Page 31 of At Her Boss's Pleasure

He had been wrong.

God only knew where this sex-fest weekend was going to take place, but he’d intended to find out—and rather than overtake her, force her to pull to the kerb and then demand an answer which she was unlikely to give him, he had decided just to...follow her.

It hadn’t been hard.

She had no idea what car he’d be in. He had several cars, and the black Range Rover was a whole lot less conspicuous than the Ferrari. He had made sure to keep a safe distance behind her, but he probably could have been attached to her bumper and she wouldn’t have noticed. Who really ever paid attention to other cars on the road unless they were misbehaving?

He’d known from the route she was taking that she was heading for the West Country and he hadn’t been able to believe it.

She was going to spend the weekend with a perfect stranger, miles away from her home ground? Who the hell did that?

And now here he was, in a picturesque city square, with quaint Tudor-beamed buildings lining it, standing in front of a coffee shop, for the first time in his life hesitating.<3

A coffee shop was hardly the raunchy, seedy motel he had been expecting. A coffee shop smacked of a nerd—or some clever smart-ass pretending to be a nerd. Someone who didn’t make her lose control...someone who wasn’t...him.

But, having come this far, he had no intention of leaving without first confronting his rival.

Because that was what it felt like. Sitting somewhere in that coffee shop was his rival—some man he didn’t know from Adam, who was laying claim to his woman. It was a possessive feeling, it was unwelcome and it was...the way it was.

He strode forward.

* * *

‘Good heavens.’

‘What?’

‘There’s a gentleman by the door...quite arresting...’

Kate had had her fill of ‘arresting’ men. She had come to the conclusion that they all spelt bad news. She wasn’t interested—and besides, she was too busy getting rid of her misery via the plate of cakes that had been put between them. Her mother had nibbled one. She was on her fourth. Not only was she destined to be a spinster, she would end up being a fat spinster.

‘He’s coming over here...’

If she had never agreed to go to Toronto with him she wouldn’t be sitting here now, stacking on the pounds and fighting off a crying jag. If she hadn’t be so arrogant as to think that she could control the situation—could sleep with him and still hang on to her heart—she wouldn’t be here. There were so many steps along the way that could have saved her from being where she was now that she felt giddy when she thought about them.

She was lost in her thoughts, and when she heard that deep, sexy drawl she immediately put it down to the fact that she was probably hallucinating.

Except her mother was still staring, the voice had said something else and the young waitress who had been walking towards them had stopped and her jaw had dropped.

Heart beating fast, Kate slowly twisted round and there he was—larger than life and just as devastating.

Staring down at her, his dark eyes unfathomable.

‘You played fast and loose with the speed limit on the motorway,’ Alessandro murmured, instantly clocking the situation and feeling light-headed with relief because this was her weekend date.

There was little doubt that the older and still stunningly attractive woman staring at him, open-mouthed, was her mother.

‘I’m Alessandro, by the way...’ He turned to the blonde, hand outstretched. ‘I’m guessing you must be Kate’s mother...’

‘What are you doing here?’

Kate found her voice at last and anger surged up through her—anger that he had the barefaced cheek to have landed himself here when she was on the verge of congratulating herself on having put some temporary distance between them...anger that her whole body had lit up like tinder in receipt of a life-giving flame...anger that none of the bracing little homilies she had given herself on the drive down counted for anything when he was standing right here in front of her...anger at the power he had over her...

Had he come here for a repeat performance of proving just how much he could affect her?

‘Why are you here?’

‘Darling, I shall leave you two to get on with things. I have a bit more shopping to do, as a matter of fact.’

Shirley Watson was already standing and reaching for her handbag, ignoring the desperate yelp coming from her daughter.

‘Shoes...’ She addressed Alessandro. ‘A girl’s best friend... I’ve tried my entire life to instil that into my beautiful daughter, but I see that it actually took you to succeed...’

Kate watched in horror as her mother—her treacherous and disloyal mother—disappeared with a cheery wave, leaving her seat vacant for Alessandro to sit on.

Which he did. Not once taking his eyes from her face.

‘How dare you follow me? What were you thinking? I can’t believe you followed me here!’

‘I was worried.’

‘You were worried? What’s that supposed to mean?’

She couldn’t peel her eyes from his face. God, he was handsome. A little drawn, perhaps, a bit haggard, but even drawn and haggard he was still drop-dead gorgeous.

‘You just took off.’ Alessandro loathed the defensive note that had crept into his voice. ‘On a so-called weekend away. I assumed—’

‘Oh, I get it,’ Kate said with blistering resentment. ‘You decided that I was going to meet some man, and also decided that I was too incompetent to look after myself. Or maybe you thought that I didn’t dare meet up with anyone because there’s a bit of you still in my system...?’

‘What was I supposed to think when you refused to tell me where you were going?’ So she had admitted it—and it thrilled him.

‘I didn’t refuse to tell you anything! I assumed that it was none of your business! And what would your lawyer girlfriend say if she knew you were here?’

It took him a couple of seconds to comprehend what she was talking about, and a few more seconds to bypass the instinctive clamp-down on explaining himself—which was something he never did. ‘There’s no connection there...’

‘Oh, right. You mean you slept with her and then decided that she didn’t fit the bill after all?’

She hated the weakness that was driving her to find out whether he and the lawyer had ended up in bed. It didn’t matter! What mattered was that he had rushed down here in her wake because he had some stupid, over-developed he-man instinct to make sure she wasn’t going to do anything crazy. Like actually get a life.

‘We never made it to the bedroom,’ Alessandro admitted in a driven voice.

That stopped Kate in her tracks. It wasn’t just what he had said, it was how he had said it—it was the way he was pointedly not looking at her, the way he had flung himself back in the chair and was staring around him as though fascinated by his surroundings.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.’

‘This is not the place for this conversation.’

‘It’s exactly the place for this conversation!’ She breathed deeply and then sighed. ‘Look, I don’t need this. What we had is over. Finished. I just need you to get out of my life—and if you can’t do that then I’m going to have to hand in my resignation.’

‘It’s not finished,’ Alessandro muttered in a low, unsteady voice.

He leaned towards her. He was a man with one foot dangling over the side of a cliff and he knew he was going to jump and damn the consequences.

‘Not for me. Please, Kate. Let’s go somewhere— anywhere. It’s too small here...too packed...too mundane and busy for what I have to say...’

‘Which is what? No, let me guess! You want me back so that you can have a little more fun before I end up next to the lawyer who never made it past first base before boring you...’

‘Something...happened...’

‘Yes, I know what happened,’ Kate intoned bitterly. ‘You couldn’t stand the thought of me walking away from you, so you decided to prove to me that I still wanted you. That’s why you summoned me to your office, isn’t it? So that you could play with me?’

‘I summoned you because I...I needed to see you...’

Needed to see me to prove a point.

‘You’re just so arrogant that you didn’t see why you should let me get on with my life. It didn’t matter that you were busy getting on with yours. As far as you were concerned, I didn’t have a life to get on with because I still felt something for you. You just couldn’t accept that I wasn’t interested in carrying on with a fling that wasn’t going anywhere, because in your world the only thing that matters is sex.’

‘I wasn’t getting on with my life,’ Alessandro muttered under his breath.

There was no guidebook when it came to this kind of conversation, but he was still condemned to have it... Because she just mattered so damn much...

‘I tried,’ he continued. ‘But I couldn’t. And I couldn’t because something happened when we were in Toronto...’

‘Something happened...?’

‘I never meant to...to get involved...’

He raked his fingers through his hair and his hand was not as steady as it should have been.

‘Let’s get out of here...please—’ He broke off gruffly and, without giving her the chance to lodge another protest, signalled across to the waitress and asked for the bill. ‘And you can stop fishing around for money, Kate,’ he grated. ‘I’m getting this.’