She should really have stayed to the end, until after all the parents had departed, because a few of the teachers were planning on going out for a drink, but with her nervous system in total meltdown she fetched her coat, scribbled the wretched phone number and address on a piece of paper, which she left on the front desk, and headed for the underground.
It was a sturdy walk from the school, away from the chaos of expensive cars bearing the little darlings back home. After a few minutes there was only the sound of her boots on the pavement and the usual delightful London noises. The distant thrum of traffic, the occasional high-pitched whine of a police siren, the muted voices of people passing her.
Hunched into her coat and with her head down, braced against the freezing wind, Megan only became aware of the car after it had stopped right in front of her—and she only became aware of it then because she nearly crashed into the passenger door, which had been flung open.
Two words. ‘Get in!’
Megan bent and peered into the car. She knew the driver of the car. Of course she did. She would have recognised that voice anywhere.
‘Drop dead.’ She slammed the door shut with such ferocity that she was surprised it didn’t fall off its hinges.
The cool walk had restored some of her sanity, and she had figured out why he hadn’t seen fit to say that they had met before. He was a successful city gent now, engaged to be married to his female counterpart. Why spoil the rosy picture by announcing any connection to a lowly teacher? Even before he had become successful—which he undoubtedly was, if the suit and the car were anything to go by—he had ditched her because she had been inappropriate to his long-term plans. How much more inappropriate would she be now?
The car cruised alongside her, its window now rolled down, and she heard him say with lazy intent, ‘You can either get in, or else I’ll pay you a little visit at your house. Your choice.’
Megan looked through the window. ‘What are you doing, Alessandro? I thought you didn’t recognise me.’
‘Naturally I recognised you. I just didn’t see fit to launch into an explanation of how our paths had crossed. Wrong time, wrong place.’
The baldness of that statement only skimmed the surface of the shock he had felt on seeing her. To have your past leap out at you and grab you by the throat…He had felt driven to do this—to follow her on her way home—although now that he had Alessandro was beginning to wonder what would be achieved. Curiosity had got the better of him—maybe that had been it?
Somewhere in his seven-year meteoric rise to power, curiosity had become a rare luxury. His gift for money-making in the complex world of derivatives had engineered a swift rise to giddy, powerful heights. It had also provided him with more than sufficient disposable cash to move effortlessly into acquisitions. Alessandro had everything that money could buy, but the ease with which he had made millions had left him with a jaded palette. After his initial shock on seeing Megan, his curiosity to find out what she had been up to in the past seven years had been overpowering and irresistible, and—face it—he could indulge his curiosity. He could indulge anything he wanted to.
‘What do you want?’
‘Get in the car, Megan. It’s been a long time. It would be bizarre not to play a little catch-up game, don’t you think?’
‘I think it’s bizarre that you left your fiancée so that you could follow me.’
‘Old friends meeting up. Victoria would have no problem with that. Thankfully she’s not a possessive woman. I’ll drop you home. It’s a ridiculous night to be…doing what? Catching a bus? Taking a tube somewhere?’
‘Go away.’
‘Not still playing childish games, are you, Megan? You know you’re as curious to find out about me as I am to find out about you, so why fight it?’
Megan got in. For one thing the wind was whipping her coat all over the place. For another the tube would be packed and uncomfortable, and quite possibly not running to schedule. And, yes, she was curious. He had been an important piece of her past, and maybe catching up, hearing all about his bright, shiny new life, would provide her with the tools for closure.
‘Nice car.’ She took in the walnut dashboard and the plush leather seats. ‘I don’t know much about cars, but I’m thinking that you climbed up that ladder without taking too many knocks on the way up, Alessandro.’ She couldn’t prevent the note of bitterness that had crept into her voice—a leftover from the hurt all that time ago.
‘Did you ever think that I wouldn’t?’ He wasn’t looking at her. His concentration was entirely on the road and on the illuminated map on his dashboard, detailing directions to her house. He had got the address from the scrap of paper she had left at the front desk, and had punched it into his navigation system as soon as he had got into his car, having safely seen Victoria and Dominic to a taxi.