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She crested a hill, on either side of which russets, browns and stark, naked fields, stripped bare of colour, filled her with a sense of freedom, and there, just ahead of her, she could see the entrance to the long drive that led up to Roberto’s house.
She slowed down, took her time pedalling her way up the drive. She never tired of this familiar route. In summer it was stunning, vibrant with green, the trees bending over the drive. In winter the bare trees were equally impressive, stretching up like talons reaching for the clouds.
The unexpected sight of a black SUV brought her to a halt and she slowly began walking the bike towards the front door.
Surprises were rarely of the good kind and this was a surprise because Roberto seldom had visitors. At least, not ones that weren’t of the local variety. He had friends in the village...her grandmother was very pally with him, somewhat more than pally, she suspected, and of course he went to the usual things arranged for older people because there was quite a thriving community in the village for the over-sixties, but strangers appearing out of nowhere...?
Which only left one possibility and that made her heart sink. She’d never met the son and, in fairness, Roberto didn’t dwell on him very much but the little he had said had not left a good impression either with her or with her grandmother.
She rang the doorbell and waited, heart beating fast.
* * *
Inside the house, specifically inside the office to which he had retreated after a tense breakfast with his father that had achieved less than zero, if that was possible, Alessandro heard the sharp ring of the doorbell and cursed fluently under his breath.
The vanishing hired help had remained vanished. His father, who was hell-bent on not listening to common sense, had taken himself off to his massive greenhouse, where, he said, he could have more fruitful conversation with his plants. Alessandro’s plan to buy some food and do something with it had changed. He had decided to take his father out for dinner in the town because if his father was in a restaurant, there was just so far he could go when it came to dodging the inevitable conversation.
He reached the front door and pulled it open, his mood already foul because he could see the word wasted stamped all over his weekend.
The girl standing in front of him, gripping the handlebars of a bike that looked like a relic from a different era, took him momentarily by surprise.
She was a short, round little thing with copper-coloured hair that had been dragged back into a ponytail and eyes...
The purest, greenest eyes he had ever seen.
‘About time.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Laura had been expecting Roberto to answer the door. Instead, finding herself staring up at the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life, her breathing had become jerky and her pulse was all over the place.
This would be the son and he was nothing like the mental picture she’d had in her head.
Her mental picture had been of a pompous, puffed-up, frankly ugly little guy who had his nose stuck in the air and never ventured out of London if he could help it. He hardly showed his face in Scotland and when he did, Roberto was always subdued afterwards, as if recovering from a virus.
Unfortunately, the man staring down at her with a glacial expression was too disturbingly good-looking for anybody’s good. He positively towered over her and every inch of his body was hard-packed muscle. The black, long-sleeved T-shirt lovingly advertised that, as did the faded, low-slung black jeans.
‘Finished staring?’ he asked coolly, and Laura went bright red. ‘Because if you are, you can come in, head directly to the kitchen and begin doing what you’re paid to do.’
‘Sorry?’ Laura blinked and stared at him in bewilderment before remembering the way he had sneered at her for staring, which made her immediately shift her gaze to the ivy clambering up the wall behind him.
Alessandro didn’t bother answering. Instead, he stepped to one side and headed to the kitchen, expecting her to follow him.
Laura stared at his departing back with mounting anger.
‘I’d like to know what’s going on,’ she demanded, having flung her bike to the ground and sprinted in his wake.
‘What’s going on...’ Alessandro turned to face her and spread his arms wide ‘...is a kitchen that needs tidying. Which is what you’re paid to do. Correct me if I’m wrong.’ He leaned against the granite counter and looked at the round little bundle poised resentfully by the door. No one liked being reprimanded, but needs must, he thought. ‘I understand that Freya couldn’t make it to work yesterday because her dog was feeling under the weather, but it beggars belief that she couldn’t be bothered to send her replacement until today and it’s even more astonishing that her replacement can’t be bothered to turn up until after ten in the morning!’
Placid by nature, Laura was discovering that it was remarkably easy to go from cool to boiling in seconds. She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘If the kitchen needed tidying, why didn’t you tidy it yourself?’
‘I’ll pretend I just didn’t hear that!’
‘I’d like to see Roberto...’
‘And why would that be?’ Alessandro drawled silkily. He folded his arms and stared at her. ‘You might be able to get past him with some fairy-tale sob story about not being able to do the job you’re paid to do because the dog’s cousin got a cold or the rain was falling in the wrong direction so you just couldn’t make it on time, but I’m made of tougher stuff. You should have been here at eight, as far as I’m concerned, and your pay will be docked accordingly!’ Not, in all events, that that was going to be much of a concern considering his father would be out of the house, if not this weekend, then certainly by the end of the month.
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact and frankly you should consider yourself lucky that I don’t sack you on the spot.’
‘This is too much! Where is Roberto?’
‘Roberto?’ He couldn’t remember Freya addressing his father by his first name. Eyes narrowed now on her flushed face, Alessandro slowly pushed himself away from the counter and strolled towards her.
Like a predator with prey in its sight, he circled her before coming to a stop right in front of her, arms still folded, and this time his expression was thoughtful.
‘Interesting,’ he mused softly.
‘What? What’s interesting?’ Laura inched back a little because his presence was so suffocating. She worked out that it wasn’t just to do with the fact that the man was sinfully, unfairly sexy. There was also something about him, something intangible that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.
‘Interesting that the hired help is now on a first-name basis with my father, who is a very rich man indeed.’
‘I’m not following you.’
‘Young girl...reasonably attractive...elderly man...loaded... I’m doing the maths and not liking the solution to the conundrum.’
Blood leached out of her face and there was a roaring in her ears. ‘Are you accusing me of...of...of...?’
‘I know. Incomprehensible, isn’t it? My father is pushing eighty, has more money than he knows what to do with, and a whippersnapper who couldn’t be more than...what?...twenty-two addresses him by his first name and seems pretty desperate to see him because, presumably, you know he’ll rescue you from an uncomfortable situation. Smacks of unhealthy cosiness but, then, maybe I’m just being unfairly cynical.’
‘Twenty-six, actually. I’m twenty-six.’ A gold-digger? Was that what she was being accused of? A reasonably attractive gold-digger? Could there be any more insults stashed up his sleeve?
‘Twenty-two...twenty-six. Doesn’t really make much of a difference. You’re still young enough to be his granddaughter. Thank God I’ve come along and seen for myself what goes on here.’
‘And I’m not the hired help.’
‘No?’ Alessandro’s eyebrows shot up. Hired help or no hired help, the woman was still an opportunist, although he had to admit that the old man had reasonably good taste. Up close, her eyes were even more amazing, her skin satiny smooth with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her mouth...
His eyes dipped lazily to her mouth, which was full and perfectly shaped.
She might not be a model but she certainly wasn’t a woman you would throw out of your bed on a rainy night.
She was fresh-faced and that in itself was oddly appealing. No wonder she had managed to inveigle herself into his father’s good graces. God knew how much she had managed to con out of him thus far.
‘No!’ Her skin burned under his scrutiny but she maintained eye contact, even though every nerve in her body was reacting with tight hostility to his accusations.
‘So who are you?’
‘I’m Laura. I’m a friend. As you would discover if you went and got him!’
‘Oh, I’ll get him,’ Alessandro said in a voice that made her teeth snap together in impotent fury. ‘Just as soon as you and I have had a nice little chat. So why don’t you have a seat at the table, Laura, and we’ll...how do I put this?...get to know one another... No, wrong choice of words. I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to understand where I’m coming from.’
He smiled and she stared back angrily at him because chilling though the smile was it was still horribly, horribly sexy.
‘Fine,’ she snapped, because if he wanted to have a word with her, he’d find that she had a few words of her own to share. She stalked off towards the kitchen table and in one easy movement yanked off the annoying waterproof and turned to face him with a toss of her head. ‘And then I want to see your father.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU KNOW WHO I AM.’ This was getting better and better. He had no idea who she was and yet she knew who he was. If she was a friend, then she was a special one, because he knew his father and one thing was for sure—Roberto Falcone was tight-lipped when it came to conversation. He was a man, and had always been a man, who spoke only when the situation demanded speech.
Alessandro could remember many a meal consumed in silence once the formalities of polite conversation had been exhausted.
‘Of course I know who you are. Why wouldn’t I? You’re Alessandro, the son who never comes up to Scotland if he can help it.’
Alessandro flushed darkly. ‘My father said that?’
‘He didn’t have to. You import your father down to London when you want to see him because it’s easier. When was the last time you were here anyway?’
‘How do you know my father?’ Alessandro asked abruptly, cutting short any attempts to try to derail the conversation. So she wasn’t the hired help and he should have recognised that from the get-go. Hired help didn’t look like her and they certainly didn’t have that stubborn tilt to their heads. His eyes roved over a body that, now that it was divested of the bulky parka, was rounded in all the right places. Small, voluptuous and...especially when you combined it with her fresh-faced, make-up-free look...downright sexy.
He sat down at the opposite end of the table. The kitchen was one of the few really informal places in the splendid mansion and Alessandro had never ceased to be amazed that his father had given the go-ahead for it to be furnished with weathered pine, a softly upholstered sofa to the side, an oven that was well-worn and distressed cupboards. Not at all a reflection of the stern, tight-lipped man he was.
‘I’m not here for an inquisition. I don’t have to answer your questions. Where is he? I came to ask whether there was anything he needed from the shops. I didn’t expect to find you here.’
Alessandro found pretty much everything she said highly offensive, from the tone of her voice to her refusal to answer his questions to the implication that he was somehow vaguely responsible for his father’s non-appearance. Did she think that he had stashed Roberto away in a cupboard somewhere? To be retrieved a little later when it suited him?
‘And furthermore,’ Laura added for good measure, ‘I resent your insinuation that because I’m young I’m only friends with your father because he’s rich. You have no right to accuse me of something like that. You don’t even know who I am!’ She leaned forward, her cheeks flushed, more angry than she had ever been in her life. Angrier, it felt, than when she had discovered that the so-called love of her life was a married man with a toddler. Every single thing about the arrogant man staring at her with forbidding iciness got under her skin and made her see red.
‘Frankly, I don’t really care whether you resent my insinuations or not,’ Alessandro said coolly. ‘I intend to protect my father’s interests and if that means seeing off a friend, then so be it. Answer my questions and we can move forward. Sit there foaming at the mouth...and back on your bike you go.’
‘I am not foaming at the mouth!’
‘How long have you known my father?’
Frustrated, Laura yanked her hair out of its constricting ponytail and ran her fingers through its thick length, and for a few seconds the air was sucked out of his lungs. It was a rich mane of colour and very long, longer than fashionably chic, cascading over her shoulders. He tore his eyes away and frowned, unsettled.
‘Off and on for years.’ Laura reluctantly gave him the information he wanted because she had a feeling that he wouldn’t stop until she had told him what he wanted to know. Frankly, he probably wouldn’t let her out of the kitchen until she told him what he wanted to know. He would probably strap her to the chair, shine a torch on her face and keep asking his wretched questions until she answered him.
And maybe he had a point. Roberto was very, very wealthy and could potentially be a target for gold-diggers. And she was, after all, seriously young to be his friend, even if she was only passably attractive. It was one thing to have no illusions about the way you looked. It was another thing to have someone point out your physical shortcomings without even bothering to be nice about it.
She knew that she wasn’t blessed with knock-’em-dead looks. She had lived in London long enough to realise that the tall and skinny ruled the roost when it came to what was deemed sexy and attractive.
But had there been any need for him to point it out? The throwaway insult hovered at the back of her mind like a thorn. Odious man.
‘Years...’ Alessandro said, frowning. She wasn’t lying. Her face couldn’t have been more transparent, and yet how was it that he hadn’t even known of her existence?
‘Before I went to London,’ Laura confirmed. ‘He belonged to the same gardening group as me and...as me. He loves horticulture, you know. And playing chess. Ever since I returned from London I’ve been playing chess with him once a week. He’s a brilliant chess player.’
‘You’re telling me that the only interest you have in my father is as fellow chess player and gardener.’
‘It’s not solely about the gardening.’ Laura bristled. ‘It’s the thrill of spotting rare plants, trying to produce interesting hybrids...’ She noted the blank expression on his face. ‘I don’t suppose you have any plants where you live,’ she tacked on. ‘Roberto says that you live in a flat.’
‘Penthouse apartment, and, no, no plants that I can think of offhand,’ Alessandro responded automatically. ‘So you play chess and talk about plants.’
‘Pretty much.’ The silence stretched between them until she began to fidget uncomfortably. ‘It’s called having hobbies. You must have some of those...’
‘I work,’ Alessandro replied shortly. ‘And...’ he suddenly smiled and just like that his face was transformed, the harsh, unyielding lines smoothed out to give a picture of mind-blowing sexiness ‘...I play. I consider both to be my hobbies...’
Colour had invaded her cheeks. Her green eyes were locked to his face. When she nervously licked her lips, she saw the way his eyes absently followed the movement and that made her go even redder. ‘Play?’ she asked feebly. Her brain seemed to have gone AWOL. He was still half smiling, his head inclined slightly to one side, and she was still beetroot red, uncomfortable in her own skin and not liking the sensation.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’m very good at playing.’
Laura blinked and came back down to earth. ‘Well, your father enjoys his chess and his plants and...’
‘And?’
‘This and that. He’s had to take it easy after the stroke and, of course, he’s only really now back on his feet properly after the fall, but he’ll be back in the swing of things in no time at all.’
‘What’s this and that?’ Trampolining? Abseiling? White-water rafting? He’d had no idea that his father was an active member of the local horticultural society so the this and that could literally, in his books, have applied to anything at all.
Laura shrugged evasively. ‘Usual. The point is that he can start back doing all the stuff he enjoys now. So you can go back down to London, safe in the knowledge that he’s well looked after. No need to feel duty bound to rush up here and check him over. Not to mention check over his friends and the people who work for him. No need for you to think that you have to keep an eye and give people the sack or dock their pay or whatever else you think might be necessary...’
Alessandro looked in wonderment at the pink-faced woman glaring defiantly at him. When was the last time he had encountered someone with such barefaced cheek? Actually, had he ever? Whatever angle women took with him, it never included being lippy.
‘Before we get on to the juicy bit of what I have to say...’ Alessandro relaxed back and crossed his legs, ankle resting lightly on his knee, hands linked on his lap. ‘I’m curious.’
‘What about?’ Laura didn’t care for his loose-limbed, relaxed pose because it resembled the looseness of a predator just before it homed in for a kill.
‘About what brought you back from London to this...’ he looked around him, as though in search of an inspiring adjective ‘...backwater.’
Laura bristled. He was doing it again. Turning her into a self-defensive, shrieking harridan, which was not her at all.
She breathed in deeply and tried to think Zen thoughts. ‘This isn’t a backwater.’ Her voice was quiet and even, even if her blood was boiling. ‘If you took the time to really look around you, you’d see that it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. There’s everything you could possibly hope to want in Scotland. There are castles, lochs, rivers and lakes, mountains... It’s a wonderfully peaceful place...’
‘Interesting travelogue. I’m more of an urban guy myself but is that an invitation to show me the sights and win me over?’
‘It most certainly is not!’
Alessandro laughed, really laughed, with humour, his dark eyes lazy and amused as they rested on her flushed face.
‘Shame,’ he mused pensively. ‘A personal tour might really go the distance in winning me over to its charms. So you moved here because there are castles and lakes and it’s peaceful.’
Laura didn’t actually think that her reasons for moving back to Scotland were any of the man’s business but would he keep pressing? Secrets always engendered curiosity in other people and naturally she didn’t care one way or another whether he was curious or not but still...why make things harder for herself?
‘Partly, and also because my grandmother had a turn...’ Which was somewhat true and left out the bigger part of her reason, namely her ill-advised, foolish love affair.
‘Had a turn?’
‘Was getting dizzy spells, suffering with her balance. She lives on her own and I wanted to be here for her.’ She looked wistfully off into the distance. ‘She was there for me when my parents died. I didn’t begrudge returning to be here for her.’
Alessandro swiftly dispelled the glaring contradictions between them. He was here on behalf of his father, to take him down to London even though he might protest the move. It was for his own good! For a start, there was just so much choice when it came to various medical treatments, and having had both a stroke and a fall, who knew what medical treatment the future held for him? In London, he would receive the best!
‘Big of you,’ Alessandro murmured. ‘I can only think that it must have been a wrench leaving the bright city lights and returning to all this peace and tranquillity. What was your job in London?’
He wasn’t interested. Not really. He was simply establishing her credentials, working out whether she was a threat to his father’s fortune or not. She knew that.
She wondered what had possessed her to come cycling here today and, having seen that SUV skewed in the courtyard, what had further possessed her to ring the doorbell, knowing that Roberto’s son would be on the premises.
Fate had really decided to have a laugh at her expense.
‘I worked as a PA.’ She lowered her eyes, a little flicker of movement that Alessandro’s keen antennae picked up.
‘What company?’
‘I don’t know what that has to do with anything!’ she snapped, bright spots of colour on her cheeks.
‘You’re right. It hasn’t. And I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known that I was getting too close to state secrets.’
‘It’s no big deal.’ And yet, for some reason, she was reluctant to say the name of the firm out loud. Was it because she would be reminded of Colin? And the mortification of finding out that he had been lying to her? The horror of realising just how naive she had been to have handed over her trust to a smooth-talker? The shame when she thought that he had seen how green round the gills she’d been and had known that she would have lacked the experience to figure out what a bastard he really was?
She surfaced to find Alessandro’s dark eyes pinned thoughtfully to her face and she tilted her chin stubbornly and told him the name of the company.
‘Not,’ she repeated, ‘that it’s any of your business.’
‘I know the company,’ he murmured, still looking at her in a way that made her feel as though he could see right down deep into the very core of her. ‘And naturally I’m interested in finding out about one of my father’s friends... Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I didn’t think you were ever interested before,’ Laura pointed out. ‘I mean, you could have come to visit when there have been things going on...joined in...’
‘Things? What sort of things?’
‘Oh, you know...we yokels try to have a barn dance at least once a month and let’s not forget the annual hog roast while we all stand outside and admire the peaceful countryside...’
He burst out laughing. Suddenly those thoughtful eyes were dark with lazy appreciation.
Sexy, sharp-tongued, lippy...funny.
‘I prefer the barn dances in London,’ he told her with mock seriousness. ‘And the hog roasts are good, too, although, of course, we all tend to stand outside and admire the pollution. Happy times...’
Laura didn’t want to laugh but she had to fight the urge. ‘It’s good of you to visit him,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘I suppose you’ve been worried but, like I said, there’s no need. I try to check on him every day after work.’
‘Oh? You managed to find yourself another PA job here?’ He wasn’t even sure what companies existed in the small town. He definitely wouldn’t have put it down as somewhere with a flourishing employment sector.
‘I realised that working as someone’s personal assistant wasn’t what I wanted to do.’
‘No?’
‘When I came back here, I landed a teaching job and it’s very fulfilling. I teach at the local primary school. It’s small and there are only a handful of kids in each class, but it’s extremely rewarding.’
‘Teacher.’
‘The hours are convenient and, of course, there are the holidays and half-terms, and because it’s a small village school I know all the mums on a one-to-one basis.’ It was a terrific job, nothing to be ashamed of, and yet Laura couldn’t stop the feeling of being just a little drab, just a tiny bit of a country bumpkin.