скачать книгу бесплатно
‘If she doesn’t show up,’ Roberto inserted grudgingly, ‘she’ll send someone in her place.’
‘Fine. In that case, I’ll leave all the dirty dishes so that she or her replacement has something to do when they get here. And now I’m heading off to do some work. I take it you won’t be needing your study?’
‘What would an old, feeble man with an old, feeble brain need a study for?’ He waved his hand, dismissing Alessandro without sparing him a glance. ‘It’s all yours.’
* * *
Laura Reid finally hopped on her bike and headed out of the terraced house she shared with her grandmother forty-five minutes later than planned.
Things moved at a different speed here. She had now lived here for nearly a year and a half and she was still getting used to the change of pace. She wasn’t sure whether she would ever completely get used to it.
On a bright, cold Saturday morning, her intentions might have been to start the day at the crack of dawn, get all the little chores done and dusted by nine and then cycle up to the big house, but intentions counted for nothing here.
People had dropped by. Her grandmother had taken herself off to Glasgow to visit her sister for two weeks and every well-wishing friend had popped around to make sure she was all right, as if her grandmother’s absence might herald all sorts of untold disasters. Was she making sure to eat properly? Curious, concerned eyes peered into the kitchen in the hope of spotting a pie or two. Had she remembered that the garbage people had changed their collection day because old Euan’s son had gone to hospital and his brother was covering?
Was she remembering to make sure the logs were kept dry? Edith would have a fit if she returned to find them soaked through and who knew what the weather would bring in the next ten days. And make sure to lock all the doors! Mildred had told Shona who had told Brian who had told his daughter Leigh that there had been a spate of petty thefts in the neighbouring village and you couldn’t be too careful.
The wind on her face felt great as she began cycling away from the town.
It meant freedom and peace and was always a time when she replayed her life in slow motion in her head, the way it had turned full circle so that she was right back where she had started.
The young girl who had gaily gone to London to take up a position as PA to a CEO in an upwardly mobile, just-gone-public company was no more. At least now, when she thought of that time in her life, her mouth no longer filled with bitterness and despair. Instead, she could put it all in perspective and see her experiences as a valuable learning curve.
She had worked for a busy, aggressive company, which, coming from this small town, had been a first. She had seen the bright lights and felt the buzz of big-city excitement. She had hopped on the Underground and jostled with the crowds at rush hour. She had eaten on the run and gone to wine bars with new friends.
And two years into her bright, shiny life she had met a guy, someone so wildly different from every guy she had ever met that was it any wonder she had fallen hopelessly in love with him?
The only downside was that he had been her boss. Not directly her boss, but far, far higher than her in the company food chain, recently transferred back to London from New York.
And naive as she had been, all the warning signs that would have been flagged up to any woman with just a bit more experience had passed her by.
Rich guy...top job...cute, with little dimples and floppy blond hair...thirty-four and single...
Laura had been over the moon. She hadn’t minded the weekends he’d been unable to spend with her because he’d visited his ailing father in the New Forest area...hadn’t cared that meals out had always been in small, dark places miles away from the city centre...hadn’t really twigged when he’d told her that once an arrangement was made, it was set in cement...no need for her to call him and, besides, he was just one of those guys who hated long, rambling telephone conversations on mobiles.
‘There’s never a time when it’s convenient!’ he had joked teasingly. ‘You’re either in the supermarket, about to hand over your credit card...or on the Underground, hanging on to a strap for dear life...or about to step into the shower... Leave the calling to me!’
She had for nearly a year until she had seen him out, quite by chance, with a sandy-haired woman hanging on to his arm and a little toddler sucking a lollipop, twisting round from her pushchair to look at him.
So much for love. She’d fallen for a married guy, had fallen for surface charm and a clever way with words.
She had worked out her notice and left and now she was ninety-nine per cent convinced that it had all been for the best. Secretarial work hadn’t been for her. The job had been buzzy and well paid but the teaching job she did now was much more emotionally rewarding.
Plus everyone had to have a learning curve. She would never make the mistake of even looking twice at any man who was out of her league. If it looked too good to be true, it probably was.
It was a dull, cloudy morning and she could feel icy fingers trying to wriggle through the layers of her clothes...the vest, jumper, padded sleeveless waterproof that bulked her up so that she looked like a beach ball in search of a stretch of sand.
When she glanced over her shoulder, the little town had been left behind and there was roaming, rambling countryside all around her, stretching as far as the eye could see.
She slowed down. There was no place on earth as beautiful as Scotland. No place where you could practically hear the silence and the small sounds of nature, living, breathing nature. This was where she had grown up. Not this precise spot in this exact town, but in a very similar small town not a million miles away. She had moved to live with her grandmother when her parents had died. She had been just seven at the time. She had adjusted over time to the loss of her parents and it had taken her a lot less time to adjust to life in this part of Scotland because the scenery was so familiar to her.
She crested a hill, on either side of which russets, browns and stark, naked fields, stripped bare of colour, filled her with a sense of freedom, and there, just ahead of her, she could see the entrance to the long drive that led up to Roberto’s house.
She slowed down, took her time pedalling her way up the drive. She never tired of this familiar route. In summer it was stunning, vibrant with green, the trees bending over the drive. In winter the bare trees were equally impressive, stretching up like talons reaching for the clouds.
The unexpected sight of a black SUV brought her to a halt and she slowly began walking the bike towards the front door.
Surprises were rarely of the good kind and this was a surprise because Roberto seldom had visitors. At least, not ones that weren’t of the local variety. He had friends in the village...her grandmother was very pally with him, somewhat more than pally, she suspected, and of course he went to the usual things arranged for older people because there was quite a thriving community in the village for the over-sixties, but strangers appearing out of nowhere...?
Which only left one possibility and that made her heart sink. She’d never met the son and, in fairness, Roberto didn’t dwell on him very much but the little he had said had not left a good impression either with her or with her grandmother.
She rang the doorbell and waited, heart beating fast.
* * *
Inside the house, specifically inside the office to which he had retreated after a tense breakfast with his father that had achieved less than zero, if that was possible, Alessandro heard the sharp ring of the doorbell and cursed fluently under his breath.
The vanishing hired help had remained vanished. His father, who was hell-bent on not listening to common sense, had taken himself off to his massive greenhouse, where, he said, he could have more fruitful conversation with his plants. Alessandro’s plan to buy some food and do something with it had changed. He had decided to take his father out for dinner in the town because if his father was in a restaurant, there was just so far he could go when it came to dodging the inevitable conversation.
He reached the front door and pulled it open, his mood already foul because he could see the word wasted stamped all over his weekend.
The girl standing in front of him, gripping the handlebars of a bike that looked like a relic from a different era, took him momentarily by surprise.
She was a short, round little thing with copper-coloured hair that had been dragged back into a ponytail and eyes...
The purest, greenest eyes he had ever seen.
‘About time.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Laura had been expecting Roberto to answer the door. Instead, finding herself staring up at the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life, her breathing had become jerky and her pulse was all over the place.
This would be the son and he was nothing like the mental picture she’d had in her head.
Her mental picture had been of a pompous, puffed-up, frankly ugly little guy who had his nose stuck in the air and never ventured out of London if he could help it. He hardly showed his face in Scotland and when he did, Roberto was always subdued afterwards, as if recovering from a virus.
Unfortunately, the man staring down at her with a glacial expression was too disturbingly good-looking for anybody’s good. He positively towered over her and every inch of his body was hard-packed muscle. The black, long-sleeved T-shirt lovingly advertised that, as did the faded, low-slung black jeans.
‘Finished staring?’ he asked coolly, and Laura went bright red. ‘Because if you are, you can come in, head directly to the kitchen and begin doing what you’re paid to do.’
‘Sorry?’ Laura blinked and stared at him in bewilderment before remembering the way he had sneered at her for staring, which made her immediately shift her gaze to the ivy clambering up the wall behind him.
Alessandro didn’t bother answering. Instead, he stepped to one side and headed to the kitchen, expecting her to follow him.
Laura stared at his departing back with mounting anger.
‘I’d like to know what’s going on,’ she demanded, having flung her bike to the ground and sprinted in his wake.
‘What’s going on...’ Alessandro turned to face her and spread his arms wide ‘...is a kitchen that needs tidying. Which is what you’re paid to do. Correct me if I’m wrong.’ He leaned against the granite counter and looked at the round little bundle poised resentfully by the door. No one liked being reprimanded, but needs must, he thought. ‘I understand that Freya couldn’t make it to work yesterday because her dog was feeling under the weather, but it beggars belief that she couldn’t be bothered to send her replacement until today and it’s even more astonishing that her replacement can’t be bothered to turn up until after ten in the morning!’
Placid by nature, Laura was discovering that it was remarkably easy to go from cool to boiling in seconds. She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘If the kitchen needed tidying, why didn’t you tidy it yourself?’
‘I’ll pretend I just didn’t hear that!’
‘I’d like to see Roberto...’
‘And why would that be?’ Alessandro drawled silkily. He folded his arms and stared at her. ‘You might be able to get past him with some fairy-tale sob story about not being able to do the job you’re paid to do because the dog’s cousin got a cold or the rain was falling in the wrong direction so you just couldn’t make it on time, but I’m made of tougher stuff. You should have been here at eight, as far as I’m concerned, and your pay will be docked accordingly!’ Not, in all events, that that was going to be much of a concern considering his father would be out of the house, if not this weekend, then certainly by the end of the month.
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact and frankly you should consider yourself lucky that I don’t sack you on the spot.’
‘This is too much! Where is Roberto?’
‘Roberto?’ He couldn’t remember Freya addressing his father by his first name. Eyes narrowed now on her flushed face, Alessandro slowly pushed himself away from the counter and strolled towards her.
Like a predator with prey in its sight, he circled her before coming to a stop right in front of her, arms still folded, and this time his expression was thoughtful.
‘Interesting,’ he mused softly.
‘What? What’s interesting?’ Laura inched back a little because his presence was so suffocating. She worked out that it wasn’t just to do with the fact that the man was sinfully, unfairly sexy. There was also something about him, something intangible that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.
‘Interesting that the hired help is now on a first-name basis with my father, who is a very rich man indeed.’
‘I’m not following you.’
‘Young girl...reasonably attractive...elderly man...loaded... I’m doing the maths and not liking the solution to the conundrum.’
Blood leached out of her face and there was a roaring in her ears. ‘Are you accusing me of...of...of...?’
‘I know. Incomprehensible, isn’t it? My father is pushing eighty, has more money than he knows what to do with, and a whippersnapper who couldn’t be more than...what?...twenty-two addresses him by his first name and seems pretty desperate to see him because, presumably, you know he’ll rescue you from an uncomfortable situation. Smacks of unhealthy cosiness but, then, maybe I’m just being unfairly cynical.’
‘Twenty-six, actually. I’m twenty-six.’ A gold-digger? Was that what she was being accused of? A reasonably attractive gold-digger? Could there be any more insults stashed up his sleeve?
‘Twenty-two...twenty-six. Doesn’t really make much of a difference. You’re still young enough to be his granddaughter. Thank God I’ve come along and seen for myself what goes on here.’
‘And I’m not the hired help.’
‘No?’ Alessandro’s eyebrows shot up. Hired help or no hired help, the woman was still an opportunist, although he had to admit that the old man had reasonably good taste. Up close, her eyes were even more amazing, her skin satiny smooth with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her mouth...
His eyes dipped lazily to her mouth, which was full and perfectly shaped.
She might not be a model but she certainly wasn’t a woman you would throw out of your bed on a rainy night.
She was fresh-faced and that in itself was oddly appealing. No wonder she had managed to inveigle herself into his father’s good graces. God knew how much she had managed to con out of him thus far.
‘No!’ Her skin burned under his scrutiny but she maintained eye contact, even though every nerve in her body was reacting with tight hostility to his accusations.
‘So who are you?’
‘I’m Laura. I’m a friend. As you would discover if you went and got him!’
‘Oh, I’ll get him,’ Alessandro said in a voice that made her teeth snap together in impotent fury. ‘Just as soon as you and I have had a nice little chat. So why don’t you have a seat at the table, Laura, and we’ll...how do I put this?...get to know one another... No, wrong choice of words. I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to understand where I’m coming from.’
He smiled and she stared back angrily at him because chilling though the smile was it was still horribly, horribly sexy.
‘Fine,’ she snapped, because if he wanted to have a word with her, he’d find that she had a few words of her own to share. She stalked off towards the kitchen table and in one easy movement yanked off the annoying waterproof and turned to face him with a toss of her head. ‘And then I want to see your father.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_2c9991b8-0102-5ee2-add8-1f1062e57f1d)
‘YOU KNOW WHO I AM.’ This was getting better and better. He had no idea who she was and yet she knew who he was. If she was a friend, then she was a special one, because he knew his father and one thing was for sure—Roberto Falcone was tight-lipped when it came to conversation. He was a man, and had always been a man, who spoke only when the situation demanded speech.
Alessandro could remember many a meal consumed in silence once the formalities of polite conversation had been exhausted.
‘Of course I know who you are. Why wouldn’t I? You’re Alessandro, the son who never comes up to Scotland if he can help it.’
Alessandro flushed darkly. ‘My father said that?’
‘He didn’t have to. You import your father down to London when you want to see him because it’s easier. When was the last time you were here anyway?’
‘How do you know my father?’ Alessandro asked abruptly, cutting short any attempts to try to derail the conversation. So she wasn’t the hired help and he should have recognised that from the get-go. Hired help didn’t look like her and they certainly didn’t have that stubborn tilt to their heads. His eyes roved over a body that, now that it was divested of the bulky parka, was rounded in all the right places. Small, voluptuous and...especially when you combined it with her fresh-faced, make-up-free look...downright sexy.
He sat down at the opposite end of the table. The kitchen was one of the few really informal places in the splendid mansion and Alessandro had never ceased to be amazed that his father had given the go-ahead for it to be furnished with weathered pine, a softly upholstered sofa to the side, an oven that was well-worn and distressed cupboards. Not at all a reflection of the stern, tight-lipped man he was.
‘I’m not here for an inquisition. I don’t have to answer your questions. Where is he? I came to ask whether there was anything he needed from the shops. I didn’t expect to find you here.’
Alessandro found pretty much everything she said highly offensive, from the tone of her voice to her refusal to answer his questions to the implication that he was somehow vaguely responsible for his father’s non-appearance. Did she think that he had stashed Roberto away in a cupboard somewhere? To be retrieved a little later when it suited him?
‘And furthermore,’ Laura added for good measure, ‘I resent your insinuation that because I’m young I’m only friends with your father because he’s rich. You have no right to accuse me of something like that. You don’t even know who I am!’ She leaned forward, her cheeks flushed, more angry than she had ever been in her life. Angrier, it felt, than when she had discovered that the so-called love of her life was a married man with a toddler. Every single thing about the arrogant man staring at her with forbidding iciness got under her skin and made her see red.
‘Frankly, I don’t really care whether you resent my insinuations or not,’ Alessandro said coolly. ‘I intend to protect my father’s interests and if that means seeing off a friend, then so be it. Answer my questions and we can move forward. Sit there foaming at the mouth...and back on your bike you go.’
‘I am not foaming at the mouth!’
‘How long have you known my father?’
Frustrated, Laura yanked her hair out of its constricting ponytail and ran her fingers through its thick length, and for a few seconds the air was sucked out of his lungs. It was a rich mane of colour and very long, longer than fashionably chic, cascading over her shoulders. He tore his eyes away and frowned, unsettled.
‘Off and on for years.’ Laura reluctantly gave him the information he wanted because she had a feeling that he wouldn’t stop until she had told him what he wanted to know. Frankly, he probably wouldn’t let her out of the kitchen until she told him what he wanted to know. He would probably strap her to the chair, shine a torch on her face and keep asking his wretched questions until she answered him.
And maybe he had a point. Roberto was very, very wealthy and could potentially be a target for gold-diggers. And she was, after all, seriously young to be his friend, even if she was only passably attractive. It was one thing to have no illusions about the way you looked. It was another thing to have someone point out your physical shortcomings without even bothering to be nice about it.
She knew that she wasn’t blessed with knock-’em-dead looks. She had lived in London long enough to realise that the tall and skinny ruled the roost when it came to what was deemed sexy and attractive.
But had there been any need for him to point it out? The throwaway insult hovered at the back of her mind like a thorn. Odious man.
‘Years...’ Alessandro said, frowning. She wasn’t lying. Her face couldn’t have been more transparent, and yet how was it that he hadn’t even known of her existence?
‘Before I went to London,’ Laura confirmed. ‘He belonged to the same gardening group as me and...as me. He loves horticulture, you know. And playing chess. Ever since I returned from London I’ve been playing chess with him once a week. He’s a brilliant chess player.’
