A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘Alessandro, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You and he seem to enjoy a close relationship and then throw your grandmother into the mix and we have a little circle of who knows what kind of touchy-feely confidence-sharing...’ He remained by the window, propped against the ledge, arms folded, still completely and gloriously naked.

‘Are you going to start accusing me of being a gold-digger all over again?’ she asked tersely. ‘Are you going to try insinuating that my grandmother and I are involved in some kind of seedy plot to take your father for everything he’s got?’ She felt tears sting the backs of her eyes. It was one thing to have a one-night stand with someone who was allergic to relationships, but it was something else to have a one-night stand and then be shoved into the firing line.

‘I thought you’d got past all of that.’

Alessandro shook his head and pushed himself away from the window ledge to begin scooping up his clothes, his movements oddly lacking their usual grace.

‘You found a scrapbook,’ he said roughly. Jeans on, shirt on, though with the buttons undone, he moved to stand by the bed, looking down at her with brooding intensity.

‘Oh, yes. That. Alessandro, I don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re making me nervous, standing there and glowering down at me.’

‘What else might you have found that you failed to deliver to me?’

‘Deliver to you? Is that what you think I should be doing? Sorting through your father’s stuff and then handing over anything I think you might want to see? Even if it would be up to Roberto to do the handing over himself? Do you think I should be using this opportunity to spy on your father? See if he’s been investing in anything dodgy? Or maybe sending money abroad because he’s been scammed by some crooks somewhere? Or maybe he’s just been hiding something you think you should know about! Because you should know everything, shouldn’t you?’

‘Should I?’ He walked away and sat at the little chair by her dressing table, dwarfing it with his big, muscular frame. ‘Well, it would appear not. I mean, I never knew, for starters, that my mother died giving birth to me.’

Laura gasped and sat forward. ‘What?’

‘My father didn’t share that with you?’ He raked his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t meant to say anything. He had needed to lose himself in her, had thought that sex would have been enough to still the turmoil in his head. Obviously not.

‘No. He didn’t. I...I don’t understand. How is it that you’re only now finding out about...about your mother?’ She reached down to the side of the bed and yanked at her jumper, sticking it on and then wriggling into her underwear.

She couldn’t remain lying down while he sat there...

She realised now how utterly self-controlled he was now that that self-control had slipped. His expression was bleak and she just needed to hold him, touch him, but not in a sexual manner. She felt driven to be there for him, although that need barely registered as conscious thought.

There was a little rocking chair by the window, another legacy from her childhood, and she dragged it over so that she could sit right next to him. He didn’t object when she laced her fingers through his.

‘What else...?’

‘What other revelations were aired? Now, let’s see. Oh, yes, I had a sister. She died when she was twelve. Fell from a tree, of all things.’

‘Alessandro...’

‘That’s when they decided that having another child might be a good idea. Or rather, reading between the lines, my mother thought it... Do you know something? I have no idea why I’m telling you this.’

‘Because everyone needs to vent now and again.’

‘I feel you might be confusing me with a loser.’

‘Are you upset with him? Angry?’ She ignored his dry dismissal of having feelings, of being vulnerable. She would have done anything to wipe the haunted expression from his face because it just didn’t belong there.

‘Both.’ Alessandro shot her a crooked smile. Upset. Angry. Yes, he was both those things but in time those feelings would disappear and he knew that he would be grateful for the conversation he and his father had had, the revelations that had been made.