the market.’
‘I didn’t, but I got an offer I’d be a fool to refuse,’ he said. ‘I’m consolidating some of my interests. This guy’s bought the building next door as well. Says he’s going to make them both into a luxury hotel.’
Suspicion made every hair on the back of Alice’s neck stand up and fizz at the roots. ‘A...a hotel?’
‘Yes,’ Ray said. ‘You ever heard of Cristiano Marchetti? He has boutique hotels all over Europe.’
Alice’s jaw was so tight she felt the tension in her neck as if someone had a noose around it—which they did. Damn it.
‘So...let me get this straight... Marchetti approached you completely out of the blue?’
‘Yes,’ Ray said. ‘He’s been looking for suitable property in London. The UK is the only place he doesn’t have a hotel. This is stage one of his British expansion.’
Alice was still trying to get her heart out of her mouth and back in her chest where it belonged. Cristiano was her new landlord? What did he plan to do? Hike up her rent so she had no choice but to marry him? She had three months left on her three-year lease. It had always worried her having such a short-term lease, which was one of the reasons she wanted to buy her own property. But Ray had always assured her he wasn’t selling any time soon. His wife and three daughters were clients of hers. She had thought—stupidly thought—she was safe.
But what would happen once Cristiano took possession?
Alice ended the call and started pacing her office so hard she thought she’d go right through the floorboards to the subway below. This was absolutely outrageous. Cristiano was going to such devious lengths to bend her to his will. She wished now she hadn’t torn up his card. Not that she had forgotten his number—no matter how hard she tried to erase it, for some reason, it remained fixed in her brain. But he might well have changed it. After all, she had changed hers.
She sat back at her desk and dialled his number. She listened to it ringing and ringing, her courage just about deserting her when finally it was answered by a husky female voice. ‘Hello?’
Alice’s stomach dropped. ‘Erm... I’m not sure if I have the right number—’
‘Are you looking for Cristiano?’ the young woman said.
‘Erm...yes, but if he’s busy I can—’
‘He’s right here beside me,’ the woman said. ‘Who will I say is calling?’
Right here beside her doing what?
Alice clenched her teeth so hard she could have bitten through a pair of tweezers. It was the middle of the day, for pity’s sake. Why wasn’t he at work instead of in bed with some gorgeous nymphet?
‘It’s Alice Piper.’
She heard the sound of the phone being handed over and couldn’t stop an image forming of him lying amongst the rumpled bed linen of a hotel with a naked woman’s body draped over his. ‘I’ve been expecting you to call,’ Cristiano said. ‘Changed your mind yet?’
Alice gripped her phone so hard she thought her knuckles were going to burst through her skin. ‘No, I have not.’
‘That’s a pity.’ There was a note of casual amusement in his tone. ‘I didn’t want to have to play dirty but needs must.’
Alice’s spine tightened as if someone were turning a wrench on each and every vertebra. ‘I know what you’re trying to do but—’
‘Come to my hotel and we’ll discuss this over a drink.’
Alice wasn’t going anywhere near his hotel. A hotel room was way too intimate. If she and Cristiano were alone together with a bed nearby, who knew what might happen? It wasn’t him she didn’t trust. It was her. Her body remembered him like a language she thought she’d long forgotten. Even now it was responding to the deep gravelly cadence of his voice, making her senses reel as if she had ingested some sort of mind-altering drug. ‘I’d rather meet somewhere less...’
‘Dangerous?’
The silky tone of his voice loosened the bolts on her vertebrae.
Alice pressed her lips together, trying to garner her defences. He wasn’t the same man as seven years ago. He had changed. He was harder. More ruthless. More calculating and brutally tactical. She was going to have to be careful dealing with him. He wasn’t in love with her now. He hated her. He wanted revenge. ‘I’m not scared of you, Cristiano.’
‘Perhaps not, but you’re scared of how I make you feel. It’s always been that way between us, has it not?’
‘I felt lust for you back then. Nothing else.’
‘You still feel it, don’t you, cara mia?’ His voice was a teasing feather stroking over the nerve-sensitive base of her spine.
‘You’re mistaken,’ she said, injecting her voice with icy hauteur. ‘I feel nothing for you but contempt.’
‘That’s a strong word for someone who once shared their body with me.’
‘You know something? I didn’t break your heart,’ Alice said. ‘I bruised your ego. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You hadn’t had a woman say no to you before. You weren’t in love with me. If you were you would have accepted and respected my decision not to get married.’
‘That is an argument for another time,’ he said with a thread of steel entering his tone. ‘I want to see you tonight to discuss the rent on your salon going forward.’
Alice stiffened. It was all right for him with the millions he’d inherited when his parents were killed. She didn’t have any rich relatives to hand her an empire or to give her a financial leg up when things turned ugly. Everything she had worked for had been out of her own blood, sweat and tears—and occasional tantrum. If he turned the financial screws on her now, everything she’d worked for could be compromised. Or—God forbid—even lost. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you speak so fluently with all those silver spoons hanging out of your mouth.’
A pulsing silence passed.
Alice wondered if this was going to turn into one of their massive arguments. With hindsight she could see a large part of their relationship had been a power struggle. They had constantly bickered over things without anything being resolved other than in bed. Neither of them had wanted to compromise or back down from a stance. Making love had diffused the battle temporarily, but it hadn’t solved the underlying issue.
He had wanted control of her and she wouldn’t give it.
Cristiano released a long breath. ‘I would give each and every one of those silver spoons back if I could have my parents and brother back for a day, let alone for the last twenty-three years.’
Alice suddenly felt ashamed of herself. He couldn’t help his background any more than she could help hers. It was a cheap shot, similar to the ones she’d tossed at him in the past. Their verbal sparring had been a sort of foreplay. The battle of two strong wills, combined with a fierce lust for each other, had created some combustible arguments on occasion. Too many occasions. When had they
