you have to realise, Rachel,’ Alessandro continued, ‘is you will never please your father. It wouldn’t matter if your label became the most successful in the world, it would not make him proud of you. He is a narcissist. He is only interested in what makes him look good. Any success or achievement of yours or anyone else makes him feel resentful, that in some way you or they are deliberately stealing the limelight from him.’
‘I don’t need my father’s approval,’ Rachel said. ‘I just want to make my own way in the world. I have talent, I know I have. I just need to get things off the ground in Europe.’
‘With my help you can take on the world,’ he said. ‘Is it a deal?’
Rachel looked at him narrowly. ‘You said a counterfeit mistress.’
‘That is correct.’
‘So I really don’t have to sleep with you?’
‘Not unless you wish to,’ he said with a glinting look.
Rachel felt a blush rise in her cheeks. ‘What exactly do you get out of this deal?’
‘I will make sure I am adequately compensated,’ he said. ‘I will take a share of the profits on a percentage that is acceptable to us both.’
‘It sounds too good to be true, which usually means it is,’ she said.
‘You’re not going to get another offer, Rachel,’ he said. ‘You’d be wise to take this and make the best of it.’
‘You must know I can’t possibly say no,’ she said.
‘You would be a fool indeed to say no,’ he said. ‘I will still need to analyse your company structure. If I want to instigate changes then you will have to agree to them.’
‘I guess I don’t have much choice.’
‘I have already set up a meeting for you with one of the top fabric suppliers in the industry,’ he said. ‘He will be here later tomorrow.’
‘Shouldn’t I be going to him?’ Rachel asked, frowning.
‘I am conducting all business from here at the moment,’ he said. ‘Now, please leave me while I finish my exercises.’
Rachel moved towards the door, but then she stopped and turned around to look at him again. ‘Doesn’t anyone other than your staff know you have been ill?’ she asked.
His sapphire-blue eyes hardened. ‘No, and that is the way I want to keep it.’
‘But it might take months to get back on your feet. You run a huge corporation. Won’t people start to wonder what’s going on if you don’t turn up to meetings and the like?’
‘The beauty of being the boss of a huge corporation is that I get to choose what meetings I go to and when,’ he said, reaching for a towel. ‘I have a very capable board of directors who run things for me in my absence. But I do not plan to be out of action too much longer. In fact, I have an important meeting next week in Paris. I would like you to accompany me as my mistress. We will be away the whole week. It will be your first major public performance.’
Rachel thought of a week in Paris, pretending to be his mistress. She would be following a long line of women who had probably done the same, although they had been for real. ‘I heard about your last mistress,’ she said, ‘the cosmetics model? She was pretty stunning. Did she know about your illness?’
He tossed the towel to one side. ‘I have to get through this programme, Rachel. Don’t you have some designs to work on or some emails to answer or whatever it is fashion designers do?’
‘Who broke it off? You or her?’ Rachel persisted.
His eyes flashed as they met hers. ‘If you don’t get out I swear to God I will change the terms of our deal right here and now.’
‘You know I can’t pay you anything substantial until the label is successfully launched,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t talking about the money,’ he said, with a dark meaningful look in his eyes.
Rachel’s skin began to tingle and her mouth went completely dry. The silence hummed with tension, a throbbing tension that threatened to snap at any second. She ran her tongue out over her lips, tasting where he had been so recently. It was so intimate, so raw and primal to taste the essence of him: minty and fresh and yet unmistakably, dangerously male. What would it feel like to taste his skin, down his sternum, over his flat abdomen and lower? What would it feel like to taste his aroused flesh, to slide her tongue over the engorged length of him, to tease her tastebuds with the musk of his maleness?
‘Rachel.’
‘Y-yes?’ She almost gulped the word as she met his gaze. Could he see where her mind had been straying? Could he sense how attracted she was to him? She wanted to hide it. How could she want a man who had revenge as his motive for having her here with him like this? How could she possibly want to feel his mouth on hers again? How could she possibly feel as if her life would be over if he didn’t want her the way she wanted him?
‘Leave,’ he said somewhat heavily. ‘I have work to do.’
Her gaze went to the chair that was too far away for him to reach. ‘I could help you if you like,’ she offered, stepping forward to bring the chair closer.
‘Damn it to hell, I told you to leave,’ he bit the words out. ‘Just get the hell out of here, do you hear me?’
Rachel’s hands fell off the back of the wheelchair, her heart slipping sideways in her chest. ‘I’m sorry …’ Her voice came out soft and uncertain. ‘I was only trying to help …’
‘I don’t need your help,’ he threw back with a searing glare. ‘I can do this. I will do this. I don’t need you or anyone to help me.’
Rachel left the gym and gently closed the door behind her. She blew out a shaky breath, not sure she was going to be able to handle such a strong and fiercely proud man. But this time his anger and bitterness were directed more at himself than at her, she thought. He hated being vulnerable. He hated having to rely on others to do the tasks he normally took for granted. His plans for her to act as his mistress showed how keen he was to show the world nothing had changed. She wasn’t happy with being part of his plan but she couldn’t see a way out of it. She would have to say yes and live with the consequences.
Alessandro let out a long ragged breath once Rachel had left. She had caught him at his most vulnerable and it made him hate her for it. His muscles ached and burned but not half as much as he ached and burned to possess her. Kissing her had been a crazy move on his part. He had felt those unbelievably soft lips respond to his and within seconds he had felt his steely control slipping. She had the sensual power to humiliate him like no other woman. Had she enjoyed watching him struggle to regain his mobility? Was that why she had refused to leave—so she could document every agonising step of his journey back to wholeness? How could he trust her when she had acted so unpredictably in the past? He had not seen her rejection coming. That was what tortured him the most. He had been so utterly beguiled by her that he hadn’t seen the game she had been playing.
He gripped the equipment with hands that shook with determination. He was not going to
