A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘Teacher.’

‘The hours are convenient and, of course, there are the holidays and half-terms, and because it’s a small village school I know all the mums on a one-to-one basis.’ It was a terrific job, nothing to be ashamed of, and yet Laura couldn’t stop the feeling of being just a little drab, just a tiny bit of a country bumpkin.

‘Cosy.’

‘I expect you must find it all very boring, but not everyone is consumed with wanting to live in a city and make pots of money.’

‘I can’t recall saying anything about finding what you do boring, although I question how much personal satisfaction you must get in a place as small as this, especially after living in London.’

‘I got sick of the rat race,’ she told him shortly, and his eyebrows shot up.

‘Bit young to be jaded about that, wouldn’t you say? Normally that’s something that tends to afflict the over-forties. What about all the excitement?’

‘I’d had it with excitement.’

‘Ah,’ Alessandro murmured, and she shot him a sharp, narrowed look, which he returned with bland innocence.

‘Is that all? Have you finished questioning me? Maybe you could point me in the direction of your father, if, of course, I’ve passed the test.’

‘He’s in his greenhouse.’ Alessandro jerked his head in the general direction of the back gardens but his eyes remained pinned to her face.

So she’d returned to her grandmother to lick her wounds. Maybe her grandmother really had had some kind of turn but he was sharp enough to get the lie of the land...she’d had some sort of unpleasant experience in London involving a guy, probably someone she worked with, judging from the shifty way she had talked about her place of work. She might wax lyrical about the peace and tranquillity and lakes and rivers, but the truth was that she’d had her heart broken and had returned to her comfort zone to patch herself up.

He found himself wondering what sort of guy she had got involved with and promptly nipped his curiosity in the bud because after this weekend he doubted he would ever lay eyes on the woman again.

Which was something of a shame. In fact, something of a shame he hadn’t laid eyes on her before, on one of his rare forays into the Scottish wilds. She would certainly have made his duty visits a lot more alluring. Biting winds, depressingly bleak and empty countryside and his father’s challenged conversational skills would definitely have been easier to endure...

‘Right.’ Laura stood up and thought that she should be feeling more relieved to be out of the presence of this odious man than she actually was.

‘I wouldn’t bother having the food conversation, though.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You mentioned that you had cycled over to do your Good Samaritan duty...an offer to go food shopping for him, as if my father doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay someone to do that on his behalf. Actually—and I’m sure you know this—he could pay a chef to buy the food and cook it if he wanted. It would certainly spare him the stuff Freya churns out...’

Laura did her best not to agree with him. She had a good enough relationship with Freya, who occasionally cracked a half-smile in her presence, but no one could say that the woman produced haute cuisine.

‘Your father likes plain, simple food.’

‘Just as well. With sour-faced Freya at the helm, it’s all he’s ever likely to get.’

‘Why shouldn’t I ask him if he needs anything?’

‘Because there’s no point filling the cupboards only to empty them again in the space of a few days. Waste of time.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’ Laura stared at that drop-dead-gorgeous, arrogant face and subsided back into her chair like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.

‘There’s a reason I’ve come up here,’ Alessandro explained calmly. ‘I’ve spoken to my father about this on a number of occasions, and I’ve emailed him...’ He sighed heavily and flung his head back, half closing his eyes as he thought about the frustration of dealing with someone who didn’t want to face the inevitable. It shouldn’t be like this. He knew that. Of course, history couldn’t be altered any more than the present could be changed...but it shouldn’t be like this, a constant uphill struggle.

‘I’m confused,’ Laura said urgently. ‘Spoken to him about what? Emailed him about what?’

Alessandro opened his eyes and looked at her in silence for a few seconds. ‘He hasn’t confided in you, then. Odd, considering you’re supposed to be best buddies.’

‘Please stop being sarcastic and tell me what’s going on.’

‘I’ve come up here to take my father back down to London with me.’

‘Take him?’ Laura looked at him in complete bewilderment. ‘Take him down for a few days?’

‘Not quite,’ he said gently. ‘Brace yourself. Roberto’s stint here in Scotland is at an end. I’m taking him down to London with me and he won’t be returning. The house will be packed up, necessities shipped down to London, the rest removed for auction. I’ve bought him an apartment in Chelsea. It’s the right size and if he’s in London I can keep an eye on him.’

Laura was finding it hard to keep track of what he was saying because none of it made any sense.

‘You’re kidding. Aren’t you?’

‘I never kid about things like that. Hasn’t he mentioned any of this to you? On any of your Little Red Riding Hood visits?’

For a second, Laura wanted to throw something at him. How could he just sit here, discussing the future of an old man, talking about it in a voice that was dry and cool and caustic?

‘You,’ she hissed in a driven undertone, ‘are the most...the most...’

‘Spit it out. I assure you I won’t take it personally.’

‘The most obnoxious person I have ever met in my entire life! It’s no wonder that...’

‘That what?’

They stared at each other in silence. Laura could hear the pounding of her heart, could feel the blood rushing hotly through her veins. ‘That nothing...’ she muttered, casting her eyes downwards. She had raced towards a cliff and almost flung herself over the side. What did she know of the relationship between father and son? She surmised. Roberto had never come out and said anything derogatory about Alessandro, but the cold distance between them was as obvious as a neon sign in a dark street.

The truth was that it was not really her business. And because the man sitting opposite her rattled her, it did not give her the excuse to say things that shouldn’t be said or to voice thoughts that should remain in her head.

Alessandro chose to let that go.

Did he really want to find out what might have been said about him behind his back? No! This was how it was between his father and himself but he wasn’t going to put himself through unnecessary irritation by having an outside party share their opinion on the situation. No way.

He looked at her coldly, noting her discomfort and choosing not to relieve her of it.

‘He hasn’t breathed a word of this to me or to... Well, I’m shocked. Beyond shocked. I can’t believe you’re going to try to wrench poor Roberto away from everything he...he holds dear and fling him into the mad chaos of London life. You can’t. You just can’t!’

‘No need to panic,’ Alessandro murmured in a soft voice that sent chills racing through her. ‘It’s a spacious three-bedroom apartment. All mod cons, including en suite bathrooms. I’m sure he’ll keep a bedroom free for his special friends.’ He was repulsed by the thought of her having anything to do with his father beyond the purely platonic. Yes, she had denied that connection, but if that were the case, why the horror and dismay?

Why the extreme reaction? She looked as distraught as Chicken Little when the sky was falling down.

His lips thinned and she knew exactly what he was getting at. Where was a heavy object when you needed one? she fumed.

‘And if he hasn’t mentioned anything to you,’ Alessandro inserted smoothly, ‘I put that down to denial. Because I’ve been having this conversation with my father for the past six months.’

Laura looked at him in stunned silence.