face fell. ‘No…no. That’s not true. How can you say that?’
‘I can say it because it is true,’ he said. ‘You tried to set me up to pay for your bastard child, but there is one thing you miscalculated about me.’
She swallowed the thorny knot in her throat. ‘Alessandro, you’re not making sense. We’ve made love hundreds of times, a lot of times without protection. I went on the Pill too late. I thought it would be safe, but it obviously wasn’t.’
His sneer turned to a snarl. ‘I have heard of such ploys before. The unplanned pregnancy is a handy way of forcing a man into marriage, but these days it is all too easy to prove paternity.’
‘I’ll have a test done to prove it,’ she said with rising despair. ‘Then you’ll have to believe me.’
His eyes raked over her from head to foot. ‘I have all the proof I need. Now get out of my life.’
She looked up at him in stunned shock. ‘You surely don’t mean to throw me out on the streets at this time of night?’
His face was set in stone. ‘It is where you belong, is it not?’
Scarlett opened her mouth to protest, but he had already turned to call one of the household staff, issuing a short, sharp command to have Signorina Fitzgerald’s belongings packed immediately and brought to the front door.
Once the servant had scurried away, Alessandro turned back to Scarlett with another look of contempt. ‘I must congratulate you on your ingenuity,’ he said. ‘I have been pursued by many women, but no one has ever got close enough for me to invite them to live with me, albeit temporarily.’
A bubble of anger inside Scarlett finally found its way to the surface. ‘I was only ever a temporary diversion for you, wasn’t I?’ she said. ‘You were only interested in a summer fling, and for your own convenience asked me to move in with you. You were never going to make things permanent between us.’
‘Permanency is not something I have ever or will ever aim for in my relationships,’ he said. ‘I value my freedom too much.’
‘You’re going to end up a lonely old man with no one to love you,’ she said, her heart sinking as the servant came down the huge staircase, carrying her backpack.
Alessandro gave a scornful sneer and opened the front door as wide as it would go. ‘Goodbye, Scarlett.’
She picked up her backpack where the servant had placed it and slung it awkwardly over one shoulder, her eyes now streaming with tears. ‘You’re going to regret this one day,’ she said, her voice breaking over the words. ‘I know you will. You will hate yourself for not believing me.’
‘The only thing I will regret is allowing you to fool me into thinking you were not like other social-climbing women,’ he said. ‘Now, get out before I have you thrown out.’
Scarlett stepped down the stairs with only her pride to keep her upright. She walked stiffly towards the wrought-iron gates, her heart splintering into thousands of pieces as she heard the front door of his house click shut with ominous finality behind her.
CHAPTER THREE
SCARLETT HAD to pull herself away from the past when Alessandro came back towards her with his phone clicked shut. ‘I am sorry about that,’ he said. ‘One of my projects in Positano has been giving me some trouble. Now, let me show you around so you can get a feel for the place.’
She walked with him towards the staircase, her stomach feeling as if not only butterflies but bees and wasps were all vying for a landing space inside.
‘I would like the foyer and reception area to make a statement,’ he said as they climbed the stairs. ‘Lots of marble—Italian, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Scarlett said, and tried not to react as his arm brushed against hers as she stood beside him on the first floor and looked down.
She was shocked that such a simple touch could affect her so much. She had thought she was immune to him by now, after what he had done to her. She had hated him for so long, the heat of it smouldering deep inside her, stoked every now and again by another milestone in her little son’s life that Alessandro, out of arrogance, would never see. She had wanted to contact him so many times.
She had considered pursuing him legally, by insisting on a paternity test to clear her name, but she had been frightened of the consequences. What if Alessandro turned out to be like her father, who had always made it so callously clear he had never wanted a second child? Her father’s cruel words to her during her childhood had echoed well into her adulthood. She had lived with the stigma of being unwanted all of her life. She couldn’t bear for her little son to suffer the same.
Sunlight came in from the dome above their heads and shafted down in golden rays on the floor below. Alessandro’s arm brushed against hers again as he pointed to a shadowed area to the left of the reception desk. ‘See that corner over there?’ he said.
‘Umm…yes,’ she nodded, her nostrils flaring as the subtle but tantalising tones of his aftershave wafted past her face.
‘What could you do to make that brighter and more open?’ he asked, turning to look down at her.
Scarlett felt her heart come to a shuddering halt as his eyes met hers. She swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat, her palms moistening where they were clutching at her handbag strap like a lifeline. ‘I’d need to think about it,’ she said. ‘Lighting is one option, but there are others. For instance, if we choose a lighter colour for the marble it will throw more light everywhere, not just in that corner.’
His eyes were still locked on hers. ‘You are good at this, no?’
She ran her tongue over the arid landscape of her lips, feeling self-conscious and terribly exposed. ‘I enjoy it,’ she said. ‘I like the challenge of bringing new life to old interiors.’
He was standing so close Scarlett could hear the in-and-out of his breathing. She had only to take half a step for her body to come into contact with his, from chest to thighs. She sucked in a breath when he lifted his right hand and cupped her cheek, the touch so like a caress it made her whole body shiver in reaction.
‘Don’t,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Please…’
His thumb moved from her cheek to trace over her bottom lip, the movement slow but incredibly sensual. ‘I have been thinking about how good we were together four years ago. Do you remember?’ he asked softly.
How could she forget? Scarlett thought. Her body still rang with the echoes of the passion he had awakened. She could feel the pulse of it now as her blood charged through her veins. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘No you do not remember, or no you do not want to be reminded?’ he asked with a slanted smile.
‘I’m here to work, Alessandro,’ she said with as much assertiveness as she could muster. ‘Nothing else.’
His eyes held hers for an interminable pause, before he stepped back from her and reached for a document lying on a table nearby. ‘I trust you have had time to read through the contract I gave you?’
‘Yes.’
