The Italian's Future Bride

‘Did you?’ Not so Rachel had noticed.

‘Ah,si ,’ he sighed. ‘I almost came after you but—life, you know, got in my way…’

Another new conquest had got in his way, he meant.

‘And maybe I did you a very great favour,’ he added. ‘For look where you are today—betrothed to man with more connections in this city than any other that I know of. A man in possession of his own bank! I salute you,cara .’

Leaning towards him, Rachel let him lift her fingers to his lips. She let him try to seduce her with the rueful tease glinting in his sensual dark eyes. She even added a smile.

‘You know what, Alonso,’ she then said softly. ‘You were a beautiful charmer last year when I met you, and you are still a beautiful charmer now.’ He smiled and kissed her fingertips. ‘But why don’t you just tell me what it is that you want from me, because I am going to get up and leave here any minute…’

There was a moment of sharpened stillness, then he sat back in his seat and laughed. ‘How did you guess?’

Living the part of a rich man’s woman had taught her how useful other people believed she could be to them. ‘Raffaelle does not need another new car,’ she told him. ‘He has too many of them already.’

‘An introduction to him and his friends could bode well for me in the future, though.’

‘Or ruin your career,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘Raffaelle knows about you and me,caro .’

He caught on, which Rachel had known he would do. The smile died from his features, taking with it all the charm and leaving behind only a rueful kind of petulance.

Then it changed. A sudden well-remembered gleam hit his eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you would enjoy a little light diversion this afternoon with your old lover—for old time’s sake before we part again?’

The business side done with, he was back to playing the sexy charmer. Rachel couldn’t help it, she laughed. ‘No, I would not!’ she refused, still bubbling with amusement at his downright audacity.

His lazy smile reappeared and he reached across the table to gently brush her smiling mouth with his thumb. ‘Shame,’ he murmured. ‘We were so good together once, hmm,carisima …’

Across the square on the shady side, a camera caught them for posterity as Rachel reached up to close her hand around his so that she could remove his touch from her mouth.

‘One day,’ she warned him seriously, ‘some beautiful creature is going to come into your life and knock down your outrageous conceit.’

‘But she will not be you?’

‘No.’ She’d tried to do that once and had failed, had survived the experience and had now moved on—though to what, she was not certain about.

Still, it was a good feeling to realise that she was completely free of Alonso. So maybe meeting up with him had not been a bad thing to happen in her life right now.

Getting to her feet, ‘Ciao, Alonso,’ she murmured softly, then simply turned and walked away from him.

He did not try to stop her. Maybe he’d read the look in her eyes and knew he had lost the power to make her feel anything for him.

Or, more likely, he simply did not care enough to want to stop her. Who knew? It was just a good feeling to know that she no longer cared.

The camera toting paparazzo had already gone, missing the moment that she’d walked away from her old love with no regrets. And, by the time she reached the main street again, Alonso had been pushed right out of her thoughts by more important things.

Buying a pregnancy testing kit took courage, she discovered. She was constantly glancing around her to check if anyone was watching her and she found herself wandering aimlessly around the shops, putting off the evil moment for as long as she could.

Which in the end turned out to be a foolish exercise because, having found the courage to buy the darn thing, she had been back at the apartment for barely two minutes when Raffaelle arrived home unexpectedly, forcing her to shove her purchase into a bedside drawer.

He was in a strange mood, cold and distant and sarcastic as hell when she tried to speak to him. She needed to tell him about her meeting with Alonso, but he just cut her off with a curt, ‘Later,’ then locked himself away in his study and did not come out again until it was almost time for them to leave for the restaurant where they were meeting his friends for dinner that evening.

His mood had not improved by the time he’d taken a shower and changed his business suit for a more casual version made of fine charcoal-coloured linen. Her simple black halter dress drew no comment—but then why should it when he’d seen her wearing it several times before?

But she was hurt by the sudden loss of his usual attention. Confessions about surprise meetings with old lovers just did not suit the kind of mood he surrounded them with as they left.

He did not look at her. He did not touch her. When she dared to open her mouth and ask what was wrong with him, he ignored the question by turning to say something to Dino who was driving them tonight.

What with his bad mood, the stress of knowing that the pregnancy test was still burning a hole in the bedside drawer, plus the memory of her meeting with Alonso sitting heavy on her conscience, the last person she needed to see as they walked into the restaurant foyer was his stepsister Daniella, who was standing beside a tall, dark, handsome man. The elusive Gino Rossi, Rachel assumed, by the way Daniella was tucked so intimately into his side.