Outraged dignity came to her rescue. ‘And if I’d prefer to get drenched than share a car with you?’
‘I’d say it was very selfish of you to force Bruno to suffer the same fate just for the sake of your pride.’
Her eyes rounded. Pride? Alessandro thought this was simply about pride?
The man beside her moved, closing in beside her, and Carys darted a glance at him, wondering if she had any hope of getting away. He was built like a rugby player, all dense-packed muscle. Right now he had that grim, blank-eyed set to his face that she’d seen on the super-tough minders of the rich and famous.
‘Per favore, signorina.’
Drops splattered his jacket as the rain fell faster. He didn’t bat an eyelid, just watched her with the stony countenance of a man ready to deal with anything.
She’d bet five feet six of female, hampered by heels and a skirt, would be the work of a moment to overpower.
‘Don’t let his looks fool you, Carys,’ came a laconic voice from the limo’s interior. ‘Bruno has a weak chest. He’s just got over a bout of bronchitis. I wouldn’t like him to have a relapse. And you wouldn’t want that on your conscience.’
Carys blinked, catching the merest flicker of expression on the security man’s face. A smile? Surely not.
Movement to one side caught her eye, and she turned to find Alessandro had slid to the edge of the seat and was regarding her with a peculiarly unreadable expression.
‘His wife would flay me alive if I brought him home with pneumonia.’
Despite her anger, Carys felt her lips twitch. Once, long ago, Alessandro’s dry wit had been one of the things that had drawn her to him. She’d almost forgotten that, her memories skewed by those final, unhappy days when banter and teasing had been absent between them.
‘I would have thought blackmail was more your style,’ she jeered. ‘Or threats, rather than an appeal to my conscience.’
Rain trickled into her collar, but she stood ramrod straight. This man was dangerous.
A shrug of those lean shoulders and he said something in Italian that made Bruno move away to give them space. Carys barely had time to register the chance for escape when Alessandro’s voice curled around her, silkily smooth. ‘I regret last night, Carys. It wasn’t planned.’
He paused, awaiting a response that she steadfastly refused to give. If that was his idea of an apology he had a lot to learn.
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed as she stood rigid under his scrutiny. Something glittered in that forest-dark gaze that sent shivers of trepidation running through her. Despite his earlier light-hearted words, his stare sizzled. She guessed his deadpan expression disguised an anger almost as great as her own. Now she looked more closely, she read tension in his shoulders and grim mouth.
Too bad. She tilted her chin up, wishing she had a long aristocratic nose like his so she could look down it.
‘But if that’s the way you’d prefer to do this,’ he purred, ‘then I can oblige.’
She’d opened her mouth to say she preferred to have nothing to do with him, when his next words forestalled her.
‘I’m sure the hotel management would be interested in the security camera footage of the lobby outside the presidential suite last night, and in the lift. If they cared to check the recording they’d find it…illuminating.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ Shock hammered her like a physical blow, sucking out her breath. That tape would show her emerging from his suite in the early hours looking like…like…
‘Wouldn’t I?’ His stare was unnervingly blank. ‘I’m sure they frown on staff providing personal services to guests.’ His tongue dripped with hateful innuendo and Carys burned with frustration and fury. Her hands clenched around the shoulder strap of her bag.
‘I wasn’t providing a service, you—’
‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing, Carys. All that matters is how the evidence appears.’ He leaned back with a smug glimmer in his eyes.
Evidence. It sounded so formal.
It would be formal if anyone decided to check the recording. Formal enough to get her the sack.
Her heart dived and she shivered, but not from the rain’s chill. She needed this job. How else could she support Leo? Good positions were hard to find for someone with limited qualifications.
Would Alessandro make good on his threat?
Once she’d thought she’d known this man. Had trusted him. Had even believed he was falling in love with her.
What a naïve innocent she’d been.
She’d learned the hard way not to trust her judgement with him. Better to assume him capable of anything to get his own way. He’d already made a fool of her once.
He was her enemy, threatening the life she’d begun to build, her independence, even, she feared, her child.
‘What do you want?’ She didn’t care that her voice was scratchy with distress, despite her attempt to appear calm.
‘To talk. We have unfinished business.’
He didn’t wait for her to assent but slid back across the wide leather seat, making space for her.
Unfinished business.
That was how he described one little boy?
Her throat closed convulsively as the fight bled out of her. She couldn’t ignore Alessandro. She had to face him and hope against hope she could retain some control of the situation.
She tottered forward on numb legs and entered the limousine, her wet coat sliding along a leather seat that looked and smelled fresh from the factory.
Only the best for the Conte Mattani.
Under no circumstances would she, an ordinary single mum with not an ounce of glamour, be classed as the best. Alessandro had made that abundantly clear in Italy.
Her heart bumped against her ribs. Had Alessandro decided her little boy was a different matter?
The limo door shut with a quiet click and she sagged back, shutting her eyes. She was cold to the bone.
There was no escape now.
Moments later the front door closed and the vehicle accelerated. Belatedly she remembered to do up her seatbelt. A swift sideways glance told her Alessandro wasn’t happy, despite having got her where he wanted her.
The proud, spare lines of his face seemed austere and forbidding silhouetted against the city streets. He looked as approachable as some ancient king, brooding over judgement.
The flicker of unease inside her magnified into a hundred fluttering wings. She was at a disadvantage to him in so many ways.
His silence reinforced that she was here at his pleasure.
Carys flicked her gaze away, not deigning to ask where they were going. Two could play the silent game. It would give her time to marshal her resources.
As she stared straight ahead, trying to control her frantic, jumbled thoughts, she found herself looking through a smoky glass privacy-screen at the back of Bruno’s head.
Recognition smote her.
‘He was on my street. Last night!’ Carys leaned forward to make sure. There was no mistaking the bunched-muscle silhouette of the minder’s neck and shoulders, or the shape of his head.
As she’d walked up the ill-lit street to her block of flats in the early hours, she’d faltered, her heart skipping as she noticed a brawny