picked up his champagne glass and drained it. The sound of it coming back to the table’s starched linen surface was like a thump in the silence. ‘You are very prickly, aren’t you, card?’
Rachel’s heart gave a little squeeze at his casually delivered endearment. Even the way he said her name had a similar effect on her. His accent had deepened over the time he had spent in Italy. His voice was smooth and mellifluous. It was another devastatingly attractive feature of him that unsettled her deeply. How could a man’s voice make a woman’s spine soften like warmed honey? The deep timbre of Alessandro’s voice was like a sensual stroke of a lover’s hand. If that was just what his voice could do to her what would happen if he decided to change the rules of their arrangement? ‘Why did you call me that?’ she asked.
He gave her a brief flash of a smile that didn’t involve his eyes. ‘Are you still worried I might try and seduce you now I have you within my clutches?’
Rachel had difficulty disguising her reaction to his unnerving mind-reading ability. She quickly got her shocked expression under control, however, and resorted to sarcasm. ‘You can try but whether or not you will succeed is another matter entirely.’
This time his smile lasted longer and made the whole distance to his dark blue eyes, the teasing glint making her toes curl inside her shoes. ‘Are you laying down a challenge for me, tesoro mio?’ he asked.
Her fingers fumbled on her glass, almost knocking it over. ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘I-I’m not interested in anything like that.’
‘You have been single now for how long?’ he asked as he refilled her glass.
She hesitated before she answered. She was twenty-six years old and had only had a couple of lovers. Her first experience had been a teenage fumble that had seriously dented her confidence, but sex with Craig had confirmed every fear she’d held about herself. In hindsight she could see she had been too young and inexperienced and too stubborn to accept she had made a mistake in becoming engaged to him. Instead of extricating herself from the relationship she had clung to it all the harder, pretending it was something it was not and never could be.
‘Rachel?’ Alessandro prompted.
She met his dark eyes. ‘I have been pretty busy just lately trying to save my label,’ she said. ‘There hasn’t been a lot of time for socialising.’
‘Tell me about your friend,’ he said. ‘You are business partners, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Rachel said. ‘Caitlyn and I met at design school. We got on well and had similar goals. She was a great support to me when I ended things with Craig. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She once had a violent controlling partner so she knew what it was like to …’
Alessandro was very quiet and Rachel looked up to see him studying her with a frowning expression on his face. ‘Sorry … I’m rambling,’ she said.
‘Did Hughson hurt you physically?’ he asked, still frowning heavily.
‘No, but he made threats,’ Rachel said. ‘I guess that’s how he controlled me for so long. I was never sure what he was capable of. I wasn’t game to risk it. I finally got the courage to end things but only because of Caitlyn’s help. She showed me how I was being manipulated.’ She lowered her gaze from his. ‘I was too stupid to see it for myself.’
Alessandro reached across the table and put his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t blame yourself.’
Rachel felt the slow spreading warmth of his flesh on hers. His skin was so tanned compared to hers. His fingers so long and dusted with masculine hair, the nails clean and short, strong hands, capable hands, hands that could stroke and caress and light fires underneath her skin. She swallowed as a wing-like flutter erupted in her belly. She slowly brought her gaze up to his. It felt as if he had summoned it with the sheer power of his magnetic presence. His pupils were black holes in a dark blue unfathomable sea. It occurred to her then she could drown in that sea if she wasn’t careful. ‘I guess you must be really pleased I had to lie down on the bed of my own making,’ she said.
Alessandro removed his hand from her arm and sat back in his chair. ‘I am not sure it is a worthwhile exercise relishing in someone else’s misfortune,’ he said. ‘No one gets it right all the time. I have made decisions I have come to regret in hindsight.’
Rachel could just imagine what he most regretted. Asking her to marry him and then only minutes later to have her introduce another man as her fiancé would surely be up there with the most regrettable of actions. If only he knew how much she wished she had said yes to him instead. Her life would have been so very different.
‘I’ll get the next course,’ she said to break the awkward silence.
While she was in the kitchen she looked down at her arm where his hand had lain and fully expected it to show some mark, so heightened were her senses. Her skin tingled, each nerve prickling beneath the surface of her skin.
She rubbed at her arm, annoyed with herself for reacting like an infatuated schoolgirl instead of a mature and sensible adult. She could not afford to be distracted by his potent allure. She was on a mission to save her label and that had to remain her top and only priority.
Once Rachel had served the meal Alessandro turned the conversation to more neutral topics. It was as if he was making a concerted effort to steer away from any mention of the past. Rachel found him to be a convivial host when he put his mind to it. He asked her what books she had read lately, what movies she had enjoyed and where she had last holidayed. He even laughed at one of her anecdotes about a visit to a celebrity client for a private fitting. Rachel suddenly realised she had never heard him laugh before. It was a deep rich sound that trickled down her spine like a flow of champagne. It was a magical moment, connecting them in a way that she had not experienced with him before. She caught a glimpse of the man he was and had always been in spite of his difficult background: respectful, disciplined, driven but decent. Why had it taken her this long to realise it?
Before she knew it the time had come for coffee.
‘Have you been back to Australia since you left?’ she asked as she poured them each a cup of the rich fragrant brew.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
He stirred his black coffee even though she hadn’t seen him put in any sugar. ‘It is a good country—a great country,’ he said. ‘I have never said it wasn’t, but my heart is in Italy. As soon as I got off the plane I felt as if I had come home.’
‘Your father was Italian, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’ He picked up his cup and took a sip. ‘He travelled to Australia on a working holiday but ended up staying after he met my mother.’
Rachel had never heard him speak of his parents before. ‘So why did you end up in foster homes?’ she asked.
His expression was remote. ‘My father died in a workplace accident when I was a small child. Things came unstuck after that.’
‘Do you remember him?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He was tall like me and had the same colouring. He worked hard trying to get ahead but he never quite made it. Everything seemed to work against him, including my mother.’
‘Is
