‘No one touched me, Alessandro! And no one tried to feel me up! Do you think that I’m so feeble that I would allow anyone to get away with that? Do you think that I’m incapable of taking care of myself?’ But his show of possessiveness touched her. She folded her hands on her lap to stop herself from reaching out and covering his hand with her own.
‘Then what’s going on?’ Looking at her, it was clear that she could barely meet his eyes. She was fidgeting nervously with the handle of her coffee cup. Alessandro felt that he could do with the entire bottle of wine, never mind one careful glass. Instead he ordered a black coffee while he tried to sift through some plausible explanation for her behaviour in his mind. ‘You’re not...pregnant, are you?’ It was a thought that only now occurred to him.
Chase glanced up at his face, suddenly ashen, and for a few moments anger replaced gnawing anxiety and dread. It was obvious from his expression that the mere suggestion of pregnancy had knocked him for six. ‘And what if I was?’ she queried boldly. ‘What if I told you that there was a mini-Alessandro taking shape right now inside me?’
She fancied she could see the colour drain away from his face as she allowed him time to absorb the full horror of that scenario. ‘Don’t worry, Alessandro. I’m not pregnant. I told you once that I’m not a complete idiot.’
For a few fleeting seconds, Alessandro had found himself ripped out of his comfort zone, staring down the barrel of a gun. She was having his baby. His baby. The gun barrel, strangely, was less of a threat than he might have imagined.
‘Accidents happen,’ he said grimly.
‘Oh, Alessandro...’ She sighed and sat back, head tilted up, eyes half-closed as the inescapable hurtled towards her with the deadly force of a bomb. ‘I’m healthy, there’s no mini-Alessandro on the way and no one’s made a pass at me at work. And I wish there was some other way of saying this but there isn’t...’ She straightened and took a deep breath. ‘I need to ask you something.’
‘What?’
‘I need to...borrow some money from you.’
Deathly silence greeted this request. Chase didn’t dare look at Alessandro. What choice did she have? she wondered helplessly. Brian wasn’t going to go away until he had his money and she simply didn’t have it. If she got it, gave it to him and then convinced him that she had broken up with Alessandro, then he would go away. If she didn’t, then she was, frankly, scared of what he might do. Scared of all the old horrors landing on her doorstep once again.
‘Tell me I’m not hearing this.’
‘I’m sorry and, naturally, I’ll pay you back every penny of what I borrow. With interest.’
Alessandro laughed mirthlessly. ‘So finally,’ he said in a lethally soft voice, ‘the real face of Chase Evans is revealed. I’m surprised you managed to keep it hidden for so long.’ He felt as though he had been punched in the gut. This wasn’t just anger; this was a level of hurt that he could barely acknowledge even to himself. He didn’t know who he loathed more—himself for having been conned a second time, or her for having been the one to do the conning.
‘What do you need the money for?’ He could scarcely credit that he was willing to hear her out, willing to give her an explanation that would allow him to make sense of the situation. That window of willingness died the second she looked at him and said steadily,
‘I’m sorry. That’s...none of your business.’ The harshest of words, yet they would provide the clean break.
‘Right. So...when did you decide that you could screw me for money?’ he asked in the same ultra-controlled voice that was far more intimidating than if he had stood up and shouted at her. ‘Was it when you came to my house? Or was it when we went to Italy and you saw just how much I had? Tell me. I’m curious.’
‘You don’t understand, Alessandro. I wouldn’t be sitting here asking you for money if...if...I didn’t have to.’
‘And yet you refuse to tell me what you want the money for.’ He threw up his hands in rampant frustration as she greeted this with stubborn silence. ‘Are you in some sort of debt? Hell, Chase, just be bloody straight with me!’
‘I told you, it’s none of your business. If you don’t want to lend me the money, then just say so.’ Her heart was breaking in two.
‘And, just for the record, how much money do you fancy you can bleed me for?’
She named the figure and watched as he threw his head back and roared with laughter, except there was no humour there. He was laughing with incredulity and his dark eyes were as hard and cold as the frozen depths of a glacier.