‘Fine,’ she said in the calmest voice she could muster. ‘But once I’m done talking I collect my things and I leave this house for ever.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALESSANDRO watched Megan from across the unbridgeable width of the sitting room. She had adopted a defiant pose, perched on the ledge of the bay window. She hadn’t removed her coat and she was huddled into it, even though the central heating was still on and the room was warm.
Too warm, in fact. He rid himself of his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his shirt to the elbows.
‘Drink?’ he asked, and when she shook her head, he shrugged and said, ‘Well, I could do with one.’
Megan looked at him with mounting anger as he went across to one of the cupboards which slid noiselessly back to reveal a well-stocked bar.
The man was as cool as a cucumber! She had just threatened to leave him, to walk out of his house for good, and how was he reacting? As though nothing had been said! As though this was just another normal day at the ranch!
‘You were saying…?’ Alessandro turned back to her and sipped his whisky.
‘I was saying that I bumped into Victoria, and she told me what happened between the two of you.’ Megan drew in a deep breath and, taking her cue from him, banked down the emotion that was threatening to spiral out of control. Her voice was flat and calm. ‘I was under the impression that you were responsible for the break-up, Alessandro.’
‘Does it matter where the finger points? When it comes to the breakdown of a relationship there is nothing to be gained from apportioning blame.’
‘Don’t try and twist words,’ Megan said bitterly. ‘I was led to believe that you broke off your engagement because you wanted a relationship with me…’
‘You believed what you wanted to believe,’ Alessandro told her, his fury mounting at being called to account. He braced himself for the inevitable direction of the conversation.
‘So you’re not going to deny that Victoria was the one who decided to break off your engagement?’
The last pathetic shred of hope that he might at least try to disabuse her of Victoria’s version of what had taken place shrivelled and died in the face of his continued silence.
‘She told me about her mobile phone,’ Megan continued in a hollow voice. Now that her decision to be cool and to walk away without explanation because he didn’t deserve one had been abandoned, she felt driven to expose every little detail of her own foolishness. It was like picking away at a scab. It wouldn’t remedy anything but it was still an unstoppable temptation.
And still there was nothing from him. He just stood there, taking small sips of his drink, seemingly at ease with the situation.
‘You found out that Robbie had been in touch with her, and I guess before you could—I don’t know—try and make her go down the sensible route, she decided that she wanted to throw caution to the winds and get involved with someone else. Someone who didn’t make sense. She and Robbie are an item now. Did you know that?’
If Megan had intended to rile him with that dig then she failed, because Alessandro simply shrugged and remarked evenly, ‘I wish them well.’
A wave of hopelessness swept over her, leaving her small and defeated.
‘What do you want me to say, Megan?’ Alessandro had been enjoying life, enjoying whatever the hell she wanted to call it—their relationship, situation, involvement—but he wasn’t enjoying being boxed into a corner. ‘That I am prepared to make you promises which I know won’t be fulfilled? Do you want to hear the whole love thing?’ Every part of him that desired and saw the necessity for absolute control, rejected her directness.
‘I never said that!’
‘What, then?’
‘You used me.’
Alessandro was outraged at that—outraged at her portrayal of herself as a passive victim when she had been as crazy for sex as he had.
However, he wasn’t going to succumb to the weakness of raising his voice or getting emotional. ‘If that’s what you wish to believe, Megan, then there’s nothing I can do to stop you. But just think about this: I came to you and you had every opportunity to tell me that you didn’t want involvement. If I recall, you didn’t do that. In fact, at no point did I get the impression that you wanted out. I might be mistaken…’
This time it was Megan’s turn to fall silent as she considered the accuracy of that flatly intoned statement. Yes, he had given her the option of backing out.
‘I was under the impression—’
‘I never once told you that I had broken off my engagement with Victoria,’ he reminded her, mercilessly driving home his point that she had not been coerced into any situation she hadn’t wanted. ‘You just went ahead and made assumptions.’