A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘You hated not being able to carry on having sex with me because I haven’t got past my sell-by date yet,’ Laura persisted stubbornly.

‘This is about more than just sex.’

‘Strange you never mentioned that before, when I laid my soul bare. Strange all you did was disappear for hours and then sleep in a separate room! Where did you go anyway?’

‘Are you jealous?’

‘Oh, forget it!’

‘I sat on the beach and looked at the sky and did some thinking.’

‘And that’s when you decided that you’d keep me on at all costs because you weren’t sick of me quite yet?’

‘I told myself that it was a good thing to finish it because I couldn’t handle the expectations of any woman being in love with me.’ He sighed heavily and pressed his thumbs over his eyes, then he looked at her. ‘It never occurred to me that I only started asking myself why I didn’t want what other people seemed to want when I met you. You made me question my pattern of behaviour. I grew up alone. I always saw that as a strength. To become emotionally involved with a woman would be to lose that strength and I never wanted to do that. But...’

‘But...?’ Laura pressed, her heart beating so hard she felt it might just burst out of her chest.

‘But...I began to find out about my father, about myself. I began sharing myself with you in a thousand small ways and I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I thought it was all about sex because that was how I had programmed myself to think, but it wasn’t and today, driving back here...’

Laura held her breath, afraid to hope because it was impossible to second-guess this wonderful, complex, utterly fascinating man.

‘I was scared,’ he admitted, his amazing cheekbones tinged with a dark flush.

Something inside her melted. He was scared. That was the most telling thing he had ever said to her and, looking at him, she believed him.

‘Are you telling the truth?’ she was still forced to ask, and he smiled crookedly at her.

‘Lies are something I don’t do as well. I’m telling the truth. I couldn’t see a future unless you were in it and I knew that that must be love. What else? I’d never felt this way before. I barely recognised the signs and it was only now that it all made sense. I love you. I don’t just want you. I need you and I love you and I can’t stand the thought of you not being next to me every day for the rest of my life. Are you going to say anything? Or are you going to let me ramble on?’

‘I’m keen to let you ramble on,’ Laura whispered, and he grinned.

‘I wasn’t shaken by seeing the vicar here,’ he said simply. ‘I was glad. I was overjoyed because I want to do precisely what he and my father and your grandmother want us to do. I want to marry you. So...will you, Laura Reid, be my wife?’

And she smiled. He loved her! She wanted to fling her arms around him and shout from the rooftops at the same time.

‘I love you so much, Alessandro,’ she said instead, tracing the fabulous contours of his face with trembling fingers. ‘You’re my whole world and, yes, I’ll marry you. You may have spent your life avoiding commitment but I’m warning you, you’ll have a life sentence with me...’

‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather have more...’

‘You see, there we have the crunch of the matter.’

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