Chase rolled her eyes and sighed, because the breeze was too balmy and the scenery too exotic for arguing. ‘That is because you’re a dinosaur.’ He had old-fashioned ideas. Years ago she had teased him that that was a backlash from his parents’ excesses but she had liked those old-fashioned ideas, never having come across them before.
‘And I take it that under normal circumstances you wouldn’t choose to go out with a dinosaur? Tell me about your husband.’
‘I no longer have a husband,’ Chase said shortly, rousing herself from bittersweet memories of their brief, shared dalliance.
‘I realise that. What was he like?’ He was curious. He found that he wanted to know. This wasn’t polite conversation, although the casual tone of his voice gave nothing away.
The last thing Chase wanted to do was to talk about Shaun but she had a sneaking suspicion that, if she backed away from the subject, it would arouse his interest even further. ‘We met when we were young. I was only fifteen. Just. We met at the local disco.’
‘Cosy. And was it love at first sight?’
‘We found that we had a lot in common.’
‘Always a good start to a healthy relationship. Even at the ripe old age of fifteen. Just.’ He found that he didn’t care for the idea of them having a lot in common at whatever the hell age they had happened to meet. Nor had he intended to get wrapped up in pointless conversations about the thug who had been lurking behind the scenes when she had taken him for a ride and played him for a fool.
‘So they say,’ Chase murmured tonelessly.
‘I take it he wasn’t sharp enough to make it to university?’
‘Shaun was plenty sharp.’ She couldn’t help the bitterness that had crept into her voice but she kept it at bay. Talking about Shaun would inevitably lead to all sorts of questions about the sort of world she had really come from. Chase found that she had moved on from the fear of him discovering the truth about her and eking out some kind of belated revenge by spilling the beans to her work colleagues. She honestly couldn’t see him doing that.
No, what she feared—and she hated herself for this—was to have him walk away in disgust at the lies she had told, at the person she really was and the life she had really led. His pedigree was impeccable and although she knew that they would be the archetypal doomed lovers—in it for the wrong reasons but driven to fulfil their destiny—she still found that she wanted him to believe her to be the sassy, smart lawyer with the perfectly ordinary background when they parted company.
Wasn’t that to be expected? What if she bumped into him at a later date? What if he met some of the partners in her law firm and started talking about her? If he knew the truth about her, then wasn’t it likely that it would slip out in conversation? And, even if nothing did slip out, surely he would never be able to disguise the contempt in his voice at the mention of her name?
‘Sharp as in...?’
She snapped out of her daydreaming to find his eyes narrowed on her. ‘Streetwise; sharp as in streetwise.’
‘And did your streetwise late husband have a job?’ He thought back to the picture she had shown him all those years ago.
‘He...worked in transport but he...he lost his job shortly before the accident. I’d bought him that motorbike. I’d been putting aside some money and I wanted to celebrate getting my first promotion...’
‘So you celebrated by buying him a motorbike. Shouldn’t he have been the one doing the buying to congratulate you? Or am I just thinking like a dinosaur again?’
‘Alessandro, please, let’s move on from this. I honestly don’t want to talk about Shaun. Tell me more about here. It’s amazing to think that there can be snow on mountaintops that are just a short distance from the Med...’
Alessandro heard the soft plea in her voice. ‘Why did you give me a second look if you were so clearly head over heels in love with your husband?’
‘I...I’m sorry. I made a mistake.’
‘Which doesn’t answer my question.’ He raked his hand impatiently though his hair and sat back with his eyes closed for a few seconds. ‘Scrap that. Not sure I could stomach whatever fairy stories you decide to come out with.’
‘Alessandro...’
He inclined his head towards her and linked his fingers loosely in his lap. She had the face of an angel, the body of a siren and he was furious with himself for wanting to probe deeper. He pointed to a spot behind her as the car turned left. ‘My house.’
Chase turned just in time to glimpse a sand-coloured mansion rising up from the cliffs, overlooking the placid turquoise sea with a backdrop of woods of chestnut trees. She forgot everything and her mouth dropped open.