returning to what I said...’ This time his dark eyes were thoughtful, serious. ‘And that remark you so adroitly tried to avoid. You’re nothing like your mother. I looked at some of the pictures you have framed in your sitting room...’
‘You shouldn’t have come here and you shouldn’t have nosed around...’ For a few appalling seconds, Kate felt as though her little world was in the process of being tilted on its axis. ‘I should never have told you any of that stuff.’
‘Why? Is there something wrong with confiding in other people?’
‘Do you?’ She turned the question right back at him. ‘Do you run around spilling your guts to all and sundry? What about all those models you go out with? Do you get deep and personal with them? Do you hold hands and sob over a bottle of wine while you pour your soul out?’
This was what it felt like to lose control. She had always had control, and now here she was, sitting at her own kitchen table, losing it with a guy who had the power to terminate the career she had so carefully built.
And the worst of it was that she didn’t want to retract the accusation.
She was aware of him with every pore of her being. He swamped her. When she breathed she felt that she was breathing in his clean, masculine scent. When she leaned forward she could feel his personality wrap around her like tendrils of ivy.
She felt...alive.
But not, she told herself uneasily, in a good way. There was nothing about Alessandro Preda that could make her feel anything in a good way. She felt alive in a very, very annoying way.
‘At least you’re not apologizing for asking that daring question,’ Alessandro drawled.
So she had ditched the shorts and the cropped top, but the jeans and the baggy shirt did nothing to reduce her sex appeal. Now he had seen that body shorn of its camouflage outfits the image was imprinted in his brain with the force of a branding iron.
‘And you’re right. I don’t tend to do the personal touchy-feely business with the women I go out with. I can’t recall pouring my soul out and sobbing in recent times.’ His mouth twitched with amusement. ‘In that we’re strangely alike. But you wear your defence system on the outside. You cover up from neck to ankle but there’s no need. You’re not your mother. You may want to make sure you don’t follow in her footsteps, but you don’t have to dress like a spinster schoolteacher to do that.’
‘How dare you come here and try and analyze me?’ Tears stung the back of her throat but thankfully she was far too reticent a person to allow them access.
‘I’m not trying to analyze you,’ Alessandro told her in just the sort of gentle voice that she knew might prove her undoing if she let it. ‘Don’t you feel a little trapped by all the hoops you make yourself jump through?
‘I don’t feel trapped by anything. This is the life I’ve chosen to lead. You have no idea what it’s like to be...insecure when you’re growing up...’
‘How do you know that?’ Alessandro asked softly.
Her eyes widened. She paused for thought. How did she know that? Because of who he was? Rich. Powerful. Confident. Arrogant. Those were not the hallmarks of someone whose upbringing had been anything but exemplary. Besides, he was the sole issue of the union of two wealthy families. If you looked him up on the internet—which she never had—you would discover that. She had overhead one of the giggly girls from the legal department imparting that titbit one day in the office restaurant. He occupied a stratosphere that was quite unlike hers. Actually, quite unlike most peoples.
‘But you were right when you said that we’re here to talk about Cape.’
For a minute there Alessandro had felt the pull to trade one set of confidences for another. He didn’t know where that had come from, but it wasn’t something he was going to give in to. Probably hearing her talk about her mother had naturally led him to think about his own parents. They too lived on the coast—probably not a million miles away from her mother. Small world...
‘Of course. I’ll just go and fetch the file I’ve compiled. I’ve summarized all my findings. I thought it might be easier for you to go through rather than follow the trail piecemeal.’
‘Highly efficient, and just what I would expect of you!’
Kate frowned, but before she could rise to the bait he interceded with a grin.
‘And, before you jump down my throat, I wasn’t being sarcastic...’
‘I wasn’t about to imply that you were.’ But she had been. And that made her feel a little uneasy. Either she was as transparent as a pane of glass, which was a bad thing, or else he could read her mind—which was a bad thing.
And what had he meant when he had hinted that it wasn’t true that he wouldn’t know what it might feel like to have an insecure background?
She felt her pulse race at the thought of him confiding in her and had to yank herself back to the reality that, when all was said and done, he was her boss and they had nothing in common.
Maybe he was right about that ivory tower, she thought feverishly as she fetched the file and headed back to the kitchen. Not as it applied to her in an office scenario but as it applied to her in a life scenario. Maybe she had lived life in the safe middle lane for too long. Maybe she had detached herself too much from the highs and lows of getting involved with people...with men. Maybe that was why she was behaving like this with him: disobeying common sense and flirting with something dangerous...
Flirting with an impossible attraction.
Shoot me in the head first, she thought.
But she had to take a deep, steadying breath before she pushed open the door and stepped inside where, thankfully, he was still in the same place and not snooping through the kitchen drawers and making himself even more at home.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked politely, and Alessandro raised his eyebrows.
‘I don’t need sobering up,’ he told her drily. ‘So no, thank you. Besides, what did I tell you about caffeine after six?’
‘Yes, you did say that—but I do remember you helping yourself to several cups of strong black coffee a few months ago, when we were working with George and a couple of others on that deal late into the night...’
‘I didn’t realize that you had been keeping a watch on what I was eating and drinking...’
God, but she was sexy when she blushed like that and looked away, as though she was in danger of giving away state secrets if she met his eyes. He felt himself stir again, aroused by images that had no place in his head.
He waved his hand for her to hand over her findings and started reading. There wasn’t a great deal to get through—less than he had been expecting.
‘So all in all,’ he said slowly, raising his eyes to hers, ‘he hasn’t been at it for very long...’
‘Which I think is in his favour...’
‘We’ll have to agree to
