A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

Placid by nature, Laura was discovering that it was remarkably easy to go from cool to boiling in seconds. She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘If the kitchen needed tidying, why didn’t you tidy it yourself?’

‘I’ll pretend I just didn’t hear that!’

‘I’d like to see Roberto...’

‘And why would that be?’ Alessandro drawled silkily. He folded his arms and stared at her. ‘You might be able to get past him with some fairy-tale sob story about not being able to do the job you’re paid to do because the dog’s cousin got a cold or the rain was falling in the wrong direction so you just couldn’t make it on time, but I’m made of tougher stuff. You should have been here at eight, as far as I’m concerned, and your pay will be docked accordingly!’ Not, in all events, that that was going to be much of a concern considering his father would be out of the house, if not this weekend, then certainly by the end of the month.

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact and frankly you should consider yourself lucky that I don’t sack you on the spot.’

‘This is too much! Where is Roberto?’

‘Roberto?’ He couldn’t remember Freya addressing his father by his first name. Eyes narrowed now on her flushed face, Alessandro slowly pushed himself away from the counter and strolled towards her.

Like a predator with prey in its sight, he circled her before coming to a stop right in front of her, arms still folded, and this time his expression was thoughtful.

‘Interesting,’ he mused softly.

‘What? What’s interesting?’ Laura inched back a little because his presence was so suffocating. She worked out that it wasn’t just to do with the fact that the man was sinfully, unfairly sexy. There was also something about him, something intangible that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.

‘Interesting that the hired help is now on a first-name basis with my father, who is a very rich man indeed.’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘Young girl...reasonably attractive...elderly man...loaded... I’m doing the maths and not liking the solution to the conundrum.’

Blood leached out of her face and there was a roaring in her ears. ‘Are you accusing me of...of...of...?’

‘I know. Incomprehensible, isn’t it? My father is pushing eighty, has more money than he knows what to do with, and a whippersnapper who couldn’t be more than...what?...twenty-two addresses him by his first name and seems pretty desperate to see him because, presumably, you know he’ll rescue you from an uncomfortable situation. Smacks of unhealthy cosiness but, then, maybe I’m just being unfairly cynical.’

‘Twenty-six, actually. I’m twenty-six.’ A gold-digger? Was that what she was being accused of? A reasonably attractive gold-digger? Could there be any more insults stashed up his sleeve?

‘Twenty-two...twenty-six. Doesn’t really make much of a difference. You’re still young enough to be his granddaughter. Thank God I’ve come along and seen for myself what goes on here.’

‘And I’m not the hired help.’

‘No?’ Alessandro’s eyebrows shot up. Hired help or no hired help, the woman was still an opportunist, although he had to admit that the old man had reasonably good taste. Up close, her eyes were even more amazing, her skin satiny smooth with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her mouth...

His eyes dipped lazily to her mouth, which was full and perfectly shaped.

She might not be a model but she certainly wasn’t a woman you would throw out of your bed on a rainy night.

She was fresh-faced and that in itself was oddly appealing. No wonder she had managed to inveigle herself into his father’s good graces. God knew how much she had managed to con out of him thus far.

‘No!’ Her skin burned under his scrutiny but she maintained eye contact, even though every nerve in her body was reacting with tight hostility to his accusations.

‘So who are you?’

‘I’m Laura. I’m a friend. As you would discover if you went and got him!’

‘Oh, I’ll get him,’ Alessandro said in a voice that made her teeth snap together in impotent fury. ‘Just as soon as you and I have had a nice little chat. So why don’t you have a seat at the table, Laura, and we’ll...how do I put this?...get to know one another... No, wrong choice of words. I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to understand where I’m coming from.’

He smiled and she stared back angrily at him because chilling though the smile was it was still horribly, horribly sexy.

‘Fine,’ she snapped, because if he wanted to have a word with her, he’d find that she had a few words of her own to share. She stalked off towards the kitchen table and in one easy movement yanked off the annoying waterproof and turned to face him with a toss of her head. ‘And then I want to see your father.’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_2c9991b8-0102-5ee2-add8-1f1062e57f1d)

‘YOU KNOW WHO I AM.’ This was getting better and better. He had no idea who she was and yet she knew who he was. If she was a friend, then she was a special one, because he knew his father and one thing was for sure—Roberto Falcone was tight-lipped when it came to conversation. He was a man, and had always been a man, who spoke only when the situation demanded speech.

Alessandro could remember many a meal consumed in silence once the formalities of polite conversation had been exhausted.

‘Of course I know who you are. Why wouldn’t I? You’re Alessandro, the son who never comes up to Scotland if he can help it.’

Alessandro flushed darkly. ‘My father said that?’

‘He didn’t have to. You import your father down to London when you want to see him because it’s easier. When was the last time you were here anyway?’

‘How do you know my father?’ Alessandro asked abruptly, cutting short any attempts to try to derail the conversation. So she wasn’t the hired help and he should have recognised that from the get-go. Hired help didn’t look like her and they certainly didn’t have that stubborn tilt to their heads. His eyes roved over a body that, now that it was divested of the bulky parka, was rounded in all the right places. Small, voluptuous and...especially when you combined it with her fresh-faced, make-up-free look...downright sexy.

He sat down at the opposite end of the table. The kitchen was one of the few really informal places in the splendid mansion and Alessandro had never ceased to be amazed that his father had given the go-ahead for it to be furnished with weathered pine, a softly upholstered sofa to the side, an oven that was well-worn and distressed cupboards. Not at all a reflection of the stern, tight-lipped man he was.

‘I’m not here for an inquisition. I don’t have to answer your questions. Where is he? I came to ask whether there was anything he needed from the shops. I didn’t expect to find you here.’

Alessandro found pretty much everything she said highly offensive, from the tone of her voice to her refusal to answer his questions to the implication that he was somehow vaguely responsible for his father’s non-appearance. Did she think that he had stashed Roberto away in a cupboard somewhere? To be retrieved a little later when it suited him?

‘And furthermore,’ Laura added for good measure, ‘I resent your insinuation that because I’m young I’m only friends with your father because he’s rich. You have no right to accuse me of something like that. You don’t even know who I am!’ She leaned forward, her cheeks flushed, more angry than she had ever been in her life. Angrier, it felt, than when she had discovered that the so-called love of her life was a married man with a toddler. Every single thing about the arrogant man staring at her with forbidding iciness got under her skin and made her see red.

‘Frankly, I don’t really care whether you resent my insinuations or not,’ Alessandro said coolly. ‘I intend to protect my father’s interests and if that means seeing off a friend, then so be it. Answer my questions and we can move forward. Sit there foaming at the mouth...and back on your bike you go.’

‘I am not foaming at the mouth!’

‘How long have you known my father?’

Frustrated, Laura yanked her hair out of its constricting ponytail and ran her fingers through its thick length, and for a few seconds the air was sucked out of his lungs. It was a rich mane of colour and very long, longer than fashionably chic, cascading over her shoulders. He tore his eyes away and frowned, unsettled.

‘Off and on for years.’ Laura reluctantly gave him the information he wanted because she had a feeling that he wouldn’t stop until she had told him what he wanted to know. Frankly, he probably wouldn’t let her out of the kitchen until she told him what he wanted to know. He would probably strap her to the chair, shine a torch on her face and keep asking his wretched questions until she answered him.

And maybe he had a point. Roberto was very, very wealthy and could potentially be a target for gold-diggers. And she was, after all, seriously young to be his friend, even if she was only passably attractive. It was one thing to have no illusions about the way you looked. It was another thing to have someone point out your physical shortcomings without even bothering to be nice about it.

She knew that she wasn’t blessed with knock-’em-dead looks. She had lived in London long enough to realise that the tall and skinny ruled the roost when it came to what was deemed sexy and attractive.

But had there been any need for him to point it out? The throwaway insult hovered at the back of her mind like a thorn. Odious man.

‘Years...’ Alessandro said, frowning. She wasn’t lying. Her face couldn’t have been more transparent, and yet how was it that he hadn’t even known of her existence?

‘Before I went to London,’ Laura confirmed. ‘He belonged to the same gardening group as me and...as me. He loves horticulture, you know. And playing chess. Ever since I returned from London I’ve been playing chess with him once a week. He’s a brilliant chess player.’