Hidden Desire

‘Shall we go?’

Chase could feel disappointment rising inside her as he waited for her to gather her things, standing aside so that she could precede him out of the restaurant. Once outside, she didn’t bother with her stupid jacket. He had been right when he had remarked that it was impractical for the weather.

What had he been playing at? Stringing her along with all manner of empty promises only to yank them all back at the last minute? Didn’t he realise that, if Beth had wanted to borrow money so that she could clear her debts and get the shelter really going, she would have gone to the bank? Of course, Chase thought uncomfortably, she had tried that some time ago but to no avail. She simply hadn’t had the collateral to get a loan of the size she required, even though the bank manager had known her parents. Money was just not being lent, not to ventures that had nothing to gain. Had Alessandro checked that out himself and come to the conclusion that he could provide her with the money but jack up the interest rates?

‘I really believed you for a minute,’ she simmered, barely noticing that she was being ushered into the back seat of his car. ‘I really thought that you had been so impressed by what you saw that you decided to do the right thing. I really thought that there was a part of you that was the same guy who gave internships to those girls years ago, and the same guy who put in extra time helping that little group of Asian students through their language barriers with some of their papers.’

‘You remember. Those girls have been promoted several times. One left a year ago to have a baby and returned a few months ago to resume work. Two of the Chinese students work in my Hong Kong offices.’

‘You kept in touch with them.’ She fought against the pull of a connection that threatened her valued self-control. She severed the incipient connection. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To discuss my proposal further. Out of public earshot.’

‘Beth can’t afford to pay you back for a loan.’ Back to business, but her mind was still straying dangerously close to memories of the man she had once been so irresistibly drawn to—the man she knew still existed even if those complex sides, revealed all those years ago, would never again get an airing in her presence.

‘Whoever mentioned loans?’

‘You’re confusing me, Alessandro.’

‘Ditto,’ he murmured under his breath. He looked at her in silence, his searing attraction laced with a poignant familiarity that wasn’t doing his libido any favours, until she shifted uncomfortably and took notice of her surroundings. They were away from the hustle and bustle.

‘And you haven’t said where we’re going. This isn’t the way back to my house.’

‘Well spotted. It’s the way to mine.’

‘What?’ Chase immediately felt her pulses begin to race. She didn’t want to be here, in this car! Far less heading to his place, wherever that was! He had just pulled a cheap trick, whatever he had said about his offer not being a loan. He had really shown his true colours, aside from which she knew that she should steer clear of him. But the memory of how much she had craved to see where he lived eight years ago slammed into her with the force of a freight train. ‘Let me out of this car immediately.’

‘Calm down.’

‘I’m perfectly calm.’

‘You’re as perfectly calm as a volcano on the point of eruption. Relax. We’ll be there in ten minutes.’

Chase felt ill at the thought of stepping foot into his private space. She had never thought that she would see him again and, now that she had, she should be laying down clear boundaries. Instead, the lines were blurring. He had come to her house, seen the way she lived, formed his opinions. Now she was going to his.

She watched with growing panic as the sleek, black car manoeuvred through quiet streets, finally turning into an avenue through imposing black wrought-iron gates. The houses here were beyond spectacular. No superlative could do justice to the pristine white-and-cream facades, the ornate foliage, the lush greenery, the air of indecently wealthy seclusion. The cars were all top of the range, high end.

So this was where he lived. Never in her wildest, twenty-year-old’s dreams could she have come up with this.

‘I’m not comfortable with this,’ she said automatically as his driver opened the passenger door for her.

‘I wasn’t comfortable conducting a private conversation in a public place.’

‘There was nothing private about our conversation. It was a business deal.’ But she couldn’t help staring at the enormous house in front of her, the perfectly shaped shrubs on either side of the black door, the highly polished brass of the knocker. Nor could she help feeling, in some deep, dark part of her, that their conversation had been threaded with undercurrents that were anything but businesslike.

‘I love the way you constantly argue with me,’ Alessandro remarked drily as he opened the front door and stood aside so that she brushed past him. ‘It’s refreshing. You did that eight years ago as well. And it was refreshing then.’

There had been times, countless times, when he had just wanted to scoop her to him and silence those feisty arguments with his mouth…just kiss them away. But he had been prepared to bide his time. He had been prepared to do way too much to attain the eventual goal of just having her. She had taught him the art of patience, damn fool that he had been.

Chase didn’t say anything. She was too busy being impressed. It wasn’t just the size but the pristine perfection: marble flooring, the colour of pale honey, was broken by silky rugs. The paintings on the walls varied in size but were recognisable—who on earth had paintings on their walls that were recognisable? The impressive staircase leading up gave onto a landing which was dominated by a massive stained-glass window that did magical things to the sunlight filtering through it.

She came back to planet Earth to find that Alessandro was watching her, hands in his pockets.

‘You have a beautiful place,’ she said politely.

Alessandro dutifully looked around him, as though taking stock of where he lived for the first time, then he shrugged. ‘It works for me. Come through.’

‘I honestly don’t see why you couldn’t have laid out your terms and conditions for this so-called “not a loan” at the restaurant.’ But she followed as he led the way towards a kitchen that looked as though it had never been used. He didn’t do cooking; she remembered him telling her that way back when.

‘Have you ever used this kitchen?’ she asked, perching on one of the top-of-the-range chrome and leather bar stools by the counter and watching as he attempted to make sense of the complicated coffee machine.

‘You don’t want coffee, do you?’ he eventually asked, turning to glance at her over his shoulder.

‘If I did, would you be able to figure out how that thing works?’

‘Unlikely.’

‘Tea would be nice.’ She hadn’t appreciated just how rich he was. These were the surroundings of a man to whom money was literally no object. She bristled when she thought of him holding her to ransom by reducing his offer for the shelter just because he could.

‘I’m very good with a kettle and some tea bags.’ He hunted them down, opening and closing cupboards. ‘I come in here very rarely,’ he offered by way of explanation. ‘I have a housekeeper who makes sure it’s stocked and a chef who does all my cooking on the occasions when I happen to be in.’

‘Lucky you.’

There wasn’t a single woman on the planet, Alessandro thought, who would have offered that sarcastic response when confronted with the reality of his wealth. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘You’re right. I don’t.’ She took the cup of tea from him. The cup was fine-bone china, weirdly shaped, with an art deco design running down one side. When she thought of him trying and failing to work out how his high-tech appliances worked, she could feel a smile tugging the corners of her mouth, but there was no way that she would be seduced by any windows of vulnerability in him.

‘Why do you have all these gadgets in here if you don’t cook and barely use the kitchen?’

‘I remain eternally optimistic.’

Chase wished he wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t undermine her defences with his sense of humour. She didn’t want to remember how he had always been able to make her laugh. She didn’t want him to make her laugh now.

‘Well, now we’re here, maybe you could explain this business with the shelter?’

Alessandro looked at her. He wondered what it was about her that just seemed to capture his imagination and hold it to ransom.

‘You have no idea what goes through me when I think of what you did eight years ago,’ he murmured.

‘You brought me here so that you could talk about that?’ Chase fidgeted uncomfortably. She wanted to drag her disobedient eyes away from him but somehow she couldn’t.

‘But the past belongs in the past. What’s the good dredging it up every two seconds? The best thing I could do right now is send you on your not-so-merry way, out of my life once and for all. Unfortunately, I find that there’s something holding me back.’

‘What?’ It was a barely whispered response. She cleared her throat and did her utmost to remember that this was just an opponent whom she happened to have known a long time ago. It didn’t work. She still found herself hanging onto his every word with shamefully bated breath, watching him watching her, and letting those deep, dark looks penetrate every fibre of her being. Dampness pooled shamefully between her legs, physical proof of something she was loath to admit, and her nipples tingled, sensitive and taut against her lacy bra. ‘What’s holding you back?’ She shifted, felt her slippery wetness making her panties uncomfortable.

‘You.’ Alessandro allowed that one word to ferment in the lengthening silence between them until it was bursting with significance.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course you do,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘We can both waste a little time while I indulge your desire to feign ignorance but what would be the point? We’ll end up getting to the same place eventually. Despite what happened between us, despite the fact that my levels of respect for you are lamentably non-existent, I find that I’m still sexually attracted to you. And I wouldn’t be telling you this now if I didn’t know that it was a two-way street.

‘And don’t bother trying to deny it. I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think my attention is somewhere else and I’ve seen the way you respond whenever I get within a two-foot radius of you. We had it once and we have it again. It’s a shame but…’ He shrugged with graceful elegance.

‘You’re…you’re mad…’ Her words said one thing; her treacherous body however, was, singing a different refrain.

‘Am I? I don’t think so.’

Chase watched, mesmerised, as he slowly stood up and breached the short distance separating them to plant his hands on either side of her chair, locking her into place so that she could only raise her eyes upwards to stare at him. She could feel the pulse in her neck beating wildly, a physical giveaway that every word he was saying struck home.

‘I’m the lawyer working for Beth; sure, we know each other…’ The word faltered and died in her throat as he cupped her cheek with his hand and stroked it with his thumb.

Years ago, their chaste relationship had pulsated with unexplored passion and unspoken, untested lust. Now, as his hand remained on her cheek, she shuddered and resisted the urge to sink into the caress.

‘Please, Alessandro, don’t.’

‘Your body is telling me something different.’

‘I don’t want to start any kind of relationship with you.’

‘Relationship?’ Alessandro queried huskily. ‘Who’s talking about a relationship? I could no more have a relationship with you than I could with a deadly snake. No, I’m not interested in a relationship. I’m interested in having sex with you, plain and simple. Just like you’re interested in having sex with me. Don’t you want to touch what you spent months staring at eight years ago? Don’t you want to finish what you started? I do. A lot.’

Chase opened her mouth to tell him to get lost but nothing emerged. His cool, brilliant dark eyes held her in a trance even though she knew that every word that left that perfect mouth was offensive and insulting.

And yet…her imagination was going crazy. The fantasies she had had of him touching her all those years ago sprang from the box into which they had been firmly locked and attacked her on all fronts. She weakened at the thought of his fingers stroking the wetness between her legs, his mouth kissing the twin peaks of her breasts, nipping the tight buds of her nipples, suckling on them while he continued to stroke her dampness…

‘So here’s the deal.’ Alessandro was finding it hard to contain his excitement at the prospect of netting the prey that had once escaped him and putting to bed, once and for all, feelings that had no place in his life. Her skin was like satin beneath his fingertips. ‘You sleep with me for as long as I want you to and the shelter stays. Renovated, updated and modernised. Your friend’s debts will be cleared.’

‘You want to pay me for services rendered?’

‘I want to take what you want to give. In return, you get the shelter. And please don’t try and tell me that you don’t want to touch me. You do.’ His mouth met hers and Chase braced her hands on his shoulders, determined to push him away. But instead she was horrified to find that she was caressing him; that her mouth was returning his kiss with equal urgency; that she was sinking into him like a person starved of nourishment; that she was whimpering, little mewling sounds that shocked and excited her in equal measure and, worse, when he finally pulled back that the sudden space between them felt cold and unwelcome.

‘I think I’ve proved my point.’ There was a betraying unsteadiness in his voice. He might not like her or respect her but, God, did he want her. More than anything or anyone. ‘Let’s finish this business. A couple of weeks, tops, and you can disappear back to whatever life you have, having made your friend a very happy bunny.’

Chase had withdrawn and was rising to her feet, arms tight around her body.

‘I’ll never do that, Alessandro!’

Alessandro shrugged and tried to wrestle back his self-control, even though just watching her was affecting him in ways he could barely quantify. ‘You have forty-eight hours to give me your answer then the deal is off the table.’

‘I’ve already given you my answer!’

‘Forty-eight hours…’ he repeated, his eyes roving over her flushed face and her defiant yet tellingly shaken expression. ‘And let’s just wait and see if your answer remains the same after you’ve…thought things through.’

CHAPTER FIVE

BETH TELEPHONED THAT evening. She could barely contain her excitement. She might be able to hang on to the shelter!

‘What do you mean?’ Chase asked tentatively. She had spent the past few hours unable to get down to work. Alessandro’s offer kept playing in her head over and over again, like a tape recording on a loop. She had stalked out of his house, her head held high, and he had made no attempt to stop her. She thought that that, in itself, displayed a level of arrogance that should really have had her turning her back on him for ever. She loathed arrogance.

Unfortunately, along with her determination not to be browbeaten into making a pact with the devil, there lurked the uncomfortable awareness that, devil or not, he roused something in her she didn’t want but couldn’t resist. He had kissed her and her whole world had felt as though it had been tilted on its side. It was the same something that had been there eight years ago; the same something that had made her behave in a way she had known she shouldn’t. Sexual attraction: he had put his finger on it. Sexual attraction and more…

‘I had a call from Mr Moretti.’

‘Ah…’ She drifted over to the sofa and sat down.

‘He’s a lot more compassionate than I originally gave him credit for. You know, when this whole business started, well, I just thought of him as a human bulldozer, not caring what or who got in his way.’

Chase smirked. ‘What did he say?’

‘That he’s spoken to you and you’ve both come up with a plan to secure the future of the shelter; you’re both trying to iron out the creases. Chase, my dear, I can’t tell you how overjoyed I would be if this worked out. I’ve been dreading telling the girls that they’ll have to go, plus the waiting list is so long of people who need us. Not to mention the seaside idea. Never could quite see myself retiring by the coast and having coffee mornings with all the other retirees.’

‘I’m sure there’s more to life by the coast than coffee mornings.’ Her mind was in a whirl. She was also incensed. So much for the forty-eight hours after which her decision would be final! How could she have been foolish enough to believe that Alessandro wouldn’t exert influence over a decision he wanted? ‘Lots of people go down there to…er…sail…’ she said vaguely.

‘Can’t think of anything worse. Drive me mad!’

‘Did he mention what this idea of…ours happens to be?’ Chase prodded gently.

‘Not a word!’ Beth hooted. ‘Said it was something he wanted kept up his sleeve. Probably to do with tax!’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, don’t these awfully rich people enjoy tax breaks by giving money to charity? We are a registered charity…’

Chase sighed and decided to lay off the details of any such scheme. Despite a sharp brain and her degree in engineering, Beth’s interest in all things financial was sketchy at best.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, noncommittal.

‘At any rate, it all sounds very promising. I know what you’re going to say, my dear! Don’t count your chickens… But I get a good feeling from that young man. Did the minute I met him. Showed a real interest in everything we do here at the shelter.’

Alternatively, Chase thought, the man was a skilled actor with a golden tongue. Take your pick.

She spent another twenty minutes on the line as Beth waxed lyrical about Alessandro, and as soon as her friend was off the phone she hunted down the business card he had given her and telephoned him on his mobile.

‘Well, that was a low trick!’ was the first thing she said the minute she heard his voice on the other end.

At a little after nine, Alessandro had just finished wrapping up a two-hour conference call and was about to leave the office, which was deserted aside from him. In the act of reaching for his jacket, he flung it down on the leather sofa instead and relaxed to take her call. ‘So Beth called you,’ he drawled without an ounce of shame. ‘I thought she might. She certainly was over the moon when I spoke to her. Charming woman.’

‘You’re a low-down, sneaky rat!’

Alessandro grinned. Whatever Chase’s downsides, she was by far and away the most outspoken, feisty woman he had ever met in his entire life. It would probably be a tiresome trait in the long run, but just for the moment it was certainly invigorating.

‘Now, now, now…is that any way to speak to your friend’s knight in shining armour?’

Chase detected the wicked grin in his voice and gritted her teeth in frustration. ‘What did you tell her?’

‘Long conversation. I’ll fill you in when we next meet.’

‘How could you?’

‘How could I what? Make that delightful woman one very happy lady?’

‘Try and twist my arm into accepting your…your… No, I take that back; I understand perfectly how you did that!’

‘It’s comforting to know that you can read me like a book. That way, there will be no mixed messages between us. Now, why don’t you carry on working and I’ll call you in the morning?’

‘I haven’t been able to do a scrap of work today!’

‘Too busy thinking about me?’

Chase made an inarticulate sound of pure frustration and racked her brains for a clever riposte.

‘Well, why don’t you get some well-deserved beauty sleep and we’ll talk in the morning…or later, if you’d like. After all, your forty-eight hour deadline won’t yet be up. Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.’

She was left clutching the phone which had gone dead because he had hung up on her. He’d barely heard her out! She felt that there was a lot more anger to be expressed. Unfortunately, without an adversary at which to direct her attack, she was left simmering and fuming on her own as she flounced down in front of the television, having abandoned all attempts at reviewing her caseload.

She was barely aware of what she was watching. It appeared to be a crime drama with an awful lot of victims and an extremely elusive murderer. She had fully zoned out of the story line when, at a little after ten, she heard the insistent buzz of the doorbell and was jerked into instant red alert.

Alessandro.

Surely he wouldn’t have the cheek to show up at this hour at her house?

Of course he wouldn’t. Why would a shark bother to stalk a minnow when it knew full well that the minnow would swim into its gaping jaw of its own free will?

Much more likely that it was Beth; as she slipped on her bedroom slippers and padded out to the front door, she was already trying to work out what she might say to begin killing her friend’s already full-blown optimism.

She pulled open the door to Alessandro and her mouth fell open in surprise.

‘Rule one,’ he said, strolling past her to take up residence in the sitting room before she had had a chance to marshal her thoughts into order. ‘When living in London, never open the door unless you know who’s going to be standing on your doorstep.’ He turned towards her, which instantly made her feel like a guest in her own home. ‘I could have been anyone.’

‘And, unfortunately for me, you’re not!’ She folded her arms and looked at him with gimlet-eyed stoniness. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘You said that you were finding it impossible to get down to work because you were thinking of me, so I thought I’d drop by.’

‘I never said any such thing!’ He was not in work clothes but in a pair of black jeans and a grey polo-necked shirt. He looked drop-dead gorgeous, which did nothing for her composure, because she felt far from drop-dead anything in her tatty old jogging bottoms and a tee-shirt that had lost its shape in the wash years ago. She also wasn’t wearing a bra and she was conscious of her nipples poking against the cotton of the tee-shirt.

‘I must have misunderstood. My apologies. But I’m here now, so maybe you could offer me a cup of coffee? Nothing stronger. I’m driving.’

‘I wasn’t about to offer you anything!’

‘Don’t you want to let off steam? You were breathing brimstone and fire down the line less than an hour ago.’

‘Because you went behind my back and led Beth to believe that you were going to save her shelter—worse, led her to believe that the decision lies with me!’

‘Oh, but it does, doesn’t it?’ He stared at her with a mixture of cool certainty and mild surprise that she should question the obvious.

‘What on earth did you tell her?’

‘That you and I were working on a plan to see whether the place could be saved and money invested.’

‘Because you’re such a good guy, right?’

‘Let’s not go down the tortuous route of moral ethics, Chase. However non-existent you think mine are, you’re not exactly in a position to point fingers.’

Chase chewed her lip and glared impotently at him. ‘I’ll make you some coffee.’ She shrugged and turned away. He was here now, in her house, smug and self-satisfied at the awkward position into which he had shoved her; sooner or later they would have to talk, so why not make it sooner? She couldn’t see herself getting to sleep in a hurry.

She returned with two mugs of coffee to find him ensconced in one of the deep chairs, the very picture of a man totally relaxed in his surroundings.

‘You gave me your word that I would have forty-eight hours.’