‘I thought you’d be pleased.’ Her voice was growing less confident by the second. ‘Or at least find it funny.’
‘Megan…’ Alessandro sighed. ‘We need to…to talk…’
She relaxed a little. Yes, she could do talking. He was the most fascinating man she had ever met, and she could talk to him until the cows came home—especially now, when he was no longer glaring at her with eyes that were like chips of dark, glacial ice.
‘I guess we could…’ she said, taking a couple steps towards him. ‘Talk. Although…’ a few more steps and she was standing directly in front of him, looking up at him ‘…I can think of more interesting things to do…’ She splayed her hand across his chest, loving the feel of its rippling hardness. ‘I prefer it when you wear shirts, Alessandro. I like unbuttoning them. Have I ever told you that? Tee shirts just aren’t the same. Not that this black tee shirt doesn’t look very nice on you.’ It did. It wasn’t baggy and shapeless, but clung in a very masculine way.
Alessandro reached out and caught her wandering hand in his. ‘I said talk, Megan. And we can’t talk in here.’
‘Have your friends gone?’
‘They weren’t my friends.’
He dropped her hand and turned away, walking out of the bedroom so that she was obliged to follow him. He couldn’t think straight when Megan was anywhere near the vicinity of a bed—especially when she was wearing an outfit that revealed every single curve of her fabulous, sexy little body.
‘And put something on,’ he commanded, without looking round.
‘Oh, right. They’re the people who are going to change the direction of your life.’
En route, she grabbed one of his shirts. He only wore white shirts, which she had told him was a very boring trait indeed. She had tried to even the balance by buying him a garishly coloured Hawaiian shirt, with a pattern of lurid coconut trees against a brilliant blue background, but he had yet to wear it. She suspected that it had been shoved at the bottom of his wardrobe somewhere.
She sensed him stiffen at her throwaway remark, but he didn’t say anything. Just flung himself on the sofa that occupied one side of the space in his modest student accommodation, which only someone massively optimistic could call a sitting room.
It was literally a poky box, as he had told her on more than one occasion. But he had worked like a slave, he said, to put himself through university, and his destiny was to become master. Master of all he surveyed. Once he left, he would never look back
Megan didn’t like to think too hard about where all of this mastery and conquering of the universe stuff was going to take him. Out of her life, she guessed. But who knew? Eternally optimistic, and madly in love for the very first time in her life, she was happy to put any thoughts about an uncertain future on hold. She was nineteen. She had her own college life to think about. She didn’t want to foresee a day when her life wasn’t going to be joined up with his.
‘So who were they, anyway?’ she asked now, settling on the sofa next to him and tucking her legs underneath her. She had to stop herself from reaching out and touching his face.
It still surprised and delighted her that she had been lucky enough to fall in love for the very first time with a man so absolutely perfect in every way. Her friends all led chaotic love-lives, constantly euphoric or depressed, or else hanging on the end of the line waiting for some guy to call. Alessandro had never done that. He had taken her virginity and cherished the gift she had given him, never taking her for granted or making promises he had no intention of fulfilling.
‘They were…some fairly important people, Megan.’
He turned to look at her. Her hair was all over the place—soft, blonde hair, the colour of vanilla. Her cheeks were flushed, because he had obviously surprised her dozing. Only Megan could fall asleep in the space of seconds. Whilst wearing a ridiculous outfit. And after having made a complete fool of herself.
‘Sorry,’ she said in a contrite voice. Then, because she just couldn’t help herself, she leaned towards him and stroked the side of his face with the back of his hand. ‘I can understand why you were a bit put out when I appeared unannounced. Or should I say when I was brought in? Would have given anyone a shock. Especially an old man like you, Alessandro. Twenty-five years old! Practically over the hill! Do you realise it’s just a matter of time before you’re collecting your pension?’
She laughed, a rich, warm laugh which he had found infectious from the very first minute he had heard it across a crowded room, in a club to which he had been dragged by one of his colleagues at university who’d seemed to think he needed a break from his books. Every time he heard that laugh, which was often, he wanted to smile. Not, however, now.