The doors closed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ALESSANDRO strode from the lift, giving way to a need to loosen his collar after feeling such unaccustomed heat. In an attempt to retrieve his habitual tranquillity, he tried to rationalise the events of the last few days by explaining them to himself in the cool, rational language only a man could understand.

So. A man meets a woman who tells him she has his child. The man wants to help the woman…No. The man is eager to know and help the woman and the child.

He offers the woman-against his better judgement after what happened the last time-but in total honesty and sincerity-his passion, his affection, but the woman has fears, despite her obvious passion for him. Irrational, certainly, but fears nonetheless-that the man will in some way harm the child.

Alessandro felt his blood pressure jump a notch.

The man sees his child…At the memory the breath caught in his throat, and he had to stand still as he did every time he thought of those heart-stopping moments. That small, exquisite girl. Her fingertips. That pure, soft skin.

He sees her, but knows very well, all the signs are there, that he, the father of the child, is excluded from that female circle. An invisible barrier has been erected around the woman and the child. And what for? Is it to do with the past? A past he is in no way responsible for?

Alessandro gritted his teeth.

Dio mio, he will smash that barrier with his bare hands if it kills him.

He walked into his office and met Tuila’s assessing gaze over the tops of her glasses. He scowled. What was that narrow-eyed look about?

‘Did you want to run through the people we’ve seen so far?’ Tuila said.

‘What people?’

Tuila’s brows shot up. ‘Are you kidding?’

He shrugged and kicked out his chair, though he didn’t sit down. ‘Sure, sure. Whatever.’

She started on the list of interviewees while he paced, hands shoved into his pockets. He would have to be firm. If Lara wouldn’t lower her guard he might have to show her the steel edge of his resolve.

‘Strike him,’ he commanded, raising an imperious hand when Tuila broached the first candidate. She arched her brows, and started in on the next one. ‘No, no, forget her,’ he ordered. ‘Dizzy.’

Lara’s behaviour was mystifying. He could see well enough why she’d be upset if she was pregnant and saw that he’d married someone else. But now, everything was different. Here he was, back in the country, quite prepared to…

‘Dexter Barry?’ Tuila enquired.

‘Per carità. Are you mad? The man was hopeless.’

‘How about Steve Disney? I rather liked him. He was young, bright, well qualified.’

He gave Tuila a long, steel glance. With a shrug she lowered her eyes.

He dragged a hand through his hair. Tonight could have been so fine. The music, the arrangements…He’d actually been looking forward to the planning.

Like-a couple of parents. Then afterwards, he’d have taken her to the hotel, and shown her how fantastic, how joyful it could be.

Sacramento, if he had time, if it were up to him he would show them the world, shower them with palazzoes lined with frescoes and gold leaf, scatter rose petals at their feet.

He realised with a cold chill that time was running out. In a few days he’d have settled on the managing director, and he’d be boarding that plane for Bangkok without having made Lara understand the first thing about him.

She still had no idea.

Although last night…Hadn’t there been that moment in the light of the street lamp when her eyes had been filled with emotion…? And then again afterwards, during the love…?

He closed his eyes while the vision of her loveliness, nude apart from those black stockings, swam before his eyes. Dio, the love.

Or had she just given him a little taste of herself to taunt him? The turmoil in his chest deepened. If he hadn’t been an optimist, he’d be starting to think they were doomed to end up like the last time. Just like the last time.

He had a grim feeling that he’d be forced to leave soon with everything unresolved with Lara, and without knowing Vivi.

His chest panged. His one child in the world.

And…

He realised in a sudden galvanising panic that if he didn’t take matters in hand, in no time Lara would be working for some other guy, who’d inevitably fall in love with her. He could picture it now. Some big, sunburnt, cricket-crazed Australian who’d be spending every minute of every working day plotting to seduce her. Next thing she knew she’d be marrying the guy, while his daughter, his little girl…

‘What about Roger Hayward? He wasn’t so bad, was he? Strong, clever, proactive…’

He started from his meditations. ‘Tuila,’ he snarled. ‘Get a grip.’ He slammed his fist on the desk and Tuila jumped. ‘None of those clowns will do. Not one of them.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LARA let herself in the gate, still in a stunned haze. All the way home on the train, all she’d been able to think of was Alessandro at the Centrepoint Tower, waiting into the night for the woman who never arrived.

How he must have suffered. His hurt, the disappointment. And, oh, what a bitter assault to his pride. She shied away from imagining his emotions on that return flight without her. Any man would have been seething with fury. No wonder he’d been so hostile on his first day at Stiletto.

The amazing thing was that he was still so-giving. He must have really wanted her then. While now…She had a panicked sense that today she’d used up her last chance with him. Somehow she had to find a way to explain at once.

After the flower-shop fiasco she’d found it impossible to see him again before she left work to straighten the record. He’d been ensconced with Tuila all afternoon, and then he must have slipped out while she was lingering at her desk for an opportunity to see him. If Vivi and Greta hadn’t been waiting for her she’d have gone to the Seasons after him.

Funny thing was that, now she was allowing herself to dream of it, she could see how wonderful a father he would be. If only there were some way she could stop him from getting on that plane to Bangkok.

Oh, face it, face it, Lara. In deep, all over again. In love with him as hopelessly and passionately as ever. Only now her needs weren’t just her needs. They were Vivi’s as well, and more urgent than ever before.

As usual, at home her mother’s eagle eye didn’t miss a thing.

‘How’d it go?’ Greta asked, the minute the hugs and kisses were over and Vivi had made her report on the Year One sandwich selection and the lunchtime tussle in the sandpit. ‘Any progress?’

Lara knew exactly what she was referring to. She wanted to know Alessandro’s reaction to seeing Vivi. She framed her reply carefully, conscious of small ears having major flapping ability.

‘A little.’ She met Greta’s eyes. ‘He wants to-further the acquaintance. He wanted me to meet him tonight to discuss it, only-I didn’t think it would be fair to-everyone.’ She glanced significantly at Vivi.

A thoughtful look came over Greta’s face. ‘What if I see if I can swap shifts?’ Her eyes glistened. ‘Oh, and did I mention? See what came for you.’ She pointed Lara up the stairs to her flat, and Lara climbed the stairs, Vivi bounding up ahead of her, Greta bringing up the rear.

She opened her front door and spring burst upon her. Flowers. Dozens of stocks, looking as perky as ever and done up in several heavenly arrangements, along with masses of jonquils, daffies, more of the delicious freesias, purple lisiandras, and roses, roses, roses. The florist must have been cleaned out.

The flat was as fragrant as a hothouse.

‘Oh,’ Lara gasped. ‘Oh.’

She needed no reminding of her ungracious behaviour at the florist’s, but in spite of that her heart bounded up in hopeful joy. It was probably natural Alessandro would have had some of them sent to her, since she was the one who’d sat in them-but there was no way she’d sat in all of them. Not the lizzies. And she’d certainly have remembered sitting in roses.