A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

While with Alessandro...having made it his duty to avoid Scotland as much as possible, he now seemed to be on the scene all the time...like a guilty conscience.

‘Would you like to hear what I’m thinking?’

‘No!’

‘Didn’t think so. You’d much rather try to run away from what’s between us.’

‘There’s nothing between us!’ She was appalled at the edge of hysteria that had crept into her voice and she knew that he had heard it as well, if the knowing, speculative glint in his eyes was anything to go by.

No one could force her to do anything. She knew that. She wasn’t going to let emotions or her body guide her actions. She had grown up since her unfortunate experience with Colin. She would use her head to make her choices! So why did she feel so hot and bothered as he continued to look at her with just the sort of pensive, amused speculation that she wished she could wipe off his face?

Why was it so terrifying to think of the way she was attracted to him? When, theoretically, she could control that attraction by boxing it up and ignoring its existence?

‘Nothing except raw sexual attraction. You’re cropping up in my head when I try to focus on work. It’s very bad.’

‘That’s not my fault,’ Laura said faintly, pushing down the little thrill she got from hearing him say that.

‘Well, it’s not mine.’

‘There’s nothing between us,’ she repeated, just a little desperately, ‘and I don’t need the whole village gossiping about something that doesn’t exist!’

‘Ah, I get it. You think Evelyn the deputy head is going to start spreading unfounded rumours...’

‘Yes!’

Personally, Alessandro could think of nothing worse than unfounded rumours. He’d had a couple of unfortunate experiences in that particular field...women who had stupidly spoken to a couple of reporters who had had nothing better to do than run an article or two on the private life of whatever billionaire they could find. They had intimated there had been more to their relationship than had actually been the case and had found to their cost that he could be ruthless when it came to eliminating complications. Women who expected more from him than he was willing to give became complications and women who thought that talking to reporters might somehow pin him down to something he didn’t want invariably found themselves dispatched without delay.

Alessandro had never really thought about that side of his life, the side that refused to become emotionally involved, but on the few occasions when it had crossed his mind he had concluded that it had to do with his background.

Love had not been readily shown. He assumed his father cared about him but with reserve and distance, and that reserve and distance had created in him an emotional vacuum that he had never chosen to explore or overcome.

He just wasn’t one of those types in search of happy-ever-afters. He relied on what he knew and what he knew was the world of power and big money, the concrete world of business, of deals and machinations and running an empire.

Women were stress-busters. He was upfront with them and if some of them got the wrong idea or started imagining a future that wasn’t on the cards, then whose fault was that? Not his. He was nothing if not scrupulously honest when it came to that sort of thing.

So unfounded rumours in a small village...?

He decided that this would be his exception to the rule. What she did to certain parts of his body was worth the inconvenience.

‘Doesn’t matter, though, does it? Considering they’re unfounded?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘You don’t care what people think to the extent that you’d actually pay attention to what they say about something that doesn’t even exist, do you?’

Laura met those dark, cynical eyes evenly. ‘Yes, I would, because I actually care what people think of me.’

‘Why?’ Alessandro was genuinely mystified.

‘Why don’t you?’

‘Come again?’

‘It’s not natural to not care at all what anyone thinks of you. Okay, I get it that you don’t care what a perfect stranger thinks of you or what you choose to do. I mean, if the milkman peers past you into your hallway and doesn’t like your choice of wallpaper, it’s no big deal. But don’t you care what anyone thinks of you or what you do? Isn’t there anyone whose opinion matters to you?’