The Uncompromising Italian

He looked at Lesley with lazy, brooding eyes as she stepped into the room.

There was something about the woman. She didn’t pull her punches and, whilst a part of him was grimly disapproving of her forthright manner, another part of him was intrigued.

When was the last time he had been in the company of a woman who didn’t say what she wanted him to hear?

When had he ever been in the company of any woman who didn’t say what she wanted him to hear?

He was the product of a life of privilege. He had grown up accustomed to servants and chauffeurs and then, barely into adulthood, had found himself an expectant father. In a heartbeat, his world had changed. He’d no longer had the freedom to make youthful mistakes and to learn from them over time. Responsibility had landed on his doorstep without an invitation and then, on top of that, had come the grim realisation that he had been used for his money.

Not even out of his teens, he had discovered the bitter truth that his fortune would always be targeted. He would never be able to relax in the company of any woman without suspecting that she had her eye to the main chance. He would always have to be on his guard, always watchful, always making sure that no one got too close.

He was a generous lover, and had no problem splashing out on whatever woman happened to be sharing his bed, but he knew where to draw the line and was ruthless when it came to making sure that no woman got too close, certainly not close enough ever to harbour notions of longevity.

It was unusual to find himself in a situation such as this. It was unusual to be in close personal confines with a woman where sex wasn’t on the menu.

It was even more unusual to find himself in this situation with a woman who made no effort to try and please him in any way.

‘I was expecting a bedroom.’ Lesley turned to look at him. ‘Posters on the walls, cuddly toys, that sort of thing.’

‘Rachel occupies one wing of the house. There are actually three bedrooms, along with a sitting room, a study, two bathrooms and an exercise room.’ He strolled towards her and looked around him, hands shoved in the pockets of his cream trousers. ‘This is the first time I’ve stepped foot into this section of the house since my daughter returned from boarding school for the holidays. When I saw the state it was in, I immediately got in touch with Violet, who informed me that she, along with her assistants, were barred from entry.’

Disapproval was stamped all over his face and Lesley could understand why. The place looked as though a bomb had been detonated in it. The tiled, marble floor of the small hallway was barely visible under discarded clothes and books and, through the open doors, she could see the other rooms appeared to be in a similar state of chaos.

Magazines were strewn everywhere. Shoes, kicked off, had landed randomly and then had been left there. School books lay open on various surfaces.

Going through all of this would be a full-time job.

‘Teenagers can be very private creatures,’ Lesley said dubiously. ‘They hate having their space invaded.’ She picked her way into bedroom number one and then continued to explore the various rooms, all the time conscious of Alessio lounging indolently against the wall and watching her progress.

She had the uneasy feeling of having been manipulated. How had she managed to end up here? Now she felt involved. She was no longer doing a quick job to help her father’s pal out. She was ensconced in the middle of a family saga and wasn’t quite sure where to begin.

‘I will get Violet to make sure that these rooms are tidied first thing in the morning,’ Alessio said as she finally walked towards him. ‘At least then you will have something of a clean slate to start on.’

‘Probably not such a good idea.’ Lesley looked up at him. He was one of the few men with whom she could do that and, as she had quickly discovered, her breathing quickened as their eyes met. ‘Adolescents are fond of writing stuff down on bits of paper. If there is anything to be found, that’s probably where I’ll find it, and that’s just the sort of thing a cleaner would stick in the bin.’ She hesitated. ‘Don’t you communicate with your daughter at all? I mean, how could she get away with keeping her room—her rooms—as messy as this?’

Alessio took one final glance around him and then headed for the door. ‘Rachel has spent most of the summer here while I have been in London, only popping back now and again. She’s clearly intimidated the cleaners into not going anywhere near her rooms and they’ve obeyed.’

‘You’ve just popped back here now and again to see how she’s doing?’

Alessio stopped in his tracks and looked at her coolly. ‘You’re here to try and sort out a situation involving computers and emails. You’re not here to pass judgement on my parenting skills.’

Lesley sighed with obvious exasperation. She had been hustled here with unholy speed. He had even come with her to her office, on the pretext of having a look at what her company did, and had so impressed her boss that Jake had had no trouble in giving her the week off.

And now, having found herself in a situation that somehow didn’t seem to be of her own choosing, she wasn’t about to be lectured to in that patronising tone of voice.

‘I’m not passing opinions on your parenting skills,’ she said with restraint. ‘I’m trying to make sense of a picture. If I can see the whole picture, then I might have an idea of how and where to proceed.’ She had not yet had time since arriving to get down to the business of working her way through the emails and trying to trace the culprit responsible for them.

That was a job for the following day. Right now, she would barely have time to have dinner, run a bath and then hit the sack. It had been a long day.

‘I mean,’ she said into an unresponsive silence, ‘If and when I do find out who is responsible for those emails, we still won’t know why he’s sending them. He could clam up, refuse to say anything, and then you may still be left with a problem on your hands in connection with your daughter.’

They had reached the kitchen, which was a vast space dominated by a massive oak table big enough to seat ten. Everything in the house was larger than life, including all the furnishings.

‘They may have nothing to do with Rachel. That’s just another possibility.’ He took a bottle of wine from the fridge and two wine glasses from one of the cupboards. There was a rich smell of food and Lesley looked around for Violet, who seemed to be an invisible but constant presence in the house.

‘Where’s Violet?’ she asked, hovering.

‘Gone for the evening. I try and not keep the hired help chained to the walls at night.’ He proffered the glass of wine. ‘And you can come inside, Lesley. You’re not entering a lion’s den.’

It felt like it, however. In ways she couldn’t put her finger on, Alessio Baldini felt exciting and dangerous at the same time. Especially so at night, here, in his house with no one around.

‘She’s kindly prepared a casserole for us. Beef. It’s in the oven. We can have it with bread, if that suits you.’

‘Of course,’ Lesley said faintly. ‘Is that how it works when you’re here? Meals are prepared for you so that all you have to do is switch the oven on?’

‘One of the housekeepers tends to stick around when Rachel’s here.’ Alessio flushed and turned away.

In that fleeting window, she glimpsed the situation with far more clarity than if she had had it spelled out for her.

He was so awkward with his own daughter that he preferred to have a third party to dilute the atmosphere. Rachel probably felt the same way. Two people, father and daughter, were circling one another like strangers in a ring.

He had been pushed to the background during her formative years, had found his efforts at bonding repelled and dismantled by a vengeful wife, and now found himself with a teenager he didn’t know. Nor was he, by nature, a people person—the sort of man who could joke his way back into a relationship.

Into that vacuum, any number of gremlins could have entered.

‘So you’re never on your own with your daughter? Okay. In that case you really wouldn’t have a clue what was happening in her life, especially as she spends most of the year away from home. But you were saying that this may not have anything directly to do with Rachel. What did you mean by that?’

She watched him bring the food to the table and refill their glasses with more wine.

Alessio gave her a long, considered look from under his lashes.

‘What I am about to tell you stays within the walls of this house, is that clear?’

Lesley paused with her glass halfway to her mouth and looked at him over the rim with astonishment.

‘And you laugh at me for thinking that you might have links to the Mafia?’

Alessio stared at her and then shook his head and slowly grinned. ‘Okay, maybe that sounded a little melodramatic.’