A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘We don’t have the sort of relationship they imagine we do.’

‘We’re not hurting anyone,’ Alessandro persisted, bemused by his own inability to start the process of disentanglement and not wanting to voice the reality lying like a leaden weight between them. Their eyes tangled and he flushed darkly.

‘Why don’t you just say what you have to say and get it over and done with?’ he rasped.

Laura hesitated, torn between a desperate need to try to patch things over and a driving urge to just tell him how she felt. She knew there was still a part of her that half hoped an admission of love wouldn’t drive him away, and feeling like that, hoping against reason, annoyed and dismayed her.

She drew in a deep breath and held his gaze levelly, even though she was quaking inside.

‘I’m too involved with you emotionally to do this, Alessandro,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘It’s not a game for me and if I carry on with...with this, I’m going to end up horribly hurt, and I don’t want to be hurt.’

‘I warned you not to...get involved. I told you I don’t do love.’

‘Sorry if I disobeyed orders!’ Laura’s voice had risen angrily. How could he just stand there and look at her as though she had suddenly turned into a stranger? His dark eyes were guarded and cool. ‘Some of us actually have emotions!’

‘I have emotions. I just know how to control them!’

‘I can’t do this.’ She stood up and stormed off.

Alessandro watched her go but he had to force himself not to follow her. He waited until she was out of sight, unnerved by his indecision, and finally he swung round angrily and headed for the beach.

The sound of the sea would soothe him. He needed perspective but for the first time in his life perspective eluded him. She loved him and he had known and he hadn’t walked away. Shouldn’t that have been his first instinctive response?

He barely saw the picture-perfect-postcard beauty of the little cove, the clear water lapping at the shore, the backdrop of rocks and coconut palms. He barely felt the warmth pressing against him. He sat down, his back against one of the rocks, oblivious to everything but the swirling confusion of his thoughts.

She had breached his boundaries and no one could accuse him of not making those boundaries perfectly clear. She had strayed into no man’s land.

And he had known. Deep down, he had known and he had basked in what she was giving him. And now that she had done the unthinkable and confirmed his suspicions, now that she had exposed the heart she had been wearing on her sleeve...

He raked his fingers through his hair, stood up, sat back down, glared at the perfect scenery.

How could he still want her? Why did the thought of her walking away fill him with fear and panic? Everything in his life had been so clear-cut before...especially relationships...

Why was the way forward so hard to see now? When he thought of her vanishing from his life, he felt...empty. It was as if a wilderness of trees had dropped down, obscuring the clear, open horizons of his life, and he just didn’t know how to get past them. He could turn a full circle, and he still wouldn’t be able to see past them to the life he’d had before.

With a low growl of bewilderment, frustration and inner turmoil, he strode out to the sea, dropping clothes en route, and took to the water.

* * *

Laura wanted him to follow her so badly that it was a physical ache in the pit of her stomach. Pride compelled her not to look round. She packed furiously, chucking her clothes into her bag while listening for the sound of his footsteps, and the longer the house remained silent, the more she held back the tears.

By eight, after a light snack, she resigned herself to the fact that he just wasn’t going to follow her. There was no more talking to be done. In fact, she had no idea where he had gone and she refused point-blank to go out searching for him.

Even though worry clenched at her stomach when nine o’clock rolled round and there was still no sign of him.

For the first time since they had arrived, she fell asleep in the bed alone. At some point during the night she half heard him return and her whole body stiffened at the thought of him sliding into bed with her.