‘I got sick of the rat race,’ she told him shortly, and his eyebrows shot up.
‘Bit young to be jaded about that, wouldn’t you say? Normally that’s something that tends to afflict the over-forties. What about all the excitement?’
‘I’d had it with excitement.’
‘Ah,’ Alessandro murmured, and she shot him a sharp, narrowed look, which he returned with bland innocence.
‘Is that all? Have you finished questioning me? Maybe you could point me in the direction of your father, if, of course, I’ve passed the test.’
‘He’s in his greenhouse.’ Alessandro jerked his head in the general direction of the back gardens but his eyes remained pinned to her face.
So she’d returned to her grandmother to lick her wounds. Maybe her grandmother really had had some kind of turn but he was sharp enough to get the lie of the land...she’d had some sort of unpleasant experience in London involving a guy, probably someone she worked with, judging from the shifty way she had talked about her place of work. She might wax lyrical about the peace and tranquillity and lakes and rivers, but the truth was that she’d had her heart broken and had returned to her comfort zone to patch herself up.
He found himself wondering what sort of guy she had got involved with and promptly nipped his curiosity in the bud because after this weekend he doubted he would ever lay eyes on the woman again.
Which was something of a shame. In fact, something of a shame he hadn’t laid eyes on her before, on one of his rare forays into the Scottish wilds. She would certainly have made his duty visits a lot more alluring. Biting winds, depressingly bleak and empty countryside and his father’s challenged conversational skills would definitely have been easier to endure...
‘Right.’ Laura stood up and thought that she should be feeling more relieved to be out of the presence of this odious man than she actually was.
‘I wouldn’t bother having the food conversation, though.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You mentioned that you had cycled over to do your Good Samaritan duty...an offer to go food shopping for him, as if my father doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay someone to do that on his behalf. Actually—and I’m sure you know this—he could pay a chef to buy the food and cook it if he wanted. It would certainly spare him the stuff Freya churns out...’
Laura did her best not to agree with him. She had a good enough relationship with Freya, who occasionally cracked a half-smile in her presence, but no one could say that the woman produced haute cuisine.
‘Your father likes plain, simple food.’
‘Just as well. With sour-faced Freya at the helm, it’s all he’s ever likely to get.’
‘Why shouldn’t I ask him if he needs anything?’
‘Because there’s no point filling the cupboards only to empty them again in the space of a few days. Waste of time.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’ Laura stared at that drop-dead-gorgeous, arrogant face and subsided back into her chair like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.
‘There’s a reason I’ve come up here,’ Alessandro explained calmly. ‘I’ve spoken to my father about this on a number of occasions, and I’ve emailed him...’ He sighed heavily and flung his head back, half closing his eyes as he thought about the frustration of dealing with someone who didn’t want to face the inevitable. It shouldn’t be like this. He knew that. Of course, history couldn’t be altered any more than the present could be changed...but it shouldn’t be like this, a constant uphill struggle.
‘I’m confused,’ Laura said urgently. ‘Spoken to him about what? Emailed him about what?’
Alessandro opened his eyes and looked at her in silence for a few seconds. ‘He hasn’t confided in you, then. Odd, considering you’re supposed to be best buddies.’
‘Please stop being sarcastic and tell me what’s going on.’
‘I’ve come up here to take my father back down to London with me.’
‘Take him?’ Laura looked at him in complete bewilderment. ‘Take him down for a few days?’