A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘He’s old...’

‘My point exactly! The stroke...the fractured pelvis... He can’t deal with this bloody great big mansion. He needs somewhere more compact. He needs to be able to make it to his bedroom from the kitchen in under three hours.’

‘Please don’t exaggerate. Like you said, Roberto could afford as much help as he wants to. At the moment he just has Freya and Fergus, but I’m sure he would employ someone else to help him if he thought he needed it.’

‘This isn’t a subject that’s open to debate. I’m not thrusting him into a rabbit hutch in the centre of the city. He’ll adjust. London is full of exciting things.’

‘Old people don’t want excitement,’ Laura said flatly. ‘They want routine. They want stability. They want to be surrounded by the people and faces they’re familiar with.’

Alessandro stared at her with incredulity. Were they talking about the same man?

‘And how often are you going to visit him?’ she pursued, ignoring his closed expression. ‘Are you going to make sure he settles in? Will you be taking him under your wing? Or will you be visiting him four times a year but happily with a much shorter journey?’

Alessandro scowled. ‘Your concern is touching but I assure you...he’ll be just fine. And, incidentally, who are these familiar faces he needs to surround himself with?’

‘He has lots of friends in the village.’

‘Aside from you?’

‘Yes, aside from me! What do you think he does during the days? I mean, I know his health hasn’t been great recently, but before that? And now that he’s on the mend?’

Alessandro looked at her blankly.

‘You don’t know, do you? You haven’t got a clue. You want to drag him away from his home and you can’t even be bothered to find out what he’ll be missing! What his life here is all about!’

‘You’re shouting.’

‘I never shout!’ Her voice reverberated in the silence and she glared at him. ‘I usually never shout,’ she amended, ‘but I’m just so...angry. And stop staring at me. I suppose you’ve never been shouted at by anyone in your life before?’

‘Correct.’

Drawn out of her state of shock, Laura peered suspiciously at him. ‘No one ever gets mad at you?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Ever?’

‘You’re looking at me as though you find that hard to believe,’ Alessandro returned coolly. Taking away the physical side of things, on every level this woman offended him on all fronts. He had no thoughts one way or another on other people and the choices they made in terms of relationships. As far as he was concerned, the rest of humanity could hurl themselves into pointless marriages like lemmings jumping off a cliff, only to find themselves picking up the pieces and counting the pennies when those marriages crashed and burned. Which most of them did.

As for himself, he had no intention, and never had, of getting wrapped up with any woman. He had led a life that was ruled by his head and he liked that. Maybe the cold withdrawal of his only parent had pointed him down that path. It wasn’t something he had wasted his time analysing. He just knew that, for him, women were there to be savoured and enjoyed until the time came for him to push on. They were his stress-free zone, a welcome break from the enjoyable frenzy of being at the top of the game in the world of business.

A woman who shouted did not constitute a stress-free zone.

‘I do,’ Laura said truthfully.

‘Women, especially, fall into that category.’

‘I find that even harder to believe.’

‘I don’t encourage temper tantrums,’ he said smoothly. ‘There’s something about a screaming woman I don’t find a turn-on.’

Just as well my aim isn’t to turn you on, Laura thought. The pulse in her throat kicked up a steady beat. She took in his lazy sprawl, the brooding night-dark gaze of his eyes, the harsh, perfect contours of his face, and something inside her flared into unwelcome, unexpected life.

Suddenly confused, she banked it down.

‘I just think that before you start trying to pull the rug from underneath someone’s feet, you should make an effort to understand where they’re coming from and what they would lose. Doesn’t your father have any say in this? Or are you going to stampede through his objections and do what you think is best?’

‘This conversation is going round in circles.’ Alessandro raked his fingers impatiently through his hair, spared her a searing glance and then stood up to help himself to a bottle of water from the fridge, which he drank in one long swallow. Then he leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at her. ‘I’ll do what I consider best for my father and you can pull all the hysterical, emotive language out of the bag, but nothing is going to change that. Like I told you, I’ve talked to my father about this. If he chose not to keep you in the loop, then what can I say?’ He shrugged and stared at her flushed face.

‘There’s something you should know,’ Laura said grudgingly, and Alessandro stilled.

‘I’m all ears.’

‘It’s not just that your father has a social life in the village, and if...’ she looked at him with a flare of uncharacteristic rebellion in her wide, green eyes ‘...he chose to keep you out of the loop, then what can I say? He’s also...well...you probably have cut-and-dried opinions on love, but he’s involved with someone locally...’

For a few seconds, and for maybe the first time in his life, Alessandro was rendered speechless. Her words filtered into his consciousness, tried to take shape but then dissolved before they could link up and make any sense.

‘Did you just hear what I said?’

‘I heard you. I’m just not following... You’re telling me that my father has a girlfriend?’

‘My gran.’

Perplexed, Alessandro shook his head in an attempt to get the connections in his brain to start working.

Laura saw his bewilderment and suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt a sharp pang of sympathy and compassion for him. Didn’t this say everything there was to say about the kind of relationship he had with Roberto? One in which nothing personal was ever discussed? In which no emotion was ever allowed to surface? How on earth had that happened?

‘My father is going out with your...your grandmother? How does that even make sense?’

‘It’s easy,’ Laura said drily. ‘They met ages ago and have been friends for a long time, but in the past few months, a bit longer, actually, they’ve begun seeing one another. Going on dates, that kind of thing...’

‘My father goes on dates?’

‘It happens. Two people have a solid friendship...one thing leads to another... He’s still an attractive guy. I’d bet there are a few ladies in the gardening club who have had their eye on him.’

Alessandro walked back to the table, sat down, stared off for a few frowning moments into space, then focused on the woman looking at him, head inclined, her soft lips parted.

‘Details.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘How long exactly has this dating game been going on? And your grandmother...where does she live? Widowed? Divorced? How old is she?’

Laura tensed, predicting the direction of his assumptions. ‘You’ve accused me of being a gold-digger,’ she said coldly. ‘You couldn’t have been further from the truth. And don’t you even dare think of implying that my grandmother is after your dad’s money, either! They’re just two people who get along and enjoy one another’s company. If you want the bare details, here they are.

‘My grandmother lives in a little house on the outskirts of the village about twenty minutes away. She’s lived here all her life and, yes, she’s widowed. My grandfather passed on more years ago than I care to think. She never really thought about ever finding anyone else, least of all someone she’s known since for ever, but, then, it’s really only in the past ten years or so that your father has really begun integrating himself into the community. He was quite reclusive before that. I guess work kept him away a lot...and of course my gran would have been busy working in the neighbouring town. She ran the garden centre there. Only gave up five years ago because the travel was getting a bit of a nuisance, especially in the winter. ’Course, she drove there, but you have no idea how freez—’

‘I’m getting the picture. Age?’

‘Huh? Oh. Right. Seventy-six. So that’s just one of the reasons why it would be heartbreaking for you to charge up here and try to force him to leave.’

‘Charge? Force? Heartbreaking?’