPERIENCED MISTRESS

RAFAEL’S SUITABLE BRIDE

BEDDED AT THE BILLIONAIRE’S CONVENIENCE

THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET LOVE-CHILD

THE MULTI-MILLIONAIRE’S VIRGIN MISTRESS

BY

CATHY WILLIAMS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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THE MULTI-MILLIONAIRE’S VIRGIN MISTRESS

PROLOGUE

‘WHAT the hell did you think you were playing at?’

Alessandro had stormed into the bedroom. There was no other way to put it. He had stormed into the bedroom. The beautiful, angular lines of his face were tight with anger and Megan didn’t know why. Well, she sort of knew why. She just couldn’t quite understand the depth of his fury.

‘Playing at?’ she asked weakly, hands clasped behind her back as she leant against the wall.

Having been practically shoved into the bedroom an hour before, like a stray bug that had inadvertently wandered into his bedsit, necessitating immediate quarantine, she had been on the verge of dozing off when the sound of his footsteps heading towards the room had seen her springing off the bed and virtually standing to attention by the window. Of course she had known that he wouldn’t be sunshine and light, not after his reaction to her perfectly innocent and well-intentioned birthday surprise. She just hadn’t reckoned on this backlash of anger.

‘You heard me! That ridiculous stunt of yours!’

The voice that could make her weak with love and longing, that could drive her mad with desire, was cold and cutting.

‘It wasn’t a ridiculous stunt. It was a birthday surprise. I thought you’d like it.’

‘Like you barging in unannounced and bursting out of a birthday cake? When I’m in the process of having a meeting with people who could change the direction of my life?’

Megan chewed her lip and stared at him. God, he was so beautiful. Even now, when he looked as though he would happily throttle her given half a chance, he was still sinfully sexy. Six foot two inches of gorgeous, head-turning masculinity, and all she wanted to do was coax him out of this black humour—because it was his birthday, after all, even if he had no desire to celebrate it.

She risked a little smile. ‘You have no idea how strenuous it is being a birthday cake! I have the scars to prove it!’ No exaggeration there, she thought. Her amazing plan had involved her friend Charlotte rigging up two boxes into something that resembled a cake—a piece of engineering which, Megan had been assured, would work like clockwork. One spring, and bingo! She would be revealed in all her glory! Her blonde curls had been tamed into a Marilyn Monroe format of soft waves, a mole had been perfectly positioned on one cheekbone, her full lips had been primed to scarlet, pouting perfection.

Needless to say they had not bargained on the full hour it had taken to be delivered in rush-hour traffic. Nor had they foreseen the possibility that the cunning contraption might prove to have a mind of its own, refusing to oblige a swift and easy exit, so that once in Alessandro’s poky front room she had found herself having to do battle with masking tape when her legs were numb and her blood circulation virtually non-existent.

It had all added up to an inglorious, fairly shambolic situation, which had seen her crawling out of the box amidst a mass of screwed-up tape and crunched-up pink tissue paper—at which point she had been confronted by the embarrassing sight of three men in pinstriped suits and one very, very angry boyfriend.

‘I was supposed to be Marilyn Monroe,’ she expanded, when her smile failed to make headway.

She gestured to her outfit, which had started off in much better condition. Three hours before it had been a glamorous black swimsuit, revealing a tantalising amount of cleavage. She also wore high, black shoes, long black gloves and fishnet stockings. The swimsuit was still intact, but one glove was currently residing somewhere in said birthday cake, the shoes had been kicked off, and the fishnet tights now sported a long, unattractive rip down one leg. Not so much Marilyn-of-the-Happy-Birthday-Song as Marilyn-on-Tour-of-War-duty.

‘I thought you’d be pleased.’ Her voice was growing less confident by the second. ‘Or at least find it funny.’

‘Megan…’ Alessandro sighed. ‘We need to…to talk…’

She relaxed a little. Yes, she could do talking. He was the most fascinating man she had ever met, and she could talk to him until the cows came home—especially now, when he was no longer glaring at her with eyes that were like chips of dark, glacial ice.

‘I guess we could…’ she said, taking a couple steps towards him. ‘Talk. Although…’ a few more steps and she was standing directly in front of him, looking up at him ‘…I can think of more interesting things to do…’ She splayed her hand across his chest, loving the feel of its rippling hardness. ‘I prefer it when you wear shirts, Alessandro. I like unbuttoning them. Have I ever told you that? Tee shirts just aren’t the same. Not that this black tee shirt doesn’t look very nice on you.’ It did. It wasn’t baggy and shapeless, but clung in a very masculine way.

Alessandro reached out and caught her wandering hand in his. ‘I said talk, Megan. And we can’t talk in here.’

‘Have your friends gone?’

‘They weren’t my friends.’

He dropped her hand and turned away, walking out of the bedroom so that she was obliged to follow him. He couldn’t think straight when Megan was anywhere near the vicinity of a bed—especially when she was wearing an outfit that revealed every single curve of her fabulous, sexy little body.

‘And put something on,’ he commanded, without looking round.

‘Oh, right. They’re the people who are going to change the direction of your life.’

En route, she grabbed one of his shirts. He only wore white shirts, which she had told him was a very boring trait indeed. She had tried to even the balance by buying him a garishly coloured Hawaiian shirt, with a pattern of lurid coconut trees against a brilliant blue background, but he had yet to wear it. She suspected that it had been shoved at the bottom of his wardrobe somewhere.

She sensed him stiffen at her throwaway remark, but he didn’t say anything. Just flung himself on the sofa that occupied one side of the space in his modest student accommodation, which only someone massively optimistic could call a sitting room.

It was literally a poky box, as he had told her on more than one occasion. But he had worked like a slave, he said, to put himself through university, and his destiny was to become master. Master of all he surveyed. Once he left, he would never look back

Megan didn’t like to think too hard about where all of this mastery and conquering of the universe stuff was going to take him. Out of her life, she guessed. But who knew? Eternally optimistic, and madly in love for the very first time in her life, she was happy to put any thoughts about an uncertain future on hold. She was nineteen. She had her own college life to think about. She didn’t want to foresee a day when her life wasn’t going to be joined up with his.

‘So who were they, anyway?’ she asked now, settling on the sofa next to him and tucking her legs underneath her. She had to stop herself from reaching out and touching his face.

It still surprised and delighted her that she had been lucky enough to fall in love for the very first time with a man so absolutely perfect in every way. Her friends all led chaotic love-lives, constantly euphoric or depressed, or else hanging on the end of the line waiting for some guy to call. Alessandro had never done that. He had taken her virginity and cherished the gift she had given him, never taking her for granted or making promises he had no intention of fulfilling.

‘They were…some fairly important people, Megan.’

He turned to look at her. Her hair was all over the place—soft, blonde hair, the colour of vanilla. Her cheeks were flushed, because he had obviously surprised her dozing. Only Megan could fall asleep in the space of seconds. Whilst wearing a ridiculous outfit. And after having made a complete fool of herself.

‘Sorry,’ she said in a contrite voice. Then, because she just couldn’t help herself, she leaned towards him and stroked the side of his face with the back of his hand. ‘I can understand why you were a bit put out when I appeared unannounced. Or should I say when I was brought in? Would have given anyone a shock. Especially an old man like you, Alessandro. Twenty-five years old! Practically over the hill! Do you realise it’s just a matter of time before you’re collecting your pension?’

She laughed, a rich, warm laugh which he had found infectious from the very first minute he had heard it across a crowded room, in a club to which he had been dragged by one of his colleagues at university who’d seemed to think he needed a break from his books. Every time he heard that laugh, which was often, he wanted to smile. Not, however, now.

‘Here’s how it was supposed to go. In an ideal world I would have made a dramatic entrance…or at least the cake would have made a dramatic entrance…and I would have leapt out of it, like the Marilyn Monroe equivalent of a Jack in the Box, stunning you with my wonderful outfit. Then I would have sung you ‘Happy Birthday’, even though I’ll be the first to admit that my voice is pretty average…’

‘Unfortunately…’ He edged away and looked at her with a shuttered expression. ‘Unfortunately you couldn’t have chosen a worse moment for your little surprise.’

‘No, well…’ Always so comfortable in his presence, Megan could feel stirrings of unease nibbling away inside her, even though really he no longer looked angry. ‘You never told me that you were expecting guests. You said that you would be working, and I just thought that it would be kind of nice to be surprised. You work too hard.’

‘I do what I have to do, Megan. How many times have I told you that?’

‘Yes, I know. You hate this place, and you work hard so that you can get out of it and do something with your life.’

‘I intend to do more than just something with my life.’

His father had done just something with his life. He had left poverty in Italy, hoping to find that the streets of London would be paved with gold. In the event they had been paved with tarmac and cement, just like everywhere else, and his father’s talents, his tremendous mathematical brain which had so enchanted Alessandro as a young boy, had become lost in the mindless boredom of manual work—because he had not been qualified to do anything else, and provincial little England had not been kind to a man whose grasp of English was broken. Never mind that his wife was English. An English rose with as few qualifications as her Italian husband. An English rose whose hands had been prematurely old from the cleaning jobs she had held down so that they could afford a small holiday once a year by the cold British seaside.

Alessandro didn’t like to think of the mother he had only known for the first ten years of his life. He liked even less to think of his father, loyally working for a haulage firm for twenty-five years, only to be made redundant at a time when he had been too old to get another job.

To his dying breath he had continued to tell his son what a wonderful life he had led.

To Alessandro’s way of thinking his father’s talents had been wasted, by lack of opportunity and the cruelty of a world that judged a man’s worth by bits of paper. He would, he had determined from an early age, get those bits of paper, and he would control the world so that it could never control him the way it had his father.

‘Those three men,’ he said, keeping that unaccustomed drift of memory to himself, ‘who were treated to your impromptu performance, are instrumental in my plan for the future.’

‘You mean, the pinstriped crew?’

He paused. ‘You need to grow up, Megan.’

That one statement, delivered with a coldness she had never heard before, was shocking. Yes, they were total opposites. They had laughed about that a million times. But he had always indulged her. She’d drag him away from his books with homemade picnics in the park and he would laugh at the sausage rolls and packets of biscuits and cheap wine. She would make a fool of herself singing karaoke, and he would shake his head in good-natured wonder and tell her never to consider a career in singing. He had never told her to grow up—and certainly never in that tone of voice.

‘It was just meant to be a bit of fun, Alessandro. How was I to know that the instruments of your plan would be here? And why do you have a plan, anyway? Really? Life’s not a chessboard, you know.’

‘That’s exactly what it is, Megan. A chessboard. The life we end up getting depends entirely on the moves we make.’

‘I know you want to do stuff with your life, Alessandro, but…’ Megan shot him a look of bemusement. This wasn’t quite the sort of talk she had been expecting, but it was certainly revealing. ‘You can’t plan everything. I mean, I really hope that I end up being a good teacher…’

‘In a small country school somewhere…’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with it,’ Alessandro told her patiently.

He looked at her expressive, open face and felt like a monster, but this was a conversation that had to be undertaken. His future had unexpectedly come rushing towards him like a freight train, leaving him no choice.

‘Did you ever think about qualifying and going to teach somewhere else?’

‘Somewhere else? Why should I? You know that St Nicks have offered me a post for after I qualify.’

Her face softened as she thought of the pleasing prospect of teaching the children there. She was nothing like the high-flier that Alessandro was, and her future might not be so ruthlessly controlled as his appeared to be, but it was still looking pretty rosy from where she was sitting.

‘Where else should I be going to teach?’

‘What about an inner-city school?’

‘Why are we having this conversation? Is it because you’re still mad at me—because I embarrassed you in front of those people? Don’t be…You wait right here, and I’m going to get us both something to drink. Some wine…’

She didn’t give him time to answer, or to follow up with some more heavy-duty remarks about life choices. Instead, she stood up and did a little sexy shimmy, throwing him a seductive look over one shoulder, before heading for the kitchen and pouring them a large glass of wine each.

She’d kind of hoped that he would be undressed when she returned, because he was always, but always, predictable when it came to being turned on by her, but he wasn’t. In fact, he was standing up, and he had an awkward look on his face that promised more talking.

Whatever those guys had said to him had obviously made him a little too thoughtful, and it was her duty, she told herself mischievously, to take his mind off matters. And at the back of her mind she knew she really didn’t want to hear what Alessandro wanted to say….

A very good place to start would be with his shirt. She placed the glasses on the small, beaten-up round table by the window and pulled off the white shirt, which she casually tossed over a chair.

‘Megan…’ Alessandro turned away and leaned heavily against the wall. ‘This isn’t a good time for this.’ He tensed as he heard her walk towards him. He could picture the teasing smile on her face.

‘Don’t tell me you’re getting too old for sex,’ she said to his averted back. ‘You’re only a year older!’ She wrapped her arms around his torso and then slipped her hands under the tee shirt, gently rubbing his flattened brown nipples with the tips of her fingers.

Alessandro shuddered, furious with himself for not being able to push her away when he knew that he had to. For both their sakes.

He felt the push of her breasts against him and turned round with a stifled moan, his big body arching back in denial of the primitive instincts he seemed unable to control.

He closed his eyes and shuddered again.

Nine months of seeing her, practically living with her, even though her college was over twenty miles away. Out towards the country because, she had told him often enough, big cities gave her a headache. Something about her was irresistible.

She took his hand and guided it to the strap of the black swimsuit which she was still wearing.

‘At least the cake wasn’t real,’ Megan murmured, already wet and hot for him. ‘Can you imagine if I’d emerged covered in Victoria sponge?’

She stood on tiptoe so that she could kiss his neck, and even though he wasn’t, as he usually was, devouring her with his hunger, he was responding. She could feel it in the tension of his muscles—and… She put her hand on him and shivered with pleasure at the very big, very hard indication of just how much he wanted her—even if, for some weird reason, he was trying to fight it.

‘Mind you,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you would have had to lick it all off…’

The image was too powerful for Alessandro. He looked at her, at the deep cleavage inviting him to touch, promising him physical satisfaction of the kind he had never known in his life before.

I am, he thought with a strange feeling of helplessness, only a man, dammit!

He hooked his fingers under the straps of the swimsuit and ran them up and down against her smooth skin.

‘A man could lose himself in the thought of that,’ he said roughly, and all thoughts of talk vanished as he pulled down the straps and gazed at her breasts, large in comparison to her small frame, and perfectly formed. Milky-white and succulently heavy, with rose-pink nipples like discs, pouting provocatively at him.

He pulled her shakily towards the sofa and then, kicking off his shoes, lay down. He figured he had damn near found heaven as she moved on top of him, sitting just in the right spot, so that he could feel the friction of his hardness against her through his trousers. She leant forwards, letting her breasts dangle temptingly above his mouth, and with a groan of utter abandonment Alessandro took one of the proffered nipples into his mouth, losing himself in the sensation of tasting her. He suckled on it, then when he was finished lavished the same attention on the other.

He wanted her completely naked. With fierce, driven movements he rid her of the swimsuit, stopping her when she tried to pull the tee shirt over his head.

‘But I want to see you…’ Megan whimpered.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he pushed her back, spreading her legs in one deft motion, and her protest died on her lips as she felt his tongue invade her, sliding and exploring her depths until she was squirming, turned on to the point where thinking became an impossibility.

‘Alessandro!’ She curled her fingers into his dark hair and tugged him up. She was breathing heavily, her eyes closed, and she felt him undo the zipper of his trousers so that he could free himself.

She wasn’t even entirely sure that he had removed his trousers before driving deep into her, his thrusting urgent, taking her by surprise.

It was quick, fierce lovemaking, and afterwards they were both breathless and spent. Alessandro was unusually quiet as he pushed himself away from her, so that he could get back into his jeans and then fetch a bottle of water from the fridge, which he proceeded to drink in one long swallow.

‘You need to get dressed, Megan, and then we’ll talk.’

Megan felt a chill of fear race up and down her spine, obliterating everything in its path.

Talk about what? she was desperate to ask, but his shuttered expression kept that question reined in, and she silently went to the bedroom and rescued the only items of clothing she kept at his place: a pair of jeans and a sweater.

When she returned, it was to find that he had taken up position by the table, so that when she sat down, facing him, it felt like an awkward interview.

‘If it’s about my cake surprise, you have my word I won’t do anything like that again. It’ll take more than one shampoo before my hair recovers from the masking tape. In fact, I’m going to have to sack my production manager.’

Alessandro didn’t return her grin. This was going to be a difficult conversation, made all the worse by the fact that they should never have made love. He had allowed himself a selfish luxury, one which he deeply regretted.

‘This isn’t about your cake surprise, Megan. This is about those three men who were here. I’ve been head-hunted.’ It had come as no great surprise to Alessandro. He was good. He had been head-hunted before, and had turned down all offers. With or without intervention, he was going to go places—although this particular intervention would be helpful in the near future.

‘Wow, Alessandro! That’s fantastic! We should celebrate…’ But it wasn’t a celebrating atmosphere. ‘You don’t look overjoyed.’

Alessandro shrugged. ‘Little do they realise it, but they will discover that they need me more than I need them.’

Megan laughed. ‘Well, no one could ever accuse you of not having a healthy ego, Alessandro.’

That wonderful laugh stirred something inside him which he chose to ignore.

‘I’ve been offered a job.’ He stood up, distancing himself from her. ‘In London.’

Those two words stilled the easy smile on her lips, replacing it with the cold hand of dread. ‘London? But you can’t go to London.’ What about us? ‘What about your Masters?’

‘It will have to take a back seat. I can finish it in my own time, but for the moment my future calls.’

She was trembling. She had banked on having him around for a few more months, at which point she would be able to cross the inevitable bridge. That bridge was now staring her in the face. Maybe, she thought, desperately salvaging the best possible take on the situation, they could carry on a long-distance relationship? It wouldn’t be ideal, but it could work. A few hours on the train every other weekend, and then there were the holidays…

‘When?’

‘Immediately.’ Alessandro allowed the finality of that word to settle between them like a rock sinking into deep, uncharted waters. It hurt to look at her distraught expression.

‘Immediately…as in immediately…?’

‘Just time to pack up my belongings—what little I have—and put my past behind me for good.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ she whispered. Thoughts and fears were whizzing around in her head and she was beginning to feel sick. ‘What…what about us…?’

Alessandro didn’t answer, and the silence stretched between them until she could almost hear it vibrating in the air.

‘We…we can still carry on seeing each other, can’t we? I mean, I know London’s a long way away, but loads of people have long-distance relationships. It might be romantic! Who knows? We could…um…meet up every so often…’ Her babbling trailed off into silence. More silence.

‘It wouldn’t work,’ Alessandro said flatly.

‘Why not? Wouldn’t you even be willing to give it a try?’ Desperation had crept into her voice, and she searched his face for the smallest sign of comfort. But she was looking at a stranger. His expression was closed and hard.

‘There’s no point, Megan.’

‘No point? No point? How can you say that, Alessandro? We’ve practically lived together for the better part of a year! How can you say that there’s no point in trying to stay together? I…we…Alessandro, I love you. I really do. You’re the guy I gave myself to…you know how much that meant to me…’

Alessandro flushed darkly. ‘And I cherish that gift.’

He said it as though their relationship had already been consigned to the memory box.

‘Then tell me that you won’t walk away.’

‘I…I can’t say that, Megan.’ He embraced the room in one sweeping gesture with a look of distaste. ‘This…this was a chapter in my life, Megan, and it’s time for me to move on with the book.’

‘What you’re saying is that I’m a chapter in your life. You had your fun but all good things come to an end.’

‘All things do come to an end. And your life is here, Megan. Here with your family, with your teaching job out in the country. You know you hate the city. You’ve always said that. You told me that the only reason you ever ventured into Edinburgh in the first place was because your cousin had dragged you there, and that the only reason you kept coming back was to see me… If you think Edinburgh’s city living, then London is in a league of its own.’

‘You’re twisting everything I said to you! My life could be anywhere with you!’

‘No.’

He almost wished that she would cry. A crying female he could deal with, because crying females had always irritated the hell out of him. But she wasn’t a crier.

‘You’re a country girl at heart, Megan, and you would be miserable if I—or anyone else, for that matter—removed you from the open fields you enjoy. That aside…’ He paused, because he wanted to be completely honest with her. That much she deserved. ‘This step of my journey I must take alone. I’m about to devote myself to my career. I literally wouldn’t have time to spend…’

‘…taking care of a hopeless country bumpkin like me?’ Megan finished for him.

She stared down at her bare feet. The bright red nail polish she had applied to her toes earlier in the day was already beginning to flake. She would have to get rid of it. She actually hated bright red nail polish anyway. She had only put it on because it matched the Marilyn image she had wanted for her stupid, childish surprise cake gimmick.

‘Taking care of any woman.’ But maybe, he thought, there was some truth in her statement. Falling out of a box in front of three of the country’s top finance gurus might seem a bit of a joke to her, but this was going to be his life, and falling out of boxes just wasn’t going to cut it.

‘I don’t believe you.’ Megan held her ground stubbornly, determined to wade through every inch of pain until the picture was totally clear in her head. ‘You just don’t think that I’m good enough for you now you’re about to embark on this wonderful jet-setting career of yours. If I had been an…accountant, or…an economist, or someone more serious, then you wouldn’t be standing there, airbrushing me out of your life as though I’d never existed!’

‘What do you want me to say, Megan?’ He finally snapped, furious that she was making this already difficult situation even more difficult by demanding answers to hypothetical speculations. ‘That I can’t see myself in a permanent situation with someone who will probably still be fooling around and singing karaoke when she’s thirty-five?’

If he had extracted a whip from his back pocket and slashed it across her face it couldn’t have hurt more, and she stared at him mutely.

‘I apologise,’ he said brusquely. ‘That remark was entirely uncalled for. Why can’t you just accept that there are limitations to this relationship and always have been?’

‘You never mentioned anything about limitations before. You let me give you my undivided love and you never said a word about me not fitting the bill.’

‘Nor did I ever speak to you about a future for us.’

‘No,’ Megan agreed quietly. ‘No, you never did, did you?’

Alessandro steeled himself against the accusatory look in her big blue eyes. ‘I assumed you were aware of the differences between us as well as I was—assumed you knew that my intention was never to remain in Scotland, playing happy families in a cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere.’

‘I assumed you cared about me.’

‘We had fun, Megan.’ He spun round and stared out of the grimy window to the uninspiring view two floors down. In the rapidly gathering dark the strip of shops opposite promised fish and chips, an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet every lunchtime, a newsagent and that was about it—because the other three shops were boarded up.

‘Fun?’

Alessandro ignored the bitterness that had crept into her voice. When he had first made love to her, had discovered that she was a virgin, he had felt a twinge of discomfort. In retrospect, maybe he should have walked away at that point, rather than allowing her to invest everything into him, but he had been weak and—face it—unable to resist her. He was now paying the price for that weakness.

‘You’re better off without me,’ he said roughly, as he continued to stare outside. ‘You have all you need right here. You’ll teach at that school of yours, only a short distance away from all your family, and in due course you’ll find a guy who will be content with the future you have mapped out.’

Megan had thought that the future she had mapped out for herself had included him!

‘Yes,’ she said dully. He wasn’t even looking at her. He had already written her out of his life and was ready to move on. ‘Why did you make love with me just now if you intended to get rid of me?’ she asked. ‘Was it a one-last-time session for poor old Megan before you sent her on her way?’

Alessandro spun round, but he didn’t make a move towards her. ‘It was…a…mistake…’ And never again would he allow his emotions to control his behaviour.

He gripped the window sill against which he was leaning and reminded himself that, however much she was hurting now, she was still a kid and would bounce back in no time at all. She would even thank him eventually for walking away from her—would realise in time to come that they were worlds apart and whatever they had had would never have stayed the course of time. It was a reassuring thought.

Megan couldn’t bear to look at him. She stood up, staring at the ground as though searching for divine inspiration.

‘I think I’m going to leave now,’ she said, addressing her feet. ‘I’ll just check the bedroom. See if there’s anything of mine that I should take with me.’

He didn’t try to stop her rooting through his stuff. The lack of anything belonging to her now seemed ominous proof of her impermanence in his life. He had never encouraged her to leave any of her things at his place. Sure, she’s forgotten odd bits and pieces now and again, like the clothes she was currently standing in, but he’d always returned them.

The only things she had insisted on leaving were some of her CDs. She was voracious when it came to modern music, whereas he preferred more chilled sounds. Easy listening to the point of coma, she had teased him. Yet another example of those differences between them, which she had stupidly failed to spot but which he had probably noted and lodged away in his mind somewhere, to be brought out later and used in evidence against her.

Without looking in his direction, she quietly gathered her CDs and stuffed them in a plastic bag.

‘I think that’s about everything.’ Some CDs, a toothbrush, some moisture cream, some underwear. Precious little. ‘Good luck with the new job and the new life, Alessandro. I really hope it lives up to expectations and I’m sorry about the mess from the cake. You’ll have to get rid of that yourself.’

Alessandro nodded. He didn’t say anything because there was nothing left to say, and for the first time in his life he didn’t trust himself to speak.

Megan turned away, and was half-disappointed, half-relieved when he didn’t follow her. There was an emptiness growing inside her, and her throat felt horribly dry and tight, but there would be time enough to cry. Once she was back in her little room at college. Just one last look, though. Before she left for good. But when she turned around, it was to find that he was staring out of the window with his back to her.

CHAPTER ONE

MEGAN stooped down so that she was on the same level as the six-year-old, brown-haired, blue-eyed boy in front of her. Face of an angel, but spoiled rotten. She had seen many versions of this child over the past two years, since she had been working in London. It seemed to be particularly predominant at private schools, where children were lavished with all that money could buy but often starved of the things that money couldn’t.

‘Okay, Dominic. Here’s the deal. The show’s about to start, the mummies and daddies are all out there waiting, and the Nativity play just isn’t going to be the same without you in it.’

‘I don’t want to be a tree! I hate the costume, Miss Reynolds, and if you force me then I’m going to tell my mummy, and you’ll be in big trouble. My mummy’s a lawyer, and she can put people into prison!’ he ended, with folded arms and a note of irrefutable triumph in his voice.

Megan clung to her patience with immense difficulty. It had been a mad week. Getting six-year-old children to learn and memorise their lines had proved to be a Herculean feat, and the last thing she needed on the day before school broke up was a badly behaved brat refusing to be a tree.

‘You’re a very important tree,’ she said gently. ‘Very important. The manger wouldn’t be a manger without a very important tree next to it!’ She looked at her watch and mentally tried to calculate how much time she had to convince this tree to take his leading role on stage—a role which involved nothing more strenuous than waving his arms and swaying. She had only been at this particular school for a term, but she had already sussed the difficult ones, and had cleverly steered them away from any roles that involved speech.

‘I want my mummy. She’ll tell you that I can be whatever I want to be! And I want to be a donkey.’

‘Lucy’s the donkey, darling.’

‘I want to be a donkey!’

Tree; donkey; donkey; tree. Right now, Megan was heartily wishing that she had listened to her friend Charlotte, when she had decided to leave St Margaret’s and opted for another private school. Somewhere a little more normal. She could deal with normal fractious children. She had spent three years dealing with them at St Nick’s in Scotland, after she had qualified as a teacher. None of them had ever threatened her with prison.

‘Okay. How about if we fetch your mummy and she can tell you how important it is for you to play your part? Remember, Dominic! It’s all about teamwork and not letting other people down!’

‘Donkey,’ was his response to her bracing statement, and Megan sighed and looked across to where the head of the junior department was shaking her head sympathetically.

‘Happened last year,’ she confided, as Megan stood up. ‘He’s not one of our easier pupils, and fetching his mum is going to be tricky. I’ve had a look outside and there’s no sign of her.’ Jessica Ambles sighed.

‘What about the father?’

‘Divorced.’

‘Poor kid,’ Megan said sympathetically, and the other teacher grinned.

‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you had witnessed him throwing his egg at Ellie Maycock last Sports Day.’

‘Final offer.’ Megan stooped back down and held both Dominic’s hands. ‘You play the tree, and I’ll ask your mummy if you can come and watch me play football over the vacation if you have time.’

Forty-five minutes later and she could say with utter conviction that she had won. Dominic Park had played a very convincing tree and had behaved immaculately. He had swayed to command, doing no damage whatsoever, either accidental or intentional, to the doll or the crib.

There was just the small matter of the promised football game, but she was pretty sure that Chelsea mummies, even the ones without daddies, were not going to be spending their Christmas vacation at home. Cold? Wet? Grey? Somehow she didn’t think so.

Not that she had any problem with six-year-old Dominic watching her play football. She didn’t. She just didn’t see the point of extending herself beyond her normal working hours. She wasn’t sure what exactly the school policy was on pupils watching their teachers play football, and she wasn’t going to risk taking any chances. Not if she could help it. She was enjoying her job and she deserved to. Hadn’t it taken her long enough to wake up in the morning and look forward to what the day ahead held in store for her?

From behind the curtain she could hear the sound of applause. Throughout the performance cameras and video recorders had been going mad. Absentee parents had shown up for the one day in the year they could spare for parental duty, and they were all determined to have some proof of their devotion.

Megan smiled to herself, knowing that she was being a little unfair, but teaching the children of the rich and famous took a little getting used to.

In a minute everyone would start filtering out of the hall, and she would do her duty and present a smiling face to the proud parents. To the very well-entertained parents—because, aside from the play, they would be treated to substantial snacks, including crudités, delicate salmon-wrapped filo pastries, miniature meatballs and sushi for the more discerning palate. Megan had gaped at the extravaganza of canapés. She still hadn’t quite got to grips with cooking, and marvelled at anyone who could produce anything edible that actually resembled food.

Out of nowhere came the memory of Alessandro, of how he’d used to laugh at her attempts at cooking. When it came to recipe books she was, she had told him, severely dyslexic.

It was weird, but seven years down the road she still thought of him. Not in the obsessive, heartbroken, every-second-of-every-minute-of-every-waking-hour way that she once had, but randomly. Just little memories, leaping out at her from nowhere that would make her catch her breath until she blinked them away, and then things would return to normal.

‘Duty calls!’

Megan snapped back to the present, to see Jessica Ambles grinning at her.

‘All the parents are waiting outside for us to tell them what absolute darlings their poppets have been all term!’

‘Most of them have been. Although I can think of a few…’

‘With Dominic Park taking first prize in that category?’

Megan laughed. ‘But at least he waved his arms tonight without knocking anyone over. Although I did notice that Lucy the donkey kept her distance. Amazing what a spot of blackmail can do. I told him he could watch my next football match.’ She linked her arm through her colleague’s and together they headed out to the main hall, leaving behind a backstage disaster zone of discarded props and costumes, all to be cleared away the following afternoon, when the school would be empty.

The main hall was a majestic space that was used for all the school’s theatrical performances and for full assemblies. A magnificent Christmas tree, donated by one of the parents, stood in the corner, brightly lit with twinkling lights and festooned with decorations—many from the school reserves but a fair few also donated by parents. Elsewhere, along one side, were tables groaning with the delicacies and also bottles of wine—red and white.

The place was buzzing with parents and their offspring, who had changed back into their school gear, and numerous doting relatives. In between the teachers mingled, and enjoyed the thought that term was over and they would be having a three-week break from the little darlings.

Megan was not returning to Scotland for the holidays. Her parents had decided to take themselves off to the sunshine, and her sisters were vanishing to the in-laws’. Playing the abandonment card had been a source of great family mirth, but really she was quite pleased to be staying put in London. There was a lot going on, and Charlotte would be staying down as well. They had already put up their tree in the little house they shared in Shepherd’s Bush, and had great plans for a Christmas lunch to which the dispossessed had been cordially invited. Provided they arrived bearing food or drink.

A surprising number of people had seemed happy to be included in the ‘dispossessed’ category, and so far the numbers were up to fifteen—which would be a logistical nightmare, because the sitting room was small—but a crush of bodies had never fazed Megan. The more the merrier, as far as she was concerned.

She heard Dominic before she actually spotted him. As was often the case with him, he was stridently informing one of his classmates what Father Christmas was bringing him. He seemed utterly convinced that the requested shed-load of presents would all be delivered, and Megan wondered whether he had threatened the poor guy with a prison sentence should his demands not be met.

She was smiling when she approached his mother, curious to see what she looked like. Matching parents to kids was an interesting game played by most teachers, and this time the mental picture connected perfectly with the real thing.

Dominic Park’s mother looked like a lawyer. She was tall, even wearing smart, black patent leather flats, with a regal bearing. Dark hair was pulled back into an elegant chignon, and her blue eyes were clever and cool. Despite the informality of the occasion, she was wearing an immaculate dove-grey suit, with a pashmina loosely draped around her shoulders.

She was introduced via Dominic, who announced, without preamble, that this was Miss Reynolds and she had promised she would take him to watch her play football.

‘You must be Dominic’s mum.’ Megan’s smile was met with an expression that attempted to appear friendly and interested but somehow didn’t quite manage to make it. This was a woman, Megan thought, who probably distributed her smiles like gold dust—or maybe she had forgotten how to smile at all, because it wasn’t called for in a career that saw her putting people into prison, if her son was to be believed.

‘Correct, Miss Reynolds, and I must say that I was very disappointed when Nanny told me today that Dominic would be playing a tree. Not terribly challenging, is it?’

She had an amazing accent that matched her regal bearing perfectly.

‘We like to think of the Nativity Play as a fun production, Mrs Park, rather than a competition.’ She smiled down at Dominic, who was scowling at some sushi in a napkin. She took it from him. ‘And you made a marvellous tree. Very convincing.’

‘When will you be playing football?’ he demanded.

‘Ah… Timetable still to be set!’

‘But you won’t forget, will you?’ he insisted. ‘Because my mummy’s a—’

‘Yes, yes, yes… I think I’ve got the message on that one, Dominic.’ Megan smiled at his mother. ‘I’ve been told that I shall be flung into prison without a Get Out Of Jail Free card if I don’t let him watch one of my matches….’

‘Silly boy. I’ve told him a hundred times that I’m a corporate lawyer! And we shall have to discuss Dominic watching your football match, I’m afraid. We’re very busy over the Christmas period, and Nanny won’t be around for three days, so I shall be hard-pressed to spare the time to take him anywhere.’

Megan was busy feeling sorry for poor Nanny, who had clearly been inconsiderate enough to ask for time off over Christmas, when she was aware that they had been joined by someone. The elegant lawyer had stopped in mid-flow, and there actually was something of a smile on her face now as she looked past Megan to whoever was standing behind her.

‘Alessandro, darling. So good of you. I’m absolutely parched.’

Alessandro!

The name alone was sufficient to send Megan into a tailspin. Of course there was more than one Alessandro in the world! It was a common Italian name! It was just disconcerting to hear that name when she had been thinking about him only minutes earlier.

She turned around, and the unexpected rushed towards her like a freight train at full speed, taking her breath away. Because there he was. Alessandro Caretti. Her Alessandro. Standing in front of her. A spectre from the past. Seven years separated memory from reality, but he had remained the same. Still lean, still muscular, still staggeringly good-looking. Yes, a little older now, and his face was harsher, more forbidding, but this was the man who had haunted her dreams for so long and still cropped up in her thoughts like a virus lying dormant in her bloodstream—controlled, but never really going away.

She had never seen him in a suit before. Seven years ago he had worn jeans and sweatshirts. He was wearing a suit now, a charcoal-grey suit, and, yes, a white shirt—so some things must not have changed.

Megan could feel the blood rushing into her face, and it was a job to keep steady, to hold out her hand politely and wonder if he would even recognise her. Her hair was shorter now, but still as uncontrollable as it always had been. Everything else was the same.

She was shaking when she felt the brief touch of his hand as she was introduced.

What was he doing here? Was he Dominic’s father? But, no. From next to her she could hear that cut-glass accent saying something about her fiancé. He was engaged! Wearing a suit and engaged to the perfect woman he had foreseen all those years ago when he had broken up with her.

He didn’t appear to recognise her as he held out the glass of wine to his fiancée, eliminating her from the scene by half turning his back on her.

On the verge of flight, she was stopped by Dominic announcing yet again—this time to Alessandro—that Miss Reynolds would be taking him to a football match. At this, Alessandro focused his fabulous dark eyes on her and said, unsmilingly, ‘Isn’t that beyond the call of duty, Miss Reynolds?’

How can you not even recognise me? Megan wanted to yell. Had she been so forgettable? Didn’t he even recognise her name? Maybe he had met so many women over the years that faces and names had all become one great big blur.

‘It seemed the only way to persuade Dominic to be a tree.’ It was a miracle that her vocal cords managed to remain intact when everything else inside was going haywire. ‘And it’s not taking him to a football match. It would be to watch me playing football.’

‘You play football?’

His dark, sexy voice wrapped itself around her, threatening to strangle her ability to breathe.

‘One of my hobbies,’ Megan said, taking one protective step back. She dragged her eyes away from that mesmerising face and addressed his fiancée. ‘I hope you have a lovely Christmas, Mrs Park.’ She realised that she was still clutching the discarded sushi, which had seeped through the napkin and was now gluey against the tightly closed palm of her hand.

‘You’ll have to give my mother your phone number, Miss Reynolds, and your address. For the football match? You promised!’

Two steps further back and a brief nod. ‘Sure. I’ll leave it on a piece of paper on the front desk. Now, I really must dash…meet some of the other parents… Very nice to meet you…’

Her eyes flickered across to Alessandro, then away. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was sipping his wine, his eyes drifting in boredom across the room, indifferent to her babbling. An insignificant teacher. Why should he be interested in anything she had to say? He didn’t even remember who she was!

For the next hour Megan kept her distance from them, but time and again she found herself seeking him out in the crowd. He was always easy to spot. He dominated the room—and not just with his powerful physical presence. He looked as though he owned the space around him and only the special chosen few were invited in.

She should really have stayed to the end, until after all the parents had departed, because a few of the teachers were planning on going out for a drink, but with her nervous system in total meltdown she fetched her coat, scribbled the wretched phone number and address on a piece of paper, which she left on the front desk, and headed for the underground.

It was a sturdy walk from the school, away from the chaos of expensive cars bearing the little darlings back home. After a few minutes there was only the sound of her boots on the pavement and the usual delightful London noises. The distant thrum of traffic, the occasional high-pitched whine of a police siren, the muted voices of people passing her.

Hunched into her coat and with her head down, braced against the freezing wind, Megan only became aware of the car after it had stopped right in front of her—and she only became aware of it then because she nearly crashed into the passenger door, which had been flung open.

Two words. ‘Get in!’

Megan bent and peered into the car. She knew the driver of the car. Of course she did. She would have recognised that voice anywhere.

‘Drop dead.’ She slammed the door shut with such ferocity that she was surprised it didn’t fall off its hinges.

The cool walk had restored some of her sanity, and she had figured out why he hadn’t seen fit to say that they had met before. He was a successful city gent now, engaged to be married to his female counterpart. Why spoil the rosy picture by announcing any connection to a lowly teacher? Even before he had become successful—which he undoubtedly was, if the suit and the car were anything to go by—he had ditched her because she had been inappropriate to his long-term plans. How much more inappropriate would she be now?

The car cruised alongside her, its window now rolled down, and she heard him say with lazy intent, ‘You can either get in, or else I’ll pay you a little visit at your house. Your choice.’

Megan looked through the window. ‘What are you doing, Alessandro? I thought you didn’t recognise me.’

‘Naturally I recognised you. I just didn’t see fit to launch into an explanation of how our paths had crossed. Wrong time, wrong place.’

The baldness of that statement only skimmed the surface of the shock he had felt on seeing her. To have your past leap out at you and grab you by the throat… He had felt driven to do this—to follow her on her way home—although now that he had Alessandro was beginning to wonder what would be achieved. Curiosity had got the better of him—maybe that had been it?

Somewhere in his seven-year meteoric rise to power, curiosity had become a rare luxury. His gift for money-making in the complex world of derivatives had engineered a swift rise to giddy, powerful heights. It had also provided him with more than sufficient disposable cash to move effortlessly into acquisitions. Alessandro had everything that money could buy, but the ease with which he had made millions had left him with a jaded palette. After his initial shock on seeing Megan, his curiosity to find out what she had been up to in the past seven years had been overpowering and irresistible, and—face it—he could indulge his curiosity. He could indulge anything he wanted to.

‘What do you want?’

‘Get in the car, Megan. It’s been a long time. It would be bizarre not to play a little catch-up game, don’t you think?’

‘I think it’s bizarre that you left your fiancée so that you could follow me.’

‘Old friends meeting up. Victoria would have no problem with that. Thankfully she’s not a possessive woman. I’ll drop you home. It’s a ridiculous night to be…doing what? Catching a bus? Taking a tube somewhere?’

‘Go away.’

‘Not still playing childish games, are you, Megan? You know you’re as curious to find out about me as I am to find out about you, so why fight it?’

Megan got in. For one thing the wind was whipping her coat all over the place. For another the tube would be packed and uncomfortable, and quite possibly not running to schedule. And, yes, she was curious. He had been an important piece of her past, and maybe catching up, hearing all about his bright, shiny new life, would provide her with the tools for closure.

‘Nice car.’ She took in the walnut dashboard and the plush leather seats. ‘I don’t know much about cars, but I’m thinking that you climbed up that ladder without taking too many knocks on the way up, Alessandro.’ She couldn’t prevent the note of bitterness that had crept into her voice—a leftover from the hurt all that time ago.

‘Did you ever think that I wouldn’t?’ He wasn’t looking at her. His concentration was entirely on the road and on the illuminated map on his dashboard, detailing directions to her house. He had got the address from the scrap of paper she had left at the front desk, and had punched it into his navigation system as soon as he had got into his car, having safely seen Victoria and Dominic to a taxi.

Not looking at her, but still seeing her in his head, he thought she looked exactly as she had all those years ago. Curly blonde hair, big blue eyes, full mouth that always looked on the verge of laughing. He had had no choice but to follow her.

‘Arrogance isn’t a very nice trait.’

‘Who’s being arrogant? I’m being realistic. And nice isn’t a trait that gets anyone very far in the business world. What are you doing in London, anyway?’

‘Oh, I forgot. I was supposed to be a little country girl who was destined to stay in the country.’

‘You’re bitter.’

‘Can you blame me?’

‘I did what was necessary. For both of us. In life, we all do.’

His casual dismissal of her feelings was as hurtful as if he had taken a knife and twisted it into her. ‘So…you live in London? Have you made a name for yourself? I know that was top of your list of things to do. Oh, along with making lots of money.’

‘Yes, to your first question—and as far as making money, let’s just say that I’m not living hand-to-mouth.’

‘You mean, you’re rich?’

‘Filthy rich,’ he agreed easily.

‘You must feel very pleased with yourself that your plan worked out, Alessandro.’ And the very suitable lawyer with her posh voice was obviously part two of his plan. He had dumped all handicaps and moved on, with the same relentless focus that she had seen in him years ago. ‘And how did you meet…Dominic’s mother?’ she asked, twisting the knife herself now.

‘Work,’ Alessandro said abruptly.

‘She tells me that she’s a corporate lawyer.’

‘The top of her field.’

‘Guess she ticks all the boxes, then.’ Megan thought of all the boxes she had failed to tick—but wasn’t it stupid to still be bitter after all this time? He had moved on with his life and so, really, had she. Of course, he was getting married, which rated a lot higher on the Moving On With Life scale than having had a couple of boyfriends, neither of whom had lasted more than seven months, but she wasn’t going to dwell on that.

‘All the boxes,’ Alessandro agreed smoothly.

‘You’ve even managed to land yourself a ready-made family!’

‘Dominic has his own father. I’m not required to play happy families with my fiancée’s offspring.’ In actual fact, Alessandro had met Dominic all of three times, even though he had now been seeing Victoria for six months. Their schedules were both ridiculously packed, and meetings had to be carefully orchestrated—usually dinner somewhere, or the theatre, or supper at his Kensington place. With his own personal chef, eating in was as convenient as dining out. Family outings, therefore, had not been on the agenda—something for which Alessandro was somewhat relieved.

‘Charming,’ Megan said brightly. ‘I always thought that when you married someone you hitched up to all their baggage, including any offspring from a previous marriage. Crazy old me.’

‘I don’t remember you being sarcastic.’

‘We’re both older.’ She shrugged and gave him the final directions to her house, which was only a few streets away. ‘We’ve both changed. I don’t remember you as being cold and arrogant.’ Not that that didn’t work for her. It did, because she disliked this new, rich Alessandro, with his perfect life and his ruthless face. ‘You can drop me off here. It’s been great catching up, and thanks for the lift.’

About to open the car door, she felt his hand circle her wrist. It was like being zapped by a powerful bolt of electricity.

‘But we haven’t finished catching up.’ He killed the engine, but remained sitting in the dark car. ‘You still have to tell me about yourself.’

Megan looked at him. ‘Do you mind releasing me?’

‘Why don’t you invite me in for a cup of coffee?’

‘I share a house. My housemate will be there.’

‘Housemate?’

‘Charlotte. Do you remember her, Alessandro? Or have you wiped her out of your memory bank along with the rest of your past?’

‘Of course I remember her,’ Alessandro said irritably. Hell, here he was, being perfectly nice, perfectly interested, and what was he getting? She’d used to be so damned compliant, always smiling, always laughing, always keen to hear what he had to say, no sharp edges. ‘And I have a very vivid recollection of my past. I just have no wish to revisit it.’

He had released her, but her whole body was still tingling from that brief physical contact.

‘You can come in for a cup of coffee,’ she told him. ‘But I don’t want you hanging around. You might think that it’s all jolly good fun, taking a trip down memory lane, but—speaking as the person you dumped—I have zero interest in reliving old times.’

She opened the car door and walked towards the house, leaving him to decide what he wanted to do. She felt his presence behind her as she rustled in her bag for her keys, but she pointedly didn’t look round at him as she slotted the key into the lock.

‘The kitchen’s through there,’ she said, nodding towards the back of the house. ‘I’m going to change.’

She took the stairs two at a time, her heart beating like a hammer. She couldn’t believe that this was happening, that some quirk of fate had brought her past catapulting into her present. She also couldn’t believe that seeing him could have such a huge impact on her. She had sometimes imagined what it would be like to see him again, never believing in a million years that it would actually happen. In her head she had been cool, contained, mildly interested in what he had to say, but with one eye on her watch—a busy young thing with a hectic life to lead, which didn’t involve some guy who had dumped her because she didn’t match up to the high standards he had wanted. In other words, a woman of twenty-six who was totally over the creep.

Now look at her! A nervous wreck.

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and saw a flushed face and over-bright eyes. Charlotte, who would have given her a stiff pep talk on bastards and how they should be treated, was, of course, conspicuous by her absence. Where were friends when you needed them? Living it up with work colleagues somewhere in central London, instead of staying put just in case an urgent pep talk was required.

She was only marginally calmer when she headed downstairs fifteen minutes later, in a pair of faded jeans, an old sweatshirt, and her fluffy rabbit bedroom slippers—because, hey, why should she put herself out to dress up for a man whose taste now ran to sophisticated brunette lawyer-types with cut-glass accents?

He was waiting obediently in the kitchen, a graceful, powerful panther who seemed to dwarf the small confines of the room. He had removed his black coat, which lay over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and was sitting at the table, his long legs extended to one side and elegantly crossed at the ankles.

‘So…tell me what you’ve been up to these past few years,’ he said, watching her as she turned her back on him to fill the kettle.

This, more than the woman in the black skirt and neat burgundy shirt, was the Megan he remembered. Casual in jeans and an oversized jumper and, as always when pottering inside her flat, wearing the most ridiculous bedroom slippers. Aside from kids, he’d always figured her to be the only person in the country who wore gimmicky bedroom slippers. His eyes drifted up her body, along her legs to her breasts, and he felt as though the room had suddenly become airless.

‘I got my teacher training qualifications,’ she said, stirring coffee into the boiling water and finally turning round to hand him a mug. ‘Then I taught at St Nicks for three years. I moved down to London because Charlotte was working here and I thought it would make a change. I spent a year or so at St Margaret’s, and I started working at Dominic’s school in September.’

‘That’s a very dry, factual account. Why London? The last time I looked there were remarkably few open fields or running brooks, or little cottages with white picket fences.’

‘I decided that I fancied a change from open fields, Alessandro. Maybe you were a little too quick to shove me into the role of the country bumpkin.’ She wasn’t going to tell him how claustrophobic her life had suddenly seemed the second he had walked out of it, how the excitement of teaching in a rural school had been tarnished with the uncomfortable feeling that outside her tiny world lay excitement and adventure. He didn’t deserve to know anything about her.

‘Look, I could embellish it with all the fun things I’ve done in between, Alessandro, but they would mean nothing to you.’

‘Try me.’

‘I’d rather not. I’m tired, and I don’t have the energy.’ Acutely conscious of those dark, fabulous, watchful eyes on her face, Megan took a sip of coffee and stared down at the table.

‘I see you’re still buying those ridiculous bedroom slippers.’

‘Christmas present last year from one of my pupils,’ she said crisply, tucking her feet beneath the table. ‘It’s one of the perks of the job. Lots of bath stuff, candles, picture frames and, in this case, gimmicky slippers.’

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘Since I moved to London.’

‘Is this going to be a question and answer session?’ Alessandro drawled. ‘I ask the questions and you use as few words as humanly possible to answer?’

‘You wanted to find out what I’d been up to and I’m telling you. My life is probably not nearly as fascinating as yours has been, but I love what I do and I’m very happy.’ She drained her cup, then looked at him. ‘How long have you known…Dominic’s mum?’

‘Roughly six months.’

Roughly six months! Less time than he’d been with her. It hurt to think that he must have been bowled over to have moved from dating to engagement in such a brief period of time.

‘Not long. A whirlwind romance?’ She forced a smile. ‘It must be the icing on the cake, Alessandro. I’m very happy for you.’

Alessandro hadn’t thought about it as a whirlwind romance. He had met Victoria when she had been working with her firm of lawyers on one of his deals. He’d liked her, admired her intelligence, and appreciated her ability to respect his ferocious working agenda. Was that romance? It had certainly been enough for him to take the next step forward, but he had to admit that it was at least partly fuelled by the fact that he wasn’t getting any younger.

Unlike a lot of his city colleagues—men in their thirties, climbing the ladder to success—Alessandro had no intention of remaining a bachelor because of a preference for playing the field. Nor was he going to hang around until he was too old to enjoy playing with his kids. Sure, he had had women, but some restless, dissatisfied urge had always held him back from commitment.

Victoria, he recognised, was undemanding. She had her own high-powered job, and therefore did not look to him for constant companionship. Nor did she nag for assurances about love or any such thing. She worked for him and he, he suspected, worked for her. It was a mutually gratifying situation.

‘Icing on the cake?’ he mused. ‘Yes, I suppose it is….’

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