a small plane, so bring one bag only, please. I know what women are like for packing ridiculous amounts of unnecessary clothes.’
The look she shot him was ice-cool. ‘You’re saying clothes will be unnecessary? Careful, Mr D’Arienzo—this is business, remember?’
And then she was gone. Alejandro was left staring after her, his coffee cooling in his hand, his mind swirling with disturbing thoughts of Tamsin Calthorpe sprawled naked on the leather seats of his jet, and the unwelcome suspicion that she’d just scored some victory over him.
He’d take her advice. He would be careful.
He had an uneasy feeling that this was going to be a whole lot more trouble than he’d bargained for.
CHAPTER SIX
‘ONE bag! How the hell am I supposed to get everything I need into one stupid bag?’ Wedging the phone against her shoulder, Tamsin picked up a soft jacket, the colour of dark chocolate, and looked at it longingly. ‘Should I take my army coat or the brown cashmere jacket?’
‘Cashmere,’ said Serena firmly. ‘The other one makes you look like you’re in the Hitler Youth. So, tell me, how’s Daddy about all this?’
‘Well, that’s another annoying thing, actually. He’s furious. Which is particularly unfair, considering he knows I had absolutely no choice.’
She squashed the jacket onto the top of her already bulging leather holdall. It was half-past ten, and the bedroom looked like the scene of a police raid, with drawers pulled open and spilling out silken wisps of underwear, cardigans and dresses in every colour.
‘Darling, since when has Pa been rational where his best beloved daughter is concerned? He thought he’d dealt with this problem once and for all, so you can’t blame him for being a bit fed up.’
‘What?’ said Tamsin vaguely, looking around the room. ‘Do you think three sweaters will be enough?’
‘Sweaters?’ There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. Eventually Serena said in a strangled voice, ‘Tamsin, just run by me what else you’ve packed.’
Tamsin picked up a thick leather belt with a heavy jewelled buckle and threw it back into a drawer. ‘Look, I know you’re going to say that I should take lots of dressy stuff, and that Alejandro Playboy D’Arienzo probably holds A-list parties every night or whatever, but I don’t care, because I’m not getting involved in any of that. I’m not interested in him. I’m there to work.’
‘It’s not that. Just tell me you haven’t packed for winter? Darling, it’s the height of summer over there just now. The temperature is in the thirties!’
In the middle of the chaos Tamsin stopped and went very still, her mouth suddenly dry. Her eyes darted to the big, old-fashioned schoolroom clock on the wall by the window, and then to the miserable London greyness outside. She gave a small whimper.
‘Oh, God. Oh, no! I didn’t think …”
‘OK. Don’t panic. Let’s be rational about this. First you have to take everything out of the bag.’
‘Everything out,’ repeated Tamsin desperately, pulling out armfuls of cashmere and wool and trying not to cry. ‘OK. Now wh—?’
She stopped suddenly as she heard the sound of a car engine in the mews below.
He wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes yet, and surely he wouldn’t be so inconsiderate as to—?
A door slammed. Footsteps echoed on the frosty pavement.
‘Oh, Serena. He’s here,’ she whimpered into the phone as the doorbell rang. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘OK,’ said Serena urgently. ‘You’re going to be cool and professional. You’re going to bear in mind at all times that he is absolutely not to be trusted, and most importantly of all—’ the doorbell rang again ‘—you are not going to sleep with him.’ She sighed. ‘But first, you’re going to let him in.’
‘Finally.’ Alejandro walked past her into the narrow hallway and looked around with barely concealed impatience. ‘I was just about to leave. I assumed you’d had second thoughts.’
‘About such a—what was it?—generous opportunity to prove myself?’ Tamsin said sweetly. ‘Now why would I do that?’
‘You tell me,’ he replied with heavy irony. ‘Are you ready?’
She was halfway up the narrow stairs. ‘Nope. Come up.’
Gritting his teeth in irritation, Alejandro followed her, trying not to look at her rear in the skinny black jeans she wore.
‘This better not take long. My driver’s waiting.’
‘Really?’ she said lightly. ‘Can you drive to Argentina? I thought we’d be going by plane.’
He found himself in a large living space with windows all along one wall and warm old pine floorboards. There was a kitchen area at one end with peacock-blue cupboards and an enormous French baker’s rack groaning under the weight of china and pans. The other end was taken up with a huge sofa upholstered in shocking pink brocade and a white furry rug. The whole space was painted in a creamy off-white, and even on the greyest winter morning it was airy and bright.
It was also incredibly messy.
‘Have you been burgled, or is it always like this?’ he asked, looking around. On the table beside the telephone was a pile of unopened brown envelopes, many of them printed in red and marked ‘urgent’.
Stepping over piles of clothes, magazines, discarded shoes and scraps of fabric, he made his way to the door through which Tamsin had just disappeared and felt a dart of heat as he realised it was her bedroom.
‘No, and no,’ she said haughtily, picking up an armful of bulky winter clothes and shoving them into the bottom drawer of an enormous old armoire. ‘It’s like this because some annoying person forced me to travel halfway across the world at a moment’s notice, and then arrived early to pick me up.’
Alejandro glanced at his watch. ‘Ten minutes. That’s hardly early. I assumed you would have packed last night.’
‘Oh, did you?’ she snapped. ‘Well, I think that’s one of the many things I find annoying about you, Alejandro. You have no right to assume anything. How do you know that I didn’t have other plans last night? Why should I turn my life upside down and cancel everything when you snap your fingers?’
Without letting a flicker of the emotion that suddenly licked up through him at the thought of what her ‘other plans’ for last night had been, Alejandro bent down and picked up a scrap of fuchsia-pink silk from the floor beside the bed and held it up. It was a suspender belt.
‘It doesn’t look as if you cancelled anything last night,’ he said sardonically, feeling a twist of grim satisfaction as he watched her eyes widen in outrage. For a moment she stared mutely at him as he turned the delicate band of silk and lace around in his hands before tossing it casually onto the bed.
‘If
