A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘So you’ve never brought anyone here?’

‘When you say anyone...’

‘Women. Those lucky women who you happened to be dating...’

‘I’ve tended to stick closer to home.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I really want you right now...’

‘When you don’t want to talk, you resort to the physical. I’ve noticed that.’

Alessandro flung himself back and stared up at the bright blue sky. He’d never known a woman more disrespectful of his boundaries. He pointed them out, she saw them and then she proceeded to trample all over them as though they didn’t exist.

‘I happen to enjoy the physical,’ he said, turning to her, and she looked at him with something approaching pity. ‘It beats,’ he was pressed to continue irritably, ‘having long, meaningful conversations about things that don’t matter.’

Laura’s soft mouth tightened. ‘Well...I hate to burst your bubble but sometimes people do have to have long, meaningful conversations, even if you find them boring and irrelevant.’

She hadn’t meant to have this conversation. It cast a stormy cloud over what remained of the little paradise she had spent the past few days occupying, but how could she carry on pretending? Knowing that the more time she spent with him, the deeper in love she fell and the more painful it would eventually be to extricate herself?

What a mess.

Alessandro stilled. Did he want to hear this? He sat up and removed his sunglasses to look at her.

Laura’s heart was racing. Her mouth was dry. Did she really want to ruin what was left of their stay here? She could laugh and change the subject. She could just accept that it wasn’t an ideal situation but why rock the boat, why not just enjoy what was on offer until the offer was rescinded? Why not play the game, as he suggested, and when things ended, just explain to Roberto and her grandmother that it hadn’t worked out in the end? Why not enjoy the hedonistic pleasure they got from one another and enjoy it without an agonising guilty conscience?

But how much enjoyment would she honestly get, knowing that it was just a matter of time before everything came crashing down around her and she was left to pick up the pieces? Every time he touched her, she would think that it might be the last. Every time she gazed at him, she would have to try not to let her feelings show, knowing that if he suspected the depth of what she felt, he would run a mile.

It would be like walking in a field of flowers knowing that underneath the perfect ground a series of landmines was waiting to be detonated.

‘I never said that I found them boring or irrelevant,’ Alessandro said carefully.

‘I can’t play this game. I can’t just have a mindless affair with you. I can’t take advantage of what my grandmother and Roberto mistakenly assume to have no-strings-attached sex. That’s just not the way I’m made.’ Her eyes shot away from his lean, beautiful face. ‘I know you think it’s a straightforward situation, I know you think that it makes it easier for us to...well, have this fling and then, when it comes to an end, we just break the news and walk away, but I...I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’ Alessandro demanded.

He knew. He raked restless fingers through his dark hair and stood up abruptly. The open space around him felt too small, pressing down on him. For the first time in his life the job of ridding himself of a woman who had made the terminal mistake of falling in love with him felt like an anchor dragging him down. And she did love him. He’d managed to shove that into his blind spot but she loved him.

He had his rules. He always made them clear. It had always been easy to bid farewell to someone who hadn’t taken them on board. But then again, his boredom threshold was low. He had never felt the need to pursue any woman who wanted more than he was prepared to give. On the few occasions when this situation had presented itself, he had already been on the way to finding the whole thing pretty tedious anyway. Ending it had never been a hardship.

Not so now. He wasn’t ready.

‘Aside from the fact that I don’t feel comfortable deceiving Roberto and Gran—’

‘How are we being deceptive?’ He spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘We have a relationship!’