Craving Her Enemy's Touch

‘My conscience is clear, Charlie.’ It was—he was doing this for Seb.

‘Charlotte.’ Her voice cracked like a whip as she corrected his use of her name, glaring up at him. ‘And once again you are lying. I don’t believe Seb really asked for me to be at the launch. It was you who wanted me there all along; you were just preying on my emotions.’

‘Seb did ask for you to be there; that much is true.’ Her anger lacerated him but he stood firm against it, holding the truth inside.

‘That much? So you are lying about something?’ Her voice lowered in suspicion and she looked at him through narrowing eyes.

He had to think fast, keep ahead of her suspicions. ‘I have not lied, but certain things need to remain out of the limelight.’

‘Like this?’ She stabbed at the photo of them kissing and inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief. He’d almost blown it, almost revealed there were things he was holding back on. Her anger fizzed around him, preventing her from thinking in any rational kind of way.

* * *

Charlie couldn’t take any more and tossed the offending newspaper back onto the desk, glaring angrily at the man she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with.

Fall in love?

Panic rushed through her faster than any car she’d ever driven. She couldn’t love him. Not Alessandro Roselli. Not the man she blamed for Seb’s accident and the man who had cruelly tricked her and used her emotional weakness for his own ends.

‘You can’t run and hide from this, Charlotte.’ Alessandro’s words filtered through the hazy fog of anger and shock that obscured just about everything. Hadn’t he used that phrase earlier? Then he’d been referring to love. Now it was truth. She sensed he was keeping something from her—and she was sure it wasn’t love, despite his murmured words of endearment just hours ago.

‘I don’t run.’ She stood in the doorway of the room she’d used the first night at his apartment, swallowing down the bitter taste of reality, refusing to admit any such thing to him.

‘Then what are you doing now, cara?’ His words were softer, coaxing and cajoling. She was running, she was hiding; they both knew it, but she’d never admit it to him. Especially as it was love she was running from. She had no choice. This man didn’t love her and never would. He’d agreed to the weekend affair for exactly the same reasons as she had. He didn’t do love.

‘I’m not the only one running or hiding, Alessandro.’ She spoke calmly even though her heart was thudding painfully in her chest and her knees were suddenly weak.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘What is it you want to say, Charlotte?’

She ignored the way he used her name, the way his accent caressed it, keeping herself focused on what she really wanted. ‘You are hiding the truth of Seb’s accident.’

‘I’ve told you all there is to tell,’ he said, his eyes searching her face.

‘We both know that’s not exactly true.’ She lifted her chin in a show of defiance, looked him in the eye and continued. ‘You told me what you want me to know.’

‘It wasn’t the car, Charlotte.’

‘So it was the driver. It was Seb.’ She wasn’t about to let this go now. Whatever the truth was, she had to know.

‘It was. I’m sorry.’ He reached out to her but she flinched.

‘Don’t.’ The word was spat out as she battled with the idea that the accident had possibly been Seb’s fault and that Alessandro, for whatever reason, wasn’t going to tell her.

‘You should talk to your father,’ he said quietly, seemingly indifferent to her anger.

‘I intend to. Right now.’ She turned and moved into her room, purposefully keeping the door open. She wanted him to see her ring her father, watch whilst she asked for the full facts.

Angrily grabbing her phone from her bag, she dialled the number. It rang out before going to answerphone. But she wasn’t beaten yet. ‘If you will excuse me,’ she said tartly as she began to shut the door, ‘I have packing to do.’

With that she turned her back on him, resolutely shutting the door behind her. She dropped to sit on the bed, all the fight deflating from her. Outside, a nearby bell tower chimed the hour and she fought against threatening tears.

It was time to go home. Time to go back to her life and pick up the pieces that had been discarded the day she’d heard that her beloved brother had died. Just as her father had been trying to persuade her to do for many months. But she was sure he wouldn’t have wanted her to fall in love with Alessandro Roselli and that was just what she’d done.