‘Well, why don’t you get some well-deserved beauty sleep and we’ll talk in the morning...or later, if you’d like. After all, your forty-eight hour deadline won’t yet be up. Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.’
She was left clutching the phone which had gone dead because he had hung up on her. He’d barely heard her out! She felt that there was a lot more anger to be expressed. Unfortunately, without an adversary at which to direct her attack, she was left simmering and fuming on her own as she flounced down in front of the television, having abandoned all attempts at reviewing her caseload.
She was barely aware of what she was watching. It appeared to be a crime drama with an awful lot of victims and an extremely elusive murderer. She had fully zoned out of the story line when, at a little after ten, she heard the insistent buzz of the doorbell and was jerked into instant red alert.
Alessandro.
Surely he wouldn’t have the cheek to show up at this hour at her house?
Of course he wouldn’t. Why would a shark bother to stalk a minnow when it knew full well that the minnow would swim into its gaping jaw of its own free will?
Much more likely that it was Beth; as she slipped on her bedroom slippers and padded out to the front door, she was already trying to work out what she might say to begin killing her friend’s already full-blown optimism.
She pulled open the door to Alessandro and her mouth fell open in surprise.
‘Rule one,’ he said, strolling past her to take up residence in the sitting room before she had had a chance to marshal her thoughts into order. ‘When living in London, never open the door unless you know who’s going to be standing on your doorstep.’ He turned towards her, which instantly made her feel like a guest in her own home. ‘I could have been anyone.’
‘And, unfortunately for me, you’re not!’ She folded her arms and looked at him with gimlet-eyed stoniness. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You said that you were finding it impossible to get down to work because you were thinking of me, so I thought I’d drop by.’
‘I never said any such thing!’ He was not in work clothes but in a pair of black jeans and a grey polo-necked shirt. He looked drop-dead gorgeous, which did nothing for her composure, because she felt far from drop-dead anything in her tatty old jogging bottoms and a tee-shirt that had lost its shape in the wash years ago. She also wasn’t wearing a bra and she was conscious of her nipples poking against the cotton of the tee-shirt.
‘I must have misunderstood. My apologies. But I’m here now, so maybe you could offer me a cup of coffee? Nothing stronger. I’m driving.’
‘I wasn’t about to offer you anything!’
‘Don’t you want to let off steam? You were breathing brimstone and fire down the line less than an hour ago.’
‘Because you went behind my back and led Beth to believe that you were going to save her shelter—worse, led her to believe that the decision lies with me!’
‘Oh, but it does, doesn’t it?’ He stared at her with a mixture of cool certainty and mild surprise that she should question the obvious.
‘What on earth did you tell her?’
‘That you and I were working on a plan to see whether the place could be saved and money invested.’
‘Because you’re such a good guy, right?’
‘Let’s not go down the tortuous route of moral ethics, Chase. However non-existent you think mine are, you’re not exactly in a position to point fingers.’
Chase chewed her lip and glared impotently at him. ‘I’ll make you some coffee.’ She shrugged and turned away. He was here now, in her house, smug and self-satisfied at the awkward position into which he had shoved her; sooner or later they would have to talk, so why not make it sooner? She couldn’t see herself getting to sleep in a hurry.
She returned with two mugs of coffee to find him ensconced in one of the deep chairs, the very picture of a man totally relaxed in his surroundings.
‘You gave me your word that I would have forty-eight hours.’
‘And nothing’s changed on that front,’ Alessandro said smoothly. ‘You still do. I’ve just thrown an extra something into the mix.’
‘And that wasn’t fair.’
‘Between us, the gloves are off. You’re as scheming as I am, so don’t even bother to try and play the wounded party with me.’ He had not been able to get her out of his head and, the more he thought about her, the more urgent his need to have her became. The sooner he had her, sated this voracious lust, the faster he would be rid of her. He couldn’t wait.