She felt like the victim of a runaway truck. In a heartbeat, her life seemed to have been derailed, and she had to tell herself that it wasn’t so; that because Alessandro was the man with whom she was now having to deal, because their paths had crossed in such a shadowy manner, it didn’t mean that he was out to destroy her. His pride had been injured all those years ago and what he wanted from her now was answers to the questions he must have asked himself in the aftermath of their break-up. Not that they had ever really had a relationship.
Of course, she would have to be careful with what she told him, but once he was satisfied they would both return to their lives and it would be as if they had never met again.
She left the conference room in a hurry. It was almost twelve-thirty and there were far more people walking around than when she had first entered the impressive building. Workers were going out to lunch. It was a perfect summer’s day. There would be sandwiches in the park and an hour’s worth of relaxing in the sun before everyone stuck back on their jackets and returned to their city desks. Chase had always made sure to steer clear of that.
In the foyer, she didn’t have long to wait before she spotted Alessandro stepping out of the lift. As he walked towards her, one finger holding the jacket that he had tossed over his shoulder, she relived those heady times when she had enjoyed kidding herself that her life could really change. Every single time she had seen him, she had felt a rush of pure, adrenaline-charged excitement, even though all they ever did was have lunch together or a cappuccino somewhere.
‘So you’re here.’
‘You didn’t really expect me to run away?’ Chase fell into step alongside him. It was a treat not to tower over a guy but she still had to walk quickly to match his pace as they went through the revolving glass doors and out into the busy street.
‘No, of course I didn’t. You’re a lawyer. You know when diplomacy is called for.’ He swung left and began walking away from the busier streets, down the little side roads that gave London such character. ‘And, on the subject of your career, why don’t we kick off our catch-up with that?’
‘What do you want to know?’
Alessandro leaned down towards her. ‘Let’s really get into the spirit of this, Chase. Let’s not do a question-and-answer session, with me having to drag conversation out of you.’
‘What do you expect, Alessandro? I don’t want to be here!’
‘I’m sure you don’t, but you’re here now, so humour me.’
‘I...I...got a first-class degree. In my final year I was head-hunted by a firm of lawyers—not the ones I work for now, but a good firm. I was fast-tracked.’
‘Clever Chase.’
Chase recognised that it hadn’t been said as a compliment, although she could only guess at what he was implying. He loathed her so, whatever it was, she had no doubt that it would be offensive.
Yet, she was clever. In another place and another time, she knew that she would have been one of those girls who would have been said to ‘have it all’: brains and looks. But then, life had a way of counter-balancing things. At any rate, she had relied far more on her brains than she ever had on her looks. She had worked like a demon to get her A-levels, fought against all odds to get to a top university, and once there had doggedly spared no effort in getting a degree that would set her up for life. And all that against a backdrop that she had trained herself never to think about.
‘Thank you.’ She chose to misinterpret the tone of his voice. ‘So, I got a good job, did my training, changed companies...and here I am now.’
‘Fitzsimmons. Classy firm.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She could feel fine prickles of nervousness beading her forehead.
‘And yet, no designer suit? Don’t they pay you enough?’
Chase cringed with embarrassment. He had never made any secret about the fact that he came from money. Was that how he could spot the fact that her clothes were off the peg and ready to wear from a chain store? ‘They pay me more than enough,’ she said coolly. ‘But I prefer to save my money instead of throwing it away to a high-end retailer.’
‘How noble. Not a trait I would tend to associate with you.’
‘Can’t you at least try and be civil towards me?’ Chase asked thinly. ‘At any rate, most of my work is pro bono. It’s sensible not to show up in designer suits that cost thousands.’ It was what she had laughingly told someone at the firm ages ago and her boss had applauded her good sense.
They were now in front of an old-fashioned pub nestled in one of the quieter back alleys. There were gems like this all over London. When they entered, it was dark, cool and quiet. He offered her a drink and shrugged when she told him that she would stick to fruit juice.
‘So...’ Alessandro sat down, hand curved round his pint, and looked at her. He honestly didn’t know what he hoped to gain from this forced meeting but seeing her again had reawakened the nasty questions she had left unanswered. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. Or maybe we should pick it up at the end—at the point when you told me that you were married. Yes, maybe that’s the place we should start. After we’d been meeting for four months... Four months of flirting and you gazing at me all convincingly doe-eyed and breathless, then informing me that you had a husband waiting in the wings.’
Chase nursed her fruit juice. She licked her lips nervously. Her green eyes tangled and clashed with cold eyes the colour of jet. ‘I don’t see what the point of this is, Alessandro.’
‘You know what the point of it is—you’re going to satisfy my curiosity in return for the full agreed price for your shelter. It’s a fair exchange. Tell me what happened to the husband.’
‘Shaun...was killed shortly after I got my first job. He...he was on his motorbike at the time. He was speeding, lost control, crashed into the central reservation on the motorway...’
‘So you didn’t ditch him in the impersonal confines of a divorce court.’ Nor would she have. Alessandro downed a mouthful of beer and watched her over the rim of the glass. Not, as she had told him on that last day in exhaustive detail, when he’d been her childhood sweetheart and the love of her life. ‘And I take it you never remarried.’
‘Nor will I ever.’ She could detect the bitterness that had crept into her voice, but when she looked at him his expression was still as cool and unrelenting as it had been.
‘Is that because there’s no room for a man in the life of an ambitious, high-flying lawyer? Or because you’re still wrapped up with the man who was...let me try and remember... Oh, yes, I’ve got it: the only guy you would ever contemplate sleeping with. Sorry if you got the wrong idea, Alessandro. A few cappuccinos does not a relationship make, but it’s been a laugh...’
‘We should never have seen each other. It was a terrible idea. I never meant to get involved with anyone.’
‘But you didn’t get involved with me, did you?’ Alessandro angled his beautiful head to one side as he picked up an unspoken message he wasn’t quite getting.
What was there to get or not get? he thought impatiently. The woman had strung him along, led him up the garden path and then had casually disappeared without a backward glance. Hell, she had made him feel things... No, he wasn’t going to go there.
‘No! No, I didn’t. I meant...’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘You don’t understand. I shouldn’t even have even to you. I was married.’
‘So why did you? Were you riding high on the knowledge that you’d managed to net the rich guy all the groupie students were after?’
‘That’s a very conceited thing to say.’
‘I