LITMIR.BIZ

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time we spoke …’ She cleared her throat, not really wanting to recall that dreadful scene on the night of her twenty-first birthday party.

      ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what the conditions are?’ he asked.

      Rachel chewed at her lip. ‘If you want me to apologise for how things turned out … urn … between us, then I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wanted to tell you about Craig and the expectation that one day we would marry. I should have told you. But as soon as you and I started dating I just couldn’t seem to do it. I didn’t want anything to spoil what we had …’

      He remained silent, his face now set in stone.

      She took a breath and continued, ‘I’ve had to work so hard to get this far, to be taken seriously after my modelling fiasco. I have people depending on me to make this work. I have staff with mortgages to pay and children to educate and feed. This isn’t just about me wanting to prove I can do it. It’s not just my money that will be lost if this falls over. My business partner has put everything she has into the company as well. I can’t let her down. She’s been a good friend to me.’

      Alessandro slowly drummed his fingers on the desk as he sat watching her shift from foot to foot. He had waited a long time to hear her apologise for choosing another man’s money over his love. But was she apologising out of desperation or real regret?

      He studied her features, drinking them in even though he had not for a moment forgotten how she looked. Her grey-green eyes were indelibly imprinted in his brain, so too was her shoulder-length glossy brown hair, the way it caught the sunlight at certain angles bringing out its natural highlights. She had aristocratic cheekbones, and a retroussé nose that gave her heart-shaped face an innocent, childlike air that was at odds with her true personality. She was all innocence on the outside but on the inside she had turned out to be a hard, conniving, conscienceless little opportunist just like every other gold-digger he had known.

      Her mouth was something else he had never quite forgotten, but, instead of it being imprinted on his brain, it was for ever imprinted on his lips. He could still feel that pillowy softness beneath his mouth, the way she had opened to him like an exotic flower to the sun. He could still taste the sensual heat of her, the heady temptation she had dangled before him until she had got tired of playing with the hired help and moved on to more affluent pastures.

      ‘I will give you ten thousand euros,’ he said into the loaded silence.

      ‘But I need much more than that,’ she said, biting at her lower lip.

      ‘Ten thousand and that is all,’ he said.

      Her grey-green eyes narrowed slightly. ‘But why would you do that? If you don’t want to back my label then why give me anything at all?’

      He gave her a sardonic half-smile. ‘Because it will be worth it if you accept my conditions.’

      Her eyes flared a little more and the column of her slim elegant throat slid up and down as she swallowed. ‘Wh-what are the conditions?’ she asked in a hoarse-sounding voice.

      Alessandro held her trapped-in-the-headlights gaze for a pulsing moment.

      How ironic she thought he was after revenge when that was the very last thing on his mind right now. ‘You can have the money in your bank account within the next half-hour,’ he said in a cool and controlled tone, ‘but only if you agree to walk out of here and never come back.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      HER mouth opened and closed and her throat rose and fell again. Her face paled and then flooded with colour. She glared at him, her eyes like flashes of green-tinged lightning, her slim body tight with tension, every muscle contracted in fury. ‘You’re paying me to … to leave?’ she asked.

      Alessandro leaned back in his chair again. ‘Take it or leave it, Rachel. You have one minute to decide before I take the offer off the table. And I won’t be making another.’

      Her hands clenched in fists by her sides, the action dislodging the precarious sling of her handbag. She shoved it back over her shoulder but the hand that pushed it back was visibly shaking. ‘That’s outrageous!’ she said.

      ‘That’s business,’ he returned.

      ‘Business?’ Her soft lip curled. ‘What sort of businessman are you that you have to pay someone to go away?’

      ‘You are not welcome here, Rachel,’ he said. ‘You want money and appear to be very determined not to leave until you get it. This is a compromise of sorts. For each minute you overstay your welcome the figure will go down.’

      She looked at him in bewilderment. Gone was her cocky I’m-a-rich-girl-better-than-you haughtiness, in its place was a shocked, out-of-her-depth ingénue. ‘So, let me get this straight …’ She ran the tip of her tongue out over her lips before she continued. ‘You want me to walk out of here with ten thousand euros of yours, as long as I promise never to return?’

      Alessandro gave a single nod.

      ‘But I don’t understand,’ she went on. ‘Why would you want to give me that amount of money for … for essentially nothing?’

      ‘I am a rich man,’ Alessandro said, borrowing a bit of her father’s philosophy. ‘I can do anything I want.’

      She pressed her lips together, obviously wondering if she could trust him or not. If he hadn’t been feeling so cornered it would have amused him to watch her. She was oscillating, clearly tempted to take things on face value. It wasn’t a lot of money by her standards but it was still money. But if things were as precarious as she made out it would at least get her a bed and meals for the rest of her time in Italy. Would she take it and go, or would she try and weasel some more out of him?

      He glanced at his watch. ‘The figure is now nine thousand euros, Rachel,’ he said. ‘What is your decision?’

      Her eyes moved away from his, the colour on her cheeks still high. ‘You have to understand if this was just about me I would have walked out of here five minutes ago,’ she said. ‘In fact I wouldn’t have come here in the first place if it hadn’t been for what you did to sabotage—’

      ‘You are robbing yourself of another thousand.’

      She met his gaze again, her tongue sweeping over the surface of her lips again. ‘Can I have a little more time to think about this?’ she asked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘But that’s crazy!’ she said. ‘How do I know I can trust you? You might give me the money and then change the rules.’

      ‘I will not change the rules,’ he said. ‘I simply want you to take the money and leave.’

      Her mouth flattened in anger. ‘This is payback, isn’t it? You want to make me pay for how I chose Craig instead of you.’

      Alessandro kept his expression bland, uninterested, totally unmoved. ‘If you don’t want the money I am sure I can find someone else who does.’

      ‘But I need much more than that amount,’ she said. ‘I need to get my—’

      ‘That is all I am prepared to give you,’ he said. ‘Now please make up your mind before the amount left is not worth taking.’

      She shifted her weight agitatedly, her mouth opening and snapping closed as if she was not quite ready to allow the words out. ‘I will accept your offer,’ she finally said.

      ‘Good,’ Alessandro said. ‘Give me your account details and I will transfer the funds as soon as I see you walk out of that gate.’

      She wrote them on a piece of paper and passed them across. ‘So that’s it?’ she asked. ‘You don’t even want to offer me a drink or a meal or anything?’

      ‘No, you can get that at your hotel.’

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