A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘Not quite,’ he said gently. ‘Brace yourself. Roberto’s stint here in Scotland is at an end. I’m taking him down to London with me and he won’t be returning. The house will be packed up, necessities shipped down to London, the rest removed for auction. I’ve bought him an apartment in Chelsea. It’s the right size and if he’s in London I can keep an eye on him.’

Laura was finding it hard to keep track of what he was saying because none of it made any sense.

‘You’re kidding. Aren’t you?’

‘I never kid about things like that. Hasn’t he mentioned any of this to you? On any of your Little Red Riding Hood visits?’

For a second, Laura wanted to throw something at him. How could he just sit here, discussing the future of an old man, talking about it in a voice that was dry and cool and caustic?

‘You,’ she hissed in a driven undertone, ‘are the most...the most...’

‘Spit it out. I assure you I won’t take it personally.’

‘The most obnoxious person I have ever met in my entire life! It’s no wonder that...’

‘That what?’

They stared at each other in silence. Laura could hear the pounding of her heart, could feel the blood rushing hotly through her veins. ‘That nothing...’ she muttered, casting her eyes downwards. She had raced towards a cliff and almost flung herself over the side. What did she know of the relationship between father and son? She surmised. Roberto had never come out and said anything derogatory about Alessandro, but the cold distance between them was as obvious as a neon sign in a dark street.

The truth was that it was not really her business. And because the man sitting opposite her rattled her, it did not give her the excuse to say things that shouldn’t be said or to voice thoughts that should remain in her head.

Alessandro chose to let that go.

Did he really want to find out what might have been said about him behind his back? No! This was how it was between his father and himself but he wasn’t going to put himself through unnecessary irritation by having an outside party share their opinion on the situation. No way.

He looked at her coldly, noting her discomfort and choosing not to relieve her of it.

‘He hasn’t breathed a word of this to me or to... Well, I’m shocked. Beyond shocked. I can’t believe you’re going to try to wrench poor Roberto away from everything he...he holds dear and fling him into the mad chaos of London life. You can’t. You just can’t!’

‘No need to panic,’ Alessandro murmured in a soft voice that sent chills racing through her. ‘It’s a spacious three-bedroom apartment. All mod cons, including en suite bathrooms. I’m sure he’ll keep a bedroom free for his special friends.’ He was repulsed by the thought of her having anything to do with his father beyond the purely platonic. Yes, she had denied that connection, but if that were the case, why the horror and dismay?

Why the extreme reaction? She looked as distraught as Chicken Little when the sky was falling down.

His lips thinned and she knew exactly what he was getting at. Where was a heavy object when you needed one? she fumed.

‘And if he hasn’t mentioned anything to you,’ Alessandro inserted smoothly, ‘I put that down to denial. Because I’ve been having this conversation with my father for the past six months.’

Laura looked at him in stunned silence.

‘He’s old...’

‘My point exactly! The stroke...the fractured pelvis... He can’t deal with this bloody great big mansion. He needs somewhere more compact. He needs to be able to make it to his bedroom from the kitchen in under three hours.’

‘Please don’t exaggerate. Like you said, Roberto could afford as much help as he wants to. At the moment he just has Freya and Fergus, but I’m sure he would employ someone else to help him if he thought he needed it.’

‘This isn’t a subject that’s open to debate. I’m not thrusting him into a rabbit hutch in the centre of the city. He’ll adjust. London is full of exciting things.’

‘Old people don’t want excitement,’ Laura said flatly. ‘They want routine. They want stability. They want to be surrounded by the people and faces they’re familiar with.’