The Uncompromising Italian

‘Correct.’

‘At which point you’ll...?’

‘Deal with the matter myself.’

He was still smiling, with that suggestion of amusement on his lips, but she could see the steel behind the lazy, watchful dark eyes. ‘I should tell you from the offset that I cannot accept this commission if there’s any suggestion that you might turn...err...violent when it comes to sorting out whoever is behind this.’

Alessio laughed and relaxed back in his chair, stretching out his long legs to cross them at the ankle and loosely linking his fingers on his stomach. ‘You have my word that I won’t turn, as you say, violent.’

‘I hope you’re not making fun of me, Mr Baldini,’ Lesley said stiffly. ‘I’m being perfectly serious.’

‘Alessio. The name’s Alessio. And you aren’t still under the impression that I’m a member of the Mafia, are you? With a stash of guns under the bed and henchmen to do my bidding?’

Lesley flushed. Where had her easy, sassy manner gone? She was seldom lost for words but she was now, especially when those dark, dark eyes were lingering on her flushed cheeks, making her feel even more uncomfortable than she already felt. A burst of shameful heat exploded somewhere deep inside her, her body’s acknowledgment of his sexual magnetism, chemistry that was wrapping itself around her like a web, confusing her thoughts and making her pulses race.

‘Do I strike you as a violent man, Lesley?’

‘I never said that. I’m just being...cautious.’

‘Have you had awkward situations before?’ The soft pink of her cheeks when she blushed was curiously appealing, maybe because she was at such pains to project herself as a tough woman with no time for frivolity.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You intimated that you checked me out to make sure that I wasn’t dodgy...and I think I’m quoting you here. So are you cautious in situations like these... when the computer doesn’t go to you but you’re forced to go to the computer...because of bad experiences?’

‘I’m a careful person.’ Why did that make her sound like such a bore, when she wasn’t? Once again weirdly conscious of the image she must present to a guy like him, Lesley inhaled deeply and ploughed on. ‘And yes,’ she asserted matter-of-factly, ‘I have had a number of poor experiences in the past. A few months ago, I was asked to do a favour for a friend’s friend only to find that what he wanted was for me to hack into his ex-wife’s bank account and see where her money was being spent. When I refused, he turned ugly.’

‘Turned ugly?’

‘He’d had a bit too much to drink. He thought that if he pushed me around a bit I’d do what he wanted.’ And just in case her awkward responses had been letting her down, maybe giving him the mistaken impression that she was anything but one hundred per cent professional, she concluded crisply, ‘Of course, it’s annoying, but nothing I can’t handle.’

‘You can handle men who turn ugly.’ Fascinating. He was in the company of someone from another planet. She might have the creamiest complexion he had ever seen, and a heart-shaped face that insisted on looking ridiculously feminine despite the aggressive get-up, but she was certainly nothing like any woman he had ever met. ‘Tell me how you do that,’ he said with genuine curiosity.

Absently, he noticed that she had depleted the plate of pastries by half its contents. A hearty appetite; his eyes flicked to her body which, despite being well hidden beneath her anti-fashion-statement clothing, was long and slender.

On some subliminal level, Lesley was aware of the shift in his attention, away from her face and onto her body. Her instinct was to squirm. Instead, she clasped her hands tightly together on her lap and tried to force her uncooperative body into a position of relaxed ease.

‘I have a black belt in karate.’

Alessio was stunned into silence. ‘You do?’

‘I do.’ She shrugged and held his confounded gaze. ‘And it’s not that shocking,’ she continued into the lengthening silence. ‘There were loads of girls in my class when I did it. ’Course, a few of them fell by the wayside when we began moving up the levels.’

‘And you did these classes...when, exactly?’

In passing, Lesley wondered what this had to do with her qualifications for doing the job she had come to do. On the other hand, it never hurt to let someone know that you weren’t the sort of woman to be messed with.

‘I started when I was ten and the classes continued into my teens with a couple of breaks in between.’

‘So, when other girls were experimenting with make-up, you were learning the valuable art of self-defence.’

Lesley felt the sharp jab of discomfort as he yet again unwittingly hit the soft spot inside her, the place where her insecurities lay, neatly parcelled up but always ready to be unwrapped at a moment’s notice.

‘I think every woman should know how to physically defend herself.’

‘That’s an extremely laudable ambition,’ Alessio murmured. He noticed that his long, cold drink was finished. ‘Let’s go inside. I’ll show you to my office and we can continue our conversation there. It’s getting a little oppressive out here.’ He stood up, squinted towards his gardens and half-smiled when he saw her automatically reach for the plate of pastries and whatever else she could manage to take in with her.

‘No need.’ He briefly rested one finger on her outstretched hand and Lesley shot back as though she had been scalded. ‘Violet will tidy all this away.’

Lesley bit back an automatic retort that it was illuminating to see how the other half lived. She was no inverted snob, even though she might have no time for outward trappings and the importance other people sometimes placed on them, but he made her feel defensive. Worse, he made her feel gauche and awkward, sixteen all over again, cringing at the prospect of having to wear a frock to go to the school leaving dance, knowing that she just couldn’t pull it off.

‘I’m thinking that your mother must be a strong woman to instil such priorities in her daughter,’ he said neutrally.

‘My mother died when I was three—a hit-and-run accident when she was cycling back from doing the shopping.’

Alessio stopped in his tracks and stared down at her until she was forced uncomfortably to return his stare.

‘Please don’t say something trite like I’m sorry to hear that.’ She tilted her chin and looked at him unblinkingly. ‘It happened a long time ago.’

‘No. I wasn’t going to say that,’ Alessio said in a low, musing voice that made her skin tingle.

‘My father was the strong influence in my life,’ she pressed on in a high voice. ‘My father and my five brothers. They all gave me the confidence to know that I could do whatever I chose to do, that my gender did not have to stand in the way of my ambition. I got my degree in maths—the world was my oyster.’

Heart beating as fast as if she had run a marathon, she stared up at him, their eyes tangling until her defensiveness subsided and gave way to something else, something she could barely comprehend, something that made her say quickly, with a tight smile, ‘But I don’t see how any of this is relevant. If you lead the way to your computer, it shouldn’t take long for me to figure out who your problem pest is.’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9e64b69f-a1ef-5ff1-bd49-9d0ba8300ba1)

THE OFFICE TO WHICH she was led allowed her a good opportunity to really take in the splendour of her surroundings.

Really big country estates devoured money and consequently were rarely in the finest of conditions. Imposing exteriors were often let down by run-down, sad interiors in want of attention.

This house was as magnificent inside as it was out. The pristine gardens, the splendid ivy-clad walls, were replicated inside by a glorious attention to detail. From the cool elegance of the hall, she bypassed a series of rooms, each magnificently decorated. Of course, she could only peek through slightly open doors, because she had to half-run to keep up with him, but she saw enough to convince her that serious money had been thrown at the place—which was incredible, considering it was not used on a regular basis.

Eventually they ended up in an office with book-lined walls and a massive antique desk housing a computer, a lap-top and a small stack of legal tomes. She looked around at the rich burgundy drapes pooling to the ground, the pin-striped sober wallpaper, the deep sofa and chairs.

It was a decor she would not have associated with him and, as though reading her mind, he said wryly, ‘It makes a change from what I’m used to in London. I’m more of a modern man myself but I find there’s something soothing about working in a turn-of-the-century gentleman’s den.’ He moved smoothly round to the chair at the desk and powered up his computer. ‘When I bought this house several years ago, it was practically derelict. I paid over the odds for it because of its history and because I wanted to make sure the owner and her daughter could be rehoused in the manner to which they had clearly once been accustomed. Before, that is, the money ran out. They were immensely grateful and only suggested one thing—that I try and keep a couple of the rooms as close as possible to the original format. This was one.’

‘It’s beautiful.’ Lesley hovered by the door and looked around her. Through the French doors, the lawns outside stretched away to an impossibly distant horizon. The sun turned everything into dazzling technicolour. The greens of the grass and the trees seemed greener than possible and the sky was blindingly turquoise. Inside the office, though, the dark colours threw everything into muted relief. He was right; the space was soothing.

She looked at him frowning in front of the computer, sitting forward slightly, his long, powerful body still managing to emanate force even though he wasn’t moving.

‘There’s no need to remain by the door,’ he said without looking at her. ‘You’ll actually need to venture into the room and sit next to me if you’re to work on this problem. Ah. Right. Here we go.’ He stood up, vacating the chair for her.

The leather was warm from where he had been sitting, and the heat seemed to infiltrate her entire body as she took his place in front of the computer screen. When he leaned over to tap on the keyboard, she felt her breathing become rapid and shallow and she had to stop herself from gasping out loud.

His forearm was inches away from her breasts and never had the proximity of one person’s body proved so rattling. She willed herself to focus on what he was calling up on the screen in front of her and to remember that she was here in a professional capacity.

Why was he getting to her? Perhaps she had been too long without a guy in her life. Friends and family were all very good, but maybe her life of pleasant celibacy had made her unexpectedly vulnerable to a spot of swarthy good looks and a wicked smile.