CHAPTER SIX
IF THERE WERE prizes for holding a man’s interest, then Alessandro thought that Chase would be in line for all of them. He had planned on a straightforward conquest, aided and abetted by the trump card of saving the shelter. He would take her and, by taking her, he would rid himself of the allure of the inaccessible—which was the position to which she seemed to have been elevated over the years, apparently without him even having noticed. For him, the accessible had always had a short-lived appeal, especially when the quarry in question came with a truckload of dubious cargo.
And she had played him at his own game, had not been browbeaten but had laid her cards on the table. But then that hesitancy, that tentative admission that sex wasn’t her thing... She had lain in his arms but he could feel her tension and he had backed off, even though his body had been on fire for her.
The rapacious, lying, deceitful, manipulative woman had shown a shrinking violet side to her that had got under his skin. Since when had he become the sort of man who was content to hold off, especially in a situation like this, with a woman scarcely worth his time and attention? He had held off with her once and look at where that had got him! But had he done what he should have done? Had he sneered at her attempts to play the shy maiden and ploughed forward? Hell, no! He had lain with her in his arms like the virgin she most certainly was not, had talked, and then he had left to return to his apartment and a freezing-cold shower.
Then he had gone abroad for two days, giving himself time to figure out why he was behaving so out of character and giving her time to wise up to the fact that what they had was a deal—and one he intended to cash, because her time limit for playing shy had been used up. He had returned late last night with two flights to Italy booked and the decidedly uncomfortable realisation that there might just be a need to shift gears slightly—to woo her, despite everything he had said about what they had not being a courtship. Somewhere along the line the whole ‘time limit’ speech had been shelved.
He just knew that when she came to him she would come of her own volition. She would jettison whatever the hell it was that was holding her back. In the space of a heartbeat, it had become a matter of pride—actually in the space of time it had taken for the notion of a break in Italy to take root, which had been fairly instantaneous.
If she was holding back because she hadn’t managed to put the premature death of her husband behind her, then she needed to move on from that place and come to him willingly. There was no way he was going to sleep with any woman unless her thoughts were focused one hundred per cent on him and, if it took some seduction to get her to that place, then he would play along with it. The end result would be the same, wouldn’t it? And he was an ‘end result’ kind of guy.
He had phoned her from abroad and announced the whole Italy idea with far more conviction than he had been feeling at the time, but she had taken little persuading as it turned out in the end. She was due some time off and she would take it. A little more enthusiasm would have been appreciated but he had met his match in her. She hadn’t pandered to him eight years ago and she wasn’t going to pander to him now, even though she knew him for the billionaire that he was.
Now, standing in front of the check-in desk at Heathrow surrounded by crowds, he scowled as he felt himself inevitably harden at the tantalising prospect of having her; of touching that flawless body; of sinking against those breasts, feeling them against his chest, against the palms of his big hands, pushing into his mouth. He had once lost his head over a mirage and now he would take what he felt was his due, take the promised fruit and kill the bitterness inside him that made such an unwelcome companion.
Through the crowds he spotted her weaving and looking around for him and he gave her a brief wave.
‘You’re ten minutes late. You should have let my driver collect you instead of coming by public transport.’
Chase looked up at his frowning face and was tempted to snap because, however much she wore her hard-won independence like a badge of honour, he obviously had a Neanderthal approach to women in general. But she bit back the retort because she could remember the way he had always taken command when she had known him: paying for whatever they had before she could offer to go halves; impatient with second-rate service; intolerant of anyone in his lectures who’d failed to try.
‘I told you. I had some work to finish before I left.’ Left for a week in the sun. She had no idea where that idea of Alessandro’s had sprung from. She had fought against going, because she was all too aware that their relationship was destined to crash and burn, and the last thing she needed was a plethora of memories she would later have to work out of her system, but he had been insistent. Maybe being out of the country would infuse this weird closure of theirs with an unreality that would be easy to box away.