His Poor Little Rich Girl (7 page)

‘I can.’

She bit her lip again, deeper this time, so deep Alessandro wanted to reach out and brush her soft lip with the pad of his thumb to restore its soft plumpness.

He picked up his glass instead and took another mouthful of the champagne. He didn’t want to think about her with her ex-fiancé. He hated thinking about her with that creep. Every day of that liaison had been like a lighted poker to his flesh. It had tortured him to think of her with that brute’s hands and mouth and body on hers. But it was what she had chosen. She had chosen Hughson’s money over his love. He had been totally gutted by her shallowness and greed. He had fought for years to put it behind him, to keep his emotions in check, to live life without feeling anything for anyone. But now his
hatred for what she had done returned with a vengeance. For so long he had ignored it, but now it was back like a filthy choking tide clogging his blood. He hated her with the same passion as with which he had once loved her.

‘You never liked him, did you?’ she said, looking at him again.

Alessandro put his glass down. ‘Are we talking about your father or your fiancé?’ he asked.

Twin flags of colour rose in her cheeks. ‘Both really …’

‘I realise it is never comfortable hearing someone criticise someone you love,’ he said. ‘But then that is what is so endearing about young children. They only see the good in their parents.’

‘I was hardly an infant when you came to work for my father,’ she said. ‘I was eighteen years old, legally an adult.’

Alessandro pictured her back then, all rich-kid attitude with no idea how the real world worked—the world he had been dragged through for as long as he could remember. Her silver-spoon lifestyle made her feel superior. She had looked down that up-tilted nose of hers and sneered at anyone who wasn’t dressed in the latest designer wear or driving the fastest sports car. He had taken it on the chin for the first couple of years, putting up with her catty remarks about his background or his clothes or the second-hand car he drove. But then she had started flirting with him. He had ignored it at first but after a time she had been impossible to resist. The first time he had kissed her his senses had imploded. His body had throbbed and ached for her but he had never pushed her to sleep with him. He hadn’t felt comfortable concealing their relationship. He had wanted to go public with it but she had always insisted no one must know. Little had he realised it had all been a game to her; leading him on for weeks on end,
only to reject him like a stray mongrel dog that had the audacity to have turned up at a pedigree show. For the last few years he had felt glad she had got her comeuppance. He had watched from a distance as she had lost her modelling contract, and then how the slurs on her reputation were played out in the press, which left her with no one willing to take her on, and he had felt nothing but satisfaction.

She deserved it for how she had treated him. He had been blinded by lust. He felt foolish for having thought he had ever loved her. But then he had loved a fantasy, not a real person. He had fooled himself she was not the selfish, pouting little spitfire she presented to the world, but instead a soft and caring young woman who hadn’t felt safe enough in her relationships to reveal her vulnerabilities. But he had got it wrong. She was every bit as selfish and spiteful on the inside as she was on the outside. The fact that she had sought him out for money after all this time and in spite of their history was proof of it.

She had no shame.

Looking at her now, with her beautiful face without its armour of make-up and those incredible eyes shadowed and downcast, he knew he would have to guard against her wiles. She hadn’t suddenly morphed into a demure little lady and he wasn’t going to treat her like one until she learned how to behave.

Her beautifully manicured hand was toying with the stem of her champagne flute. Alessandro felt a stirring in his groin as he thought of how it would feel to have those soft fingers trace over him, to encircle him, to milk him of his essence. He forced the image out of his head. The doctors kept assuring him it would just take a little more time, but how much time? It had been close to two months now. Two months of
doing everything he could to regain what he had lost, to allow his body to heal. But no one had given him any guarantees. No one had said for certain he would regain full mobility and function. Yes, there were positive signs of improvement but what if that was as far as his body would ever go? He was luckier than most. He knew that and was grateful for it but he wanted his life back.

He wanted it more than anything.

Rachel put her fork down when she was finished and noticed Alessandro watching her. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

His expression was unfathomable. ‘No, I was just checking to see if you used the right cutlery.’

Hot colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You’re never going to forgive me for those little digs about your background, are you?’ she said, glaring at him.

He picked up his champagne glass and drained it. The sound of it coming back to the table’s starched linen surface was like a thump in the silence. ‘You are very prickly, aren’t you,
card?’

Rachel’s heart gave a little squeeze at his casually delivered endearment. Even the way he said her name had a similar effect on her. His accent had deepened over the time he had spent in Italy. His voice was smooth and mellifluous. It was another devastatingly attractive feature of him that unsettled her deeply. How could a man’s voice make a woman’s spine soften like warmed honey? The deep timbre of Alessandro’s voice was like a sensual stroke of a lover’s hand. If that was just what his voice could do to her what would happen if he decided to change the rules of their arrangement? ‘Why did you call me that?’ she asked.

He gave her a brief flash of a smile that didn’t involve his
eyes. ‘Are you still worried I might try and seduce you now I have you within my clutches?’

Rachel had difficulty disguising her reaction to his unnerving mind-reading ability. She quickly got her shocked expression under control, however, and resorted to sarcasm. ‘You can try but whether or not you will succeed is another matter entirely.’

This time his smile lasted longer and made the whole distance to his dark blue eyes, the teasing glint making her toes curl inside her shoes. ‘Are you laying down a challenge for me,
tesoro mio?’
he asked.

Her fingers fumbled on her glass, almost knocking it over. ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘I-I’m not interested in anything like that.’

‘You have been single now for how long?’ he asked as he refilled her glass.

She hesitated before she answered. She was twenty-six years old and had only had a couple of lovers. Her first experience had been a teenage fumble that had seriously dented her confidence, but sex with Craig had confirmed every fear she’d held about herself. In hindsight she could see she had been too young and inexperienced and too stubborn to accept she had made a mistake in becoming engaged to him. Instead of extricating herself from the relationship she had clung to it all the harder, pretending it was something it was not and never could be.

‘Rachel?’ Alessandro prompted.

She met his dark eyes. ‘I have been pretty busy just lately trying to save my label,’ she said. ‘There hasn’t been a lot of time for socialising.’

‘Tell me about your friend,’ he said. ‘You are business partners, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Rachel said. ‘Caitlyn and I met at design school. We got on well and had similar goals. She was a great support to me when I ended things with Craig. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She once had a violent controlling partner so she knew what it was like to …’

Alessandro was very quiet and Rachel looked up to see him studying her with a frowning expression on his face. ‘Sorry … I’m rambling,’ she said.

‘Did Hughson hurt you physically?’ he asked, still frowning heavily.

‘No, but he made threats,’ Rachel said. ‘I guess that’s how he controlled me for so long. I was never sure what he was capable of. I wasn’t game to risk it. I finally got the courage to end things but only because of Caitlyn’s help. She showed me how I was being manipulated.’ She lowered her gaze from his. ‘I was too stupid to see it for myself.’

Alessandro reached across the table and put his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t blame yourself.’

Rachel felt the slow spreading warmth of his flesh on hers. His skin was so tanned compared to hers. His fingers so long and dusted with masculine hair, the nails clean and short, strong hands, capable hands, hands that could stroke and caress and light fires underneath her skin. She swallowed as a wing-like flutter erupted in her belly. She slowly brought her gaze up to his. It felt as if he had summoned it with the sheer power of his magnetic presence. His pupils were black holes in a dark blue unfathomable sea. It occurred to her then she could drown in that sea if she wasn’t careful. ‘I guess you must be really pleased I had to lie down on the bed of my own making,’ she said.

Alessandro removed his hand from her arm and sat back in his chair. ‘I am not sure it is a worthwhile exercise relishing
in someone else’s misfortune,’ he said. ‘No one gets it right all the time. I have made decisions I have come to regret in hindsight.’

Rachel could just imagine what he most regretted. Asking her to marry him and then only minutes later to have her introduce another man as her fiancé would surely be up there with the most regrettable of actions. If only he knew how much she wished she had said yes to him instead. Her life would have been so very different.

‘I’ll get the next course,’ she said to break the awkward silence.

While she was in the kitchen she looked down at her arm where his hand had lain and fully expected it to show some mark, so heightened were her senses. Her skin tingled, each nerve prickling beneath the surface of her skin.

She rubbed at her arm, annoyed with herself for reacting like an infatuated schoolgirl instead of a mature and sensible adult. She could not afford to be distracted by his potent allure. She was on a mission to save her label and that had to remain her top and only priority.

Once Rachel had served the meal Alessandro turned the conversation to more neutral topics. It was as if he was making a concerted effort to steer away from any mention of the past. Rachel found him to be a convivial host when he put his mind to it. He asked her what books she had read lately, what movies she had enjoyed and where she had last holidayed. He even laughed at one of her anecdotes about a visit to a celebrity client for a private fitting. Rachel suddenly realised she had never heard him laugh before. It was a deep rich sound that trickled down her spine like a flow of champagne. It was a magical moment, connecting them in a way that she had not experienced with him before. She caught a
glimpse of the man he was and had always been in spite of his difficult background: respectful, disciplined, driven but decent. Why had it taken her this long to realise it?

Before she knew it the time had come for coffee.

‘Have you been back to Australia since you left?’ she asked as she poured them each a cup of the rich fragrant brew.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

He stirred his black coffee even though she hadn’t seen him put in any sugar. ‘It is a good country—a great country,’ he said. ‘I have never said it wasn’t, but my heart is in Italy. As soon as I got off the plane I felt as if I had come home.’

‘Your father was Italian, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ He picked up his cup and took a sip. ‘He travelled to Australia on a working holiday but ended up staying after he met my mother.’

Rachel had never heard him speak of his parents before. ‘So why did you end up in foster homes?’ she asked.

His expression was remote. ‘My father died in a workplace accident when I was a small child. Things came unstuck after that.’

‘Do you remember him?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He was tall like me and had the same colouring. He worked hard trying to get ahead but he never quite made it. Everything seemed to work against him, including my mother.’

‘Is she still alive?’ Rachel asked.

‘She died a few years ago,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear about it until the funeral was over.’

‘You mean you didn’t try to keep in touch with her?’ His eyes met hers, dark, veiled and deep. ‘I tried but it
didn’t always help matters. In the end I thought it best to keep out of her life.’

‘Why was that?’ Rachel asked.

‘She was totally unreliable,’ he said ‘She was always changing addresses and or partners, most of whom were her dealers. She was the reason my father had to work three jobs to keep food on the table. She shot most of what he earned up her arms. It was a problem she couldn’t fight alone. Once he died she spiralled out of control without him there to support her.’

Rachel’s throat constricted. She had always known he had come from a difficult background but she had never bothered to ask how difficult. She had heard rumours that he had been kicked out of numerous foster homes and thus assumed he had always been a rebel of some sort, that
he
was the problem. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice coming out as soft as a whisper. ‘I had no idea things had been that bad for you. I thought you were just one of those hard-to-manage kids. You never said anything.’

‘My father was a fool for falling in love with my mother,’ he said. ‘Her first love wasn’t him, it was her next high. He should have realised there are some people who are beyond help. He got caught in the addiction web and it cost him his life.’

‘It must have been so awful for you having no one to rely on after your father was killed,’ Rachel said. ‘How did you manage?’

‘How does any kid manage?’ he said. ‘The survival instinct kicks in. I was a bit wild for a time until I made a decision to follow my father’s dream of a better life. I got off the streets and got an education.’

‘I am sure he would be very proud of you,’ Rachel said.

Alessandro gave an indifferent shrug. ‘I am not proud of my background but it has made me the man I am today. I suppose I should be grateful,
sì?
I could have followed my mother’s example. So many people do. It is all they know. It’s as if it is somehow programmed into their genes. Generational dysfunction or some such thing it is called.’