‘Georgie, don’t look so apprehensive. I know you want to bury what happened between us—’
‘Nothingdidhappen between us!’
‘Absolutely nothing happened between us,’ Alessandro agreed, relaxing back in the chair and gazing at her mulish expression and lowered eyes.
‘So there’s nothing to talk about.’
‘There’s everything to talk about because thenothingthat happened opened a door to thesomethingthat should have.’
‘No!’
It’s not a crime for us to admit that we’re attracted to one another.’
‘I… I…’
‘Are you going to deny it?’
‘Itdoesn’t matter! Itdoesn’t matter, if there’s some inexplicable…you know what I mean.’
‘Can’t bring yourself to say it? Shall I help you?Chemistry? Powerful attraction? Sizzling, suffocating electric charge…?’
She’d sat on the sofa while he’d taken a chair but now he stood up, slowly and with the sort of economic grace that made him so compelling, and went to sit right next to her.
‘Tell me, Georgie,’ he said huskily. ‘Tell me it doesn’t matter when you can reach out and touch me and know that I’ll touch you back. Wherever you want me to touch you.’
‘Don’t.’
She covered her ears with her hands and he very gently removed them and kept them loosely in his. He looked at her seriously.
‘Did he break your heart that much that you can’t move on, Georgie? Are you going to let him determine the rest of your life?’
‘I’m not doing that!’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘You should talk,’ she flung at him. ‘Aren’t you guilty of doing the very same thing?’
‘My heart was never broken by my ex-wife,’ Alessandro returned kindly. ‘My heart was broken long before that, but it didn’t set me on a path of pursuing some impossible dream where love conquers all. I realised that the only thing that conquers everything is discipline and self-control.’
‘With the exception of Flora,’ Georgie said softly and her heart did a little flip as his expression softened.
‘She’s everything,’ Alessandro admitted. ‘And, of course, my mother, but when it comes to romance? Love? I don’t have the same faith in that as you seem to. I prefer the option of living for today and enjoying what’s here without muddying the water by projecting into some time in a distant future and what might or might not work then.’
‘I don’t project into the future.’
‘Of course you do. Isn’t that what you’re doing now? Writing off this unexpected attraction between us because it doesn’t fit into your theory of what should happen next in your life with a man? Because you were hurt once and so the best bet is to batten down the hatches and only allow Mr Right in?’
‘That’s not what I’m doing…’Yes, it was, but how could she trust her heart not to be hurt again? She’d spent so long hiding behind an act of being the party girl who didn’t care that boys didn’t look at her in that way, but she had cared and now this guy…a heartbreaker who didn’t even believe in love…!
‘Are you prepared to see your youth disappear in an eternal quest for a guy who might or might not exist? Or worse, for a guy who might end up being a clone of the one who hurt you? There’s a reason why so many marriages end in divorce. Nine times out of ten, Mr Right turns out to be Mr Completely and Utterly Wrong.’
‘You’re so cynical.’
‘I’m a realist and I’m not scared to admit that I want to sleep with you. I can’t promise love. To be more precise, love is the one thing Ican categorically not promise. But sex? I’ll show you the meaning of fun. Up for the challenge, Georgie, or will you scuttle away in mortal terror? I’ll only ask once…’
Georgie had such a vivid picture of Alessandro, naked next to her, his body so deeply burnished next to her pale one, that she wanted to pass out.
‘You’re tempted…’
