‘It’s all well and good for you to sit there sniggering, but I’m the one who has to live with other people’s stupid speculations!’
‘That’s office life for you. Maybe you should climb out of your ivory tower and experience it. And don’t worry about Jackson, by the way. Whatever he might think, or not think, he’ll keep it to himself.’
Kate gritted her teeth together and remembered diplomacy. He was rich, and immune to the opinions of other people. Not that there would be many people willing to shoot their mouths off at him. The man was unbearably arrogant in his self-confidence. And he talked about her living in an ivory tower!
‘Maybe I should,’ she said, with a tight, forced smile.
‘You look as though you’ve swallowed a lime.’ Alessandro grinned. He hadn’t noticed her freckles before, or the fact that her dark hair was more chestnut than brown, and golden at the ends.
‘I’m going to change. If you want something to drink there’s an opened bottle of wine in the fridge, or you can make yourself tea or coffee. It’s not a big kitchen. I’m sure you’ll be able to find what you need.’
With that she swung round and headed to her bedroom, fuming at the way he had invaded her privacy, fuming at the way he saw fit to say exactly what happened to be on his mind, fuming at her evening, which she had had neatly planned and which would now be spent in a state of edge-of-the-seat nervous tension.
She got to her bedroom and gazed at her mutinous reflection in the mirror. Her colour was up. Her hair was not in the neat little bun he was accustomed to seeing. The ponytail was coming undone and wisps of long brown hair trailed around her face. Which was completely bare of make-up...
She peered at the freckles which had always made her look so young.
Freckles, dishevelled hair, a pair of shorts that she would never in a million years have worn had she known that he—or anyone else, for that matter—would be turning up on her doorstep, and a small stretch top with no bra. The top might be navy blue, but she had generous breasts and it was perfectly obvious that they were not constrained.
If she half squinted and stood back just a tiny bit...well, she might pass muster as one of those cocktail waitresses she scorned. Small clothes, busty, legs everywhere, hair everywhere...
In the rational part of her mind Kate knew that it was just her imagination playing tricks on her. She wasn’t dressed any differently from any young woman hanging around in her own home on a balmy summer evening.
But this was her tender spot—the place where her imagination took flight. She was ultrasensitive to any suggestion that she and her mother had anything in common when it came to the way they saw themselves and their bodies. Her mother had always been a benchmark as to how she, Kate, would never conduct herself.
She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and hurriedly removed the offending attire, replacing the shorts and cropped top with a pair of jeans and a very sensible baggy tee shirt which revealed nothing but a faded logo on the front. She neatened up the ponytail, but drew the line at turning it into a bun.
When she made it back to the kitchen it was to find Alessandro well ensconced at her kitchen table, a glass of wine next to him, long legs extended to one side, relaxing back with his hands folded behind his head.
‘I like your place.’ He watched as she hovered for a few seconds by the kitchen door, the very picture of the disgruntled and reluctant host. ‘Cool, airy, light colours... And nice that it’s not in a big, impersonal block of flats as well. I take it there’s just the one other flat above you...?’
‘You’ve been poking around...’ she said, eyes narrowed.
‘You disappeared to change your clothes. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘You were supposed to make yourself a cup of tea and stay put.’
‘Wine seemed a better alternative. I try and avoid caffeine after six. You look nothing like her, you know.’
Kate stiffened. She took a couple of steps into the kitchen with about the same enthusiasm as someone entering a lion’s den. This was her house and her kitchen, and yet he seemed to dominate it with his presence, making her feel as if she needed to ask permission to open the fridge.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ She helped herself to a glass of wine and took up position at the opposite end of the table. ‘And I would rather not get into any of that.’
‘Any of what? If you don’t know what I’m talking about?’
He slung his long body out of the chair and headed to the fridge, opened the door and peered inside.
‘I see you’re a very healthy eater,’ he said conversationally, helping himself to the bottle of wine and bringing it back to the table, where he proceeded to pour himself another glass. ‘Although the box of chocolates is a giveaway of a more...decadent nature...’
‘If you give me five minutes, I’ll go and fetch the file on George.’
‘But returning to what I said...’ This time his dark eyes were thoughtful, serious. ‘And that remark you so adroitly tried to avoid. You’re nothing like your mother. I looked at some of the pictures you have framed in your sitting room...’
‘You shouldn’t have come here and you shouldn’t have nosed around...’ For a few appalling seconds, Kate felt as though her little world was in the process of being tilted on its axis. ‘I should never have told you any of that stuff.’
‘Why? Is there something wrong with confiding in other people?’
‘Do you?’ She turned the question right back at him. ‘Do you run around spilling your guts to all and sundry? What about all those models you go out with? Do you get deep and personal with them? Do you hold hands and sob over a bottle of wine while you pour your soul out?’
This was what it felt like to lose control. She had always had control, and now here she was, sitting at her own kitchen table, losing it with a guy who had the power to terminate the career she had so carefully built.
And the worst of it was that she didn’t want to retract the accusation.
She was aware of him with every pore of her being. He swamped her. When she breathed she felt that she was breathing in his clean, masculine scent. When she leaned forward she could feel his personality wrap around her like tendrils of ivy.
She felt...alive.
But not, she told herself uneasily, in a good way. There was nothing about Alessandro Preda that could make her feel anything in a good way. She felt alive in a very, very annoying way.
‘At least you’re not apologizing for asking that daring question,’ Alessandro drawled.
So she had ditched the shorts and the cropped top, but the jeans and the baggy shirt did nothing to reduce her sex appeal. Now he had seen that body shorn of its camouflage outfits the image was imprinted in his brain with the force of a branding iron.
‘And you’re right. I don’t tend to do the personal touchy-feely business with the women I go out with. I can’t recall pouring my soul out and sobbing in recent times.’ His mouth twitched with amusement. ‘In that we’re strangely alike. But you wear your defence system on the outside. You cover up from neck to ankle but there’s no need. You’re not your mother. You may want to make sure you don’t follow in her footsteps, but you don’t have to dress like a spinster schoolteacher to do that.’
‘How dare you come here and try and analyze me?’ Tears stung the back of her throat but thankfully she was far too reticent a person to allow them access.
‘I’m not trying to analyze you,’ Alessandro told her in just the sort of gentle voice that she knew might prove her undoing if she let it. ‘Don’t you feel a little trapped by all the hoops you make yourself jump through?
‘I don’t feel trapped by anything. This is the life I’ve chosen to lead. You have no idea what it’s like to be...insecure when you’re growing up...’
‘How do you know that?’ Alessandro asked softly.
Her eyes widened. She paused for thought. How did she know that? Because of who he was? Rich. Powerful. Confident. Arrogant. Those were not the hallmarks of someone whose upbringing had been anything but exemplary. Besides, he was the sole issue of the union of two wealthy families. If you looked him up on the internet—which she never had—you would discover that. She had overhead one of the giggly girls from the legal department imparting that titbit one day in the office restaurant. He occupied a stratosphere that was quite unlike hers. Actually, quite unlike most peoples.
‘But you were right when you said that we’re here to talk about Cape.’
For a minute there Alessandro had felt the pull to trade one set of confidences for another. He didn’t know where that had come from, but it wasn’t something he was going to give in to. Probably hearing her talk about her mother had naturally led him to think about his own parents. They too lived on the coast—probably not a million miles away from her mother. Small world...
‘Of course. I’ll just go and fetch the file I’ve compiled. I’ve summarized all my findings. I thought it might be easier for you to go through rather than follow the trail piecemeal.’
‘Highly efficient, and just what I would expect of you!’