‘I honestly don’t see why you couldn’t have laid out your terms and conditions for this so-called “not a loan” at the restaurant.’ But she followed as he led the way towards a kitchen that looked as though it had never been used. He didn’t do cooking; she remembered him telling her that way back when.
‘Have you ever used this kitchen?’ she asked, perching on one of the top-of-the-range chrome and leather bar stools by the counter and watching as he attempted to make sense of the complicated coffee machine.
‘You don’t want coffee, do you?’ he eventually asked, turning to glance at her over his shoulder.
‘If I did, would you be able to figure out how that thing works?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Tea would be nice.’ She hadn’t appreciated just how rich he was. These were the surroundings of a man to whom money was literally no object. She bristled when she thought of him holding her to ransom by reducing his offer for the shelter just because he could.
‘I’m very good with a kettle and some tea bags.’ He hunted them down, opening and closing cupboards. ‘I come in here very rarely,’ he offered by way of explanation. ‘I have a housekeeper who makes sure it’s stocked and a chef who does all my cooking on the occasions when I happen to be in.’
‘Lucky you.’
There wasn’t a single woman on the planet, Alessandro thought, who would have offered that sarcastic response when confronted with the reality of his wealth. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘You’re right. I don’t.’ She took the cup of tea from him. The cup was fine-bone china, weirdly shaped, with an art deco design running down one side. When she thought of him trying and failing to work out how his high-tech appliances worked, she could feel a smile tugging the corners of her mouth, but there was no way that she would be seduced by any windows of vulnerability in him.
‘Why do you have all these gadgets in here if you don’t cook and barely use the kitchen?’
‘I remain eternally optimistic.’
Chase wished he wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t undermine her defences with his sense of humour. She didn’t want to remember how he had always been able to make her laugh. She didn’t want him to make her laugh now.
‘Well, now we’re here, maybe you could explain this business with the shelter?’
Alessandro looked at her. He wondered what it was about her that just seemed to capture his imagination and hold it to ransom.
‘You have no idea what goes through me when I think of what you did eight years ago,’ he murmured.
‘You brought me here so that you could talk about that?’ Chase fidgeted uncomfortably. She wanted to drag her disobedient eyes away from him but somehow she couldn’t.
‘But the past belongs in the past. What’s the good dredging it up every two seconds? The best thing I could do right now is send you on your not-so-merry way, out of my life once and for all. Unfortunately, I find that there’s something holding me back.’
‘What?’ It was a barely whispered response. She cleared her throat and did her utmost to remember that this was just an opponent whom she happened to have known a long time ago. It didn’t work. She still found herself hanging onto his every word with shamefully bated breath, watching him watching her, and letting those deep, dark looks penetrate every fibre of her being. Dampness pooled shamefully between her legs, physical proof of something she was loath to admit, and her nipples tingled, sensitive and taut against her lacy bra. ‘What’s holding you back?’ She shifted, felt her slippery wetness making her panties uncomfortable.
‘You.’ Alessandro allowed that one word to ferment in the lengthening silence between them until it was bursting with significance.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course you do,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘We can both waste a little time while I indulge your desire to feign ignorance but what would be the point? We’ll end up getting to the same place eventually. Despite what happened between us, despite the fact that my levels of respect for you are lamentably non-existent, I find that I’m still sexually attracted to you. And I wouldn’t be telling you this now if I didn’t know that it was a two-way street.
‘And don’t bother trying to deny it. I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think my attention is somewhere else and I’ve seen the way you respond whenever I get within a two-foot radius of you. We had it once and we have it again. It’s a shame but...’ He shrugged with graceful elegance.