A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

She lowered her eyes and didn’t say anything. Frustrating woman, Alessandro thought. Any other woman would have been pressing to continue the conversation. The slightest shred of confidential information being shared would have opened the door to all sorts of thoughts of really getting to know him...the real him...

But, then, this woman was different, wasn’t she? She might be hellishly attracted to him, but that still didn’t make him her type. And since he wasn’t her type, she wasn’t looking for a way in to him via trying to lead him down the path of touchy-feely conversation. She was probably away with the fairies right now, thinking sentimental thoughts about her past.

‘I don’t know my father,’ Alessandro heard himself say through gritted teeth, ‘because he’s always made sure to be unavailable.’

‘Unavailable?’

‘I was brought up by a selection of hired help,’ he pointed out neutrally. ‘Some excellent nannies, it has to be said. I barely remember my father being around when I was a kid. He spent most of his time abroad. He even...’ Alessandro laughed mirthlessly ‘...went on holidays without me. Not that I didn’t enjoy everything that vast sums of money could buy. I did. I had holidays few could dream of...in the company of the reliable hired help. At seven I was shipped off to the finest boarding school in the country and so the tale of our serviceable but distant relationship goes on...’

‘I’m sorry.’ Laura took a few steps towards him and Alessandro, cursing himself for the ease with which the natural fortress he had built around himself had been invaded, shot her a wolfish half-smile.

‘Sorry enough to come to bed with me?’ he murmured. ‘Trust me when I tell you that I’m not at all against a sympa—’

‘Stop it!’ White-faced, Laura looked at him with blazing eyes. Was that what it had all been about? Had that unexpected crack in his self-assured, forbidding exterior been a deliberate ploy to try to get her to sleep with him?

She remembered the way Colin had infiltrated himself into her life, playing on her emotions and saying whatever he thought she might want to hear. In retrospect, it had been so obvious.

Was she so transparent that Alessandro Falcone was ready to pull the same stunt?

She placed her hands firmly on her hips and glared at him, seething. ‘That was crude!’

Alessandro had the grace to flush. Yes, it had been, and crude was something he had never resorted to in his life before.

‘My apologies.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and stared at her, and for a few seconds she was so taken aback by the apology that she couldn’t find anything to say. ‘You’re right. It’s getting late. You should go. What was it my father said about your grandmother not wanting you to be gallivanting all over the country?’

Released from the awkward situation, Laura hovered for a few seconds. She licked her lips and noticed the way he absently followed that little gesture with his eyes.

He wasn’t coming closer to her, not by an inch. In fact, she could almost feel him pulling away, distancing himself, but the heat was still there. She could feel it like something tangible and alive between them.

Of course it would be madness to even think about going there, but it still gave her a heady kick to know that he found her attractive and she didn’t honestly think it was because he happened to be here, in the middle of nowhere, bored and restless.

She wanted to shove him in the same bracket as Colin because it somehow felt safer, but he wasn’t Colin.

‘So...’ She unconsciously stepped a tiny bit towards him. She wasn’t even aware that she was doing it.

‘So? So what?’

She shrugged, mesmerised by the smouldering darkness of his eyes.

‘You really shouldn’t, you know...’

‘Shouldn’t what?’

‘Kiss me the way you kissed me...hot and hard and urgent...and then pull away and wipe your lips and somehow try to make-believe that it didn’t happen and if it did, it wasn’t your fault...’

‘I never—’

He overrode her feeble interruption in the same dangerously soft voice. ‘And then, when I take a step back, look at me as though you’d love nothing more than for me to kiss you all over again. Is that what you want? For me to kiss you all over again? Would you like me to lock the kitchen door, sweep the glasses off the table and make love to you right there? With the lights on so neither of us misses a thing?’