LITMIR.BIZ

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I haven’t got any luggage. It’s been misplaced. I don’t know when it’s going to turn up, if ever.’

      ‘Not my problem,’ he said.

      ‘You heartless bastard,’ she railed at him. ‘Don’t you care about anyone but yourself?’

      He elevated one of his dark brows. ‘I have taken a leaf out of your book, Rachel,’ he said. ‘I no longer do anything to please anyone but myself.’

      ‘Do you have to pay your lovers to arrive as well as leave?’ she asked with a biting look. ‘You have a quick turnover of women in your life, or so I have heard.’

      ‘So you have been reading about me in the press, have you, Rachel?’ he asked, allowing himself a small smile of satisfaction.

      ‘The Australian press don’t have access to too many details of your life,’ she said, ‘but now and again one of the UK magazines I occasionally buy mentions you and your latest girlfriend on the society pages.’

      ‘Does it seem ironic to you that the man you turned down all those years ago is now richer and more powerful than both your father and your ex-fiancé combined?’ Alessandro asked.

      ‘How did you do it?’ she asked, but then bit down on her lip as if she had regretted the words as soon as she had said them.

      ‘I was prepared for success and jumped at it when the first opportunity presented itself,’ he said. ‘Leaving Australia and coming over here opened up new avenues for me that would not have occurred otherwise.’

      ‘It’s a shame you don’t have any family to be proud of you,’ she said.

      Alessandro clenched his jaw at her little jibe. He was used to her throwing her blue-blood lines in his face in the past. She was the rich girl with the pedigree; he was the abandoned mongrel who trawled the streets for the scraps thrown to him. He hated her for tricking him into thinking he’d had a chance with her. She had lured him into her sweet honey trap before flicking him away like an annoying insect. He was not going to make that mistake again, not with her or any woman. ‘Yes, but I have many friends who more than make up for the lack of close family,’ he said. ‘Now if you will excuse me I have work to do.’

      ‘Aren’t you going to accompany me to the door of your fortress to make sure I don’t pinch the silver on the way out?’ she asked.

      ‘I will leave Lucia to escort you off the property,’ Alessandro said. ‘I have better things to do with my time.’

      ‘She seems very nice,’ Rachel said, deliberately stalling. ‘Your housekeeper, I mean.’

      ‘Lucia is a kind soul,’ he said. ‘She has worked for me ever since I came to Italy. She is like a mother to me.’

      Rachel thought of her own mother, an increasingly vague, amorphous image that drifted in and out of her consciousness from time to time. She had died when Rachel was three and a half but she still missed her. There was a mother-shaped hole inside her that nothing and no one had filled since in spite of her father’s many and varied partners over the years. She wondered if Alessandro, without either of his parents in his life, felt the same. He had never said. He had never talked of his childhood. All she knew from what little she had heard from others was he had spent a lot of time in foster homes or on the streets while growing up. Maybe his parents were dead. Maybe they were alive. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

      Alessandro pressed an intercom button on his desk and summoned Lucia. ‘Miss McCulloch is ready to leave.’

      ‘Sì, Signor,’ Lucia answered. ‘I will come now.’

      Rachel didn’t like being dismissed. It irritated the hell out of her that he just sat there issuing orders. She wanted more time with him so she could irritate him right back. Her anger towards him bubbled up inside her. She wanted to grab him by the front of his immaculate shirt and tell him exactly what she thought of him. ‘You’re really getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?’ she said.

      ‘Careful, Rachel,’ he said, eyeballing her darkly. ‘Don’t go biting the hand that is about to pay for your next meal.’

      Lucia arrived at that moment. ‘Signorina? I will see you to the gate,’ she said, holding the study door open.

      ‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, but not before flinging one last cutting glare to Alessandro. ‘Goodbye, Alessandro. I hope I never have to see you again.’

      He didn’t answer, which irritated her even more.

      Alessandro watched as his housekeeper accompanied Rachel to the front entrance of the villa. He clenched and unclenched his hands on the side of his chair in rising tension. He turned away from the window and stared at his computer screen sightlessly. A couple of months ago he would have paid her to stay. He would have paid her to occupy his bed. He would have enjoyed showing her all she had missed out on in choosing Craig Hughson over him. And then he would have cast her adrift, coldly, callously, just as she had done to him.

      But everything was different now.

      He couldn’t afford to let her know what had happened to him. So far only his housekeeper and doctor and physical therapist knew. People in business were unpredictable, fickle at the whisper of a personal problem. One word in the press that he had suffered a health setback such as this could jeopardise his negotiations for the biggest coup of his career. A massively wealthy sheikh from Dubai was considering using Alessandro’s business analysis services. It was the sort of contact that would bring in even more wealthy clients, those with the sort of wealth that outshone even his current ones. He didn’t want anything to compromise the already tricky negotiations. The doctor had told him he needed another month of rehabilitation. One more month of privacy and then he could get on with his life.

      The intercom sounded on his desk and he leaned forward to answer. ‘Yes, Lucia?’

      ‘I had to bring Miss McCulloch back into the villa,’ Lucia said.

      ‘Why?’ he barked the word at her.

      ‘She’s not well. I think she has a touch of heatstroke.’

      Alessandro drummed his fingers on the desk until his fingertips went numb. His conscience jabbed at him again. He could hardly send her away ill. He could probably get away with a couple of days and nights with her in the villa without revealing the extent of his condition. Lucia would be discreet. It might even be amusing to see Rachel leave at the end of her brief stay with no idea of what he was hiding from her and the world at large. ‘All right,’ he said to his housekeeper. ‘Put her in one of the guest suites well away from mine. Does she need to see a doctor?’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Lucia said. ‘She just needs to get some fluids on board and rest for a day or two. She is still a little jet-lagged.’

      ‘You’re too soft, Lucia,’ Alessandro said gruffly.

      ‘Maybe, but she seems a nice young woman,’ Lucia said.

      ‘You don’t know her like I do,’ he said. ‘For all you know this could be an act.’

      ‘It’s not an act,’ Lucia said. ‘She was sick a few minutes ago. I had to half carry her back to the villa. I thought she was going to pass out.’

      Alessandro frowned. ‘Are you sure she doesn’t need a doctor?’

      ‘I will call one if she doesn’t improve after a rest,’ Lucia said. ‘I think she’ll be a lot better by tomorrow.’

      Alessandro sat back in his chair once the conversation ended. One or two days was all he was prepared to allow Rachel to stay. It was risky, but then wasn’t everything in life that was enjoyable? A slow smile tugged at his mouth as he thought of entertaining her. It would be quite diverting to see her grovel for more money. He assumed that was what she would do. She hadn’t got what she wanted from him and would surely have another go to achieve her goal. He wondered how far she would take things. What sort of artifice would she employ this time to get him

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