The Uncompromising Italian

‘You were telling me about your daughter...’

‘My daughter.’ Alessio sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his dark hair.

It was a gesture of hesitancy that seemed so at odds with his forceful personality that Lesley sat up and stared at him with narrowed eyes.

‘Where is she?’ Lesley looked past him, as though half-expecting this unexpected addition to his life suddenly to materialise out of nowhere. ‘I thought you mentioned that you had no family. Where is your wife?’

‘No sprawling family,’ Alessio amended. ‘And no wife. My wife died two years ago.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘There’s no need for tears and sympathy.’ He waved aside her interruption, although he was startled at how easily a softer nature shone through. ‘When I say wife, it might be more accurate to say ex-wife. Bianca and I were divorced a long time ago.’

‘How old is your daughter?’

‘Sixteen. And, to save you the hassle of doing the maths, she was, shall we say, an unexpected arrival when I was eighteen.’

‘You were a father at eighteen?’

‘Bianca and I had been seeing each other in a fairly loose fashion for a matter of three months when she announced that her contraceptive pill had failed and I was going to be a father.’ His lips thinned. The past was rarely raked up and when it was, as now, it still brought a sour taste to his mouth.

Unfortunately, he could see no way around a certain amount of confidential information exchanging hands because he had a gut feeling that, whatever his uninvited email correspondent wanted, it involved his daughter.

‘And you weren’t happy about that.’ Lesley groped her way to understanding the darkening of his expression.

‘A family was not something high on my agenda at the time,’ Alessio imparted grimly. ‘In fact, I would go so far as to say that it hadn’t even crossed my radar. But, naturally, I did the honourable thing and married her. It was a match approved by both sides of the family until, that is, it became apparent that her family’s wealth was an illusion. Her parents were up to their eyes in debt and I was a convenient match because of the financial rewards I brought with me.’

‘She married you for your money?’

‘It occurred to no one to do a background check.’ He shrugged elegantly. ‘You’re looking at me as though I’ve suddenly landed from another planet.’

His slow smile knocked her sideways and she cleared her throat nervously. ‘I’m not familiar with people marrying for no better reason than money,’ she answered honestly.

Alessio raised his eyebrows. ‘In that case, we really do come from different planets. My family is extremely wealthy, as am I. Believe me, I am extremely well versed in the tactics women will employ to gain entry to my bank balance.’ He crossed his legs, relaxing. ‘But you might say that, once bitten, twice shy.’

She made an exceptionally good listener. Was this why he had expanded on the skeleton brief he could have given her? Had gone into details that were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? He hadn’t been lying when he had told her that his unfortunate experience with his ex had left him jaded about women and the lengths they would go to in order to secure themselves a piece of the pie. He was rich and women liked money. It was therefore a given that he employed a healthy amount of caution in his dealings with the opposite sex.

But the woman sitting in front of him couldn’t have been less interested in his earnings.

His little problem intrigued her far more than he did. It was a situation that Alessio had never encountered in his life before and there was something sexy and challenging about that.

‘You mean you don’t intend to marry again? I can understand that. And I guess you have your daughter. She must mean the world to you.’

‘Naturally.’ Alessio’s voice cooled. ‘Although I’ll be the first to admit that things have not been easy between us. I had relatively little contact with Rachel when she was growing up, thanks to my ex-wife’s talent for vindictiveness. She lived in Italy but travelled extensively, and usually when she knew that I had arranged a visit. She was quite happy to whip our daughter out of school at a moment’s notice if only to make sure that my trip to Italy to visit would be a waste of time.’

‘How awful.’

‘At any rate, when Bianca died Rachel naturally came to me, but at the age of fourteen she was virtually a stranger and a fairly hostile one. Frankly, a nightmare.’

‘She would have been grieving for her mother.’ Lesley could barely remember her own mother and yet she still grieved at the lack of one in her life. How much more traumatic to have lost one at the age of fourteen, a time in life when a maternal, guiding hand could not have been more needed.

‘She was behind in her schoolwork thanks to my ex-wife’s antics, and refused to speak English in the classroom, so the whole business of teaching her was practically impossible. In the end, boarding school seemed the only option and, thankfully, she appears to have settled in there with somewhat more success. At least, there have been no phone calls threatening expulsion.’

‘Boarding school...’

Alessio frowned. ‘You say that as though it ranks alongside “prison cell”.’

‘I can’t imagine the horror of being separated from my family. My brothers could be little devils when I was growing up but we were a family. Dad, the boys and me.’

Alessio tilted his head and looked at her, considering, tempted to ask her if that was why she had opted for a male-dominated profession, and why she wore clothes better suited to a boy. But the conversation had already drifted too far from the matter at hand. When he glanced down at his watch, it was to find that more time had passed than he might have expected.

‘My gut feeling tells me that these emails are in some way connected to my daughter,’ Alessio admitted. ‘Reason should dictate that they’re to do with work but I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t approach me directly about anything to do with my business concerns.’

‘No. And if you’re as above board as you say you are...’

‘You doubt my word?’

Lesley shrugged. ‘I don’t think that’s really my business; the only reason I mention it is because it might be pertinent to finding out who is behind this. ’Course, I shall continue working at the problem, but if it’s established that the threat is to do with your work then you might actually be able to pinpoint the culprit yourself.’

‘How many people do you imagine work for me?’ Alessio asked curiously, and Lesley shrugged and gave the matter some thought.

‘No idea.’ The company she worked for was small, although prominent in its field, employing only a handful of people on the creative side and slightly fewer on the admin side. ‘A hundred or so?’

‘You really skimmed through those articles you called up on your computer, didn’t you?’

‘Big business doesn’t interest me,’ she informed him airily. ‘I may have a talent for numbers, and can do the maths without any trouble at all, but those numbers only matter when it comes to my work. I can work things out precisely but it’s really the artistic side of my job that I love. In fact, I only did maths at university because Shane, one of my brothers, told me that it was a man’s subject.’

‘Thousands.’

Lesley looked at him blankly for a few seconds. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Thousands. In various countries. I own several companies and I employ thousands, not hundreds. But that’s by the by. This isn’t to do with work. This is to do with my daughter. The only problem is that we don’t have a great relationship and if I approach her with my suspicions, if I quiz her about her friends, about whether anyone’s been acting strangely, asking too many questions...well, I don’t anticipate a good outcome to any such conversation. So what would you have done if you hadn’t done maths?’

Time had slipped past and they were no nearer to solving the problem, yet he was drawn to asking her yet more questions about herself.

Lesley—following his lead and envisaging the sort of awkward, maybe even downright incendiary conversation that might ensue in the face of Alessio’s concerns, should he confront a hostile teenager with them—was taken aback by his abrupt change of topic.

‘You said that you only did maths because your brother told you that you couldn’t.’

‘He never said that I couldn’t.’ She smiled, remembering their war of words. Shane was two years older than her and she always swore that his main purpose in life was to annoy her. He was now a barrister working in Dublin but he still teased her as though they were still kids in primary school. ‘He said that it was a man’s field, which immediately made me decide to do it.’

‘Because, growing up as the only girl in a family of all males, it would have been taken as a given that, whatever your brothers could do, you could as well.’

‘I’m wondering what this has to do with the reason I’ve come here.’ She pulled out her mobile phone, checked the time on it and was surprised to discover how much of the day had flown by. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to sort things out for you immediately. I’d understand perfectly if you want to take the matter to someone else, someone who can devote concentrated time to working on it. It shouldn’t take too long, but longer than an hour or two.’

‘Would you have done art?’ He overrode her interjection as though he hadn’t heard any of it and she flung him an exasperated look.

‘I did, actually—courses in the town once a week. It was a good decision. It may have clinched me my job.’

‘I have no interest in farming out this problem to someone else.’

‘I can’t give it my full-time attention.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ she said patiently, ‘I have a nine-to-five job. And I live in London. And by the time I get back to my place—usually after seven, what with working overtime and then the travel—I’m exhausted. The last thing I need is to start trying to sort your problem out remotely.’

‘Who said anything about doing it remotely? Take time off and come here.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘A week. You must be able to take some holiday time? Take it off and come here instead. Trying to sort this out remotely isn’t the answer. You won’t have sufficient time to do it consistently and also, while this may be to do with unearthing something about my own past, it may also have to do with something in my daughter’s life. Something this person thinks poses a risk, should it be exposed. Have you considered that?’

‘It had crossed my mind,’ Lesley admitted.

‘In which case, there could be a double-pronged attack on this problem if you moved in here.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My daughter occupies several rooms in the house, by which I mean she has spread herself thin. She has a million books, items of clothing, at least one desk-top computer, tablets... If this has to do with anything Rachel has got up to, then you could be on hand to go through her stuff.’

‘You want me to invade her privacy by searching through her private things?’

‘It’s all for the greater good.’ Their eyes locked and she was suddenly seduced by the temptation to take him up on his offer, to step right out of her comfort zone.

‘What’s the point of having misplaced scruples? Frankly, I don’t see the problem.’

In that single sentence, she glimpsed the man whose natural assumption was that the world would fall in line with what he wanted. And then he smiled, as if he had read her mind, and guessed exactly what was going through it. ‘Wouldn’t your company allow you a week off? Holiday?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Then what is? Possessive boyfriend, perhaps? Won’t let you out of his sight for longer than five minutes?’

Lesley looked at him scornfully. ‘I would never get involved with anyone who wouldn’t let me out of his sight for longer than five minutes! I’m not one of those pathetic, clingy females who craves protection from a big, strong man.’ She had a fleeting image of the man sitting opposite her, big, strong, powerful, protecting his woman, making her feel small, fragile and delicate. She had never thought of herself as delicate—too tall, too boyish, too independent. It was ridiculous to have that squirmy sensation in the pit of her stomach now and she thanked the Lord that he really couldn’t read her mind.

‘So, no boyfriend,’ Alessio murmured, cocking his head to one side. ‘Then explain to me why you’re finding reasons not to do this. I don’t want to source anyone else to work on this for me. You might not have been what I expected, but you’re good and I trust you, and if my daughter’s possessions are to be searched it’s essential they be searched by a woman.’

‘It wouldn’t be ethical to go through someone else’s stuff.’

‘What if by doing that you spared her a far worse situation? Rachel, I feel, would not be equipped to deal with unpleasant revelations that could damage the foundations of her young life. Furthermore, I won’t be looking over your shoulder. You’ll be able to work to your own timetable. In fact, I shall be in London most of the time, only returning here some evenings.’

Lesley opened her mouth to formulate a half-hearted protest, because this was all so sudden and so out of the ordinary, but with a slash of his hand he cut her off before any words could leave her mouth.

‘She also returns in a few days’ time. This is a job that has a very definite deadline; piecemeal when you get a chance isn’t going to cut it. You have reservations—I see that—but I need this to be sorted out and I think you’re the one to do it. So, please.’

Lesley heard the dark uncertainty in his voice and gritted her teeth with frustration. In a lot of ways, what he said made sense. Even if this job were to take a day or two, she would not be able to give it anything like her full attention if she worked on it remotely for half an hour every evening. And, if she needed to see whether his daughter had logged on to other computer devices, then she would need to be at his house where the equipment was to hand. It wasn’t something she relished doing—everyone deserved their privacy—but sometimes privacy had to be invaded as a means of protection.

But moving in, sharing the same space as him? He did something disturbing to her pulse rate, so how was she supposed to live under the same roof?

But the thought drew her with the force of the forbidden.

Watching, Alessio smelled his advantage and lowered his eyes. ‘If you won’t do this for me...and I realise it would be inconvenient for you...then do it for my daughter, Lesley. She’s sixteen and vulnerable.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.