‘You were thinking about me?’
‘Thinking about you,’ he confirmed. ‘And thinking about what I wanted to do to you.’ He smiled another one of those smiles. ‘The minute I saw you at that school play you got inside my head and I couldn’t get you out. Every time I looked at you, I imagined taking your clothes off and touching you. Everywhere.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Yes, you do—and if you don’t, ask yourself this. Why is it that we’ve managed to meet up so many times since then? I didn’t have to come to that football game you were playing. I didn’t have to come to your drinks party on Christmas Day.’
‘Stop it!’
The silence stretched between them, dangerous and alive.
‘You came to that football game with Dominic and Victoria,’ Megan told him shakily. ‘And you came to the Christmas Day party with Victoria.’
‘But I came. There was no need for me to. I could just as easily have stayed away from both, but I didn’t. The pull to see you was too strong.’
‘If I hadn’t shown up, Alessandro, you would still be happily engaged to Victoria. You would be making plans for your wedding…’ Megan fought to hang on to a bit of sanity.
‘Are you telling me that you didn’t feel the same pull towards me? That you haven’t once thought of me since fate threw us back together?’
‘That’s not the point.’
Alessandro swung his long body off the sofa and began prowling through the room. Megan twisted round to follow him with her eyes. Every nerve in her body was on fire. Faced with a reality she had never envisaged, she literally didn’t know how to respond. She knew, though, that coming here would not have been something he would have undertaken lightly. Alessandro had had his whole life mapped out from the age of twenty-four. He had chosen Victoria because he would have seen her as slotting in with his long-term plans. To have his own predetermined destiny hijacked would have taken a lot, and for that she was prepared to give him credit.
But giving him credit still didn’t tell her what she should do. So she remained silent…watching him as he stopped in front of the bookshelves, idly reached down for a book and leafed through it before slotting it back into its space…looking as he paused to inspect the pictures in their frames, of her and Charlotte, of her and her family, of Charlotte and her family…
Her thoughts were all over the place.
Finally he stopped right in front of her and then leaned forwards, his hands resting on either side of the chair and trapping her so that she had to push herself away.
‘Tell me that’s not the point, Megan, and I’ll walk out of that door and you’ll never see me again.’
Up until that moment she had managed, more or less, to persuade herself that she was much better off without Alessandro in her life—that the cruel trick fate had played on her could be remedied by just walking away from him or at least taking strenuous efforts to ensure that she didn’t bump into him. Then she had told herself that she could do even better than that…she could rise above the situation and be on civil speaking terms with him just in case they did bump into one another in the course of events. It had all made perfect sense.
Now, though, as she faced his ultimatum, the reality that he would once again disappear was like looking into a deep, black, bottomless hole. He was deadly serious as he looked straight into her eyes. All she had to do was tell him to go and he would. For good.
Furthermore, it would be her choice. It had been bad enough when he had finished their relationship the first time, but at least then she had been the wronged party, and even with herself had come out tops with the sympathy vote. In the space of a few heartstopping seconds she had a glimpse of a future filled with never-ending unanswered what if questions.
‘I came here because you need to know that I still want you, but I’ll walk away, Megan, unless you tell me that you feel the same way about me.’
‘I…I…Um…’ I don’t want to be hurt all over again!
‘Fine,’ Alessandro gritted. ‘I get the message loud and clear. Whether you’re attracted to me or not doesn’t matter. You’re still wrapped up in the past and you can’t forget it.’ He pushed himself up while Megan remained frozen in her chair, looking at him as he began dialling into his mobile phone. He would be calling a taxi. Or getting his long-suffering chauffeur back to collect him. Either way, it amounted to him leaving.
‘I’ll keep these clothes,’ he said with a cynical twist to his mouth. ‘You can keep the suit. Or you can just chuck it.’