‘Yep.’ She shrugged. ‘The lease is up.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. Ah.’
‘Have you thought of buying? It’s not exactly a buyers’ market but if you can afford it, better to pay your mortgage off than your landlord’s.’
‘Ihavebought a place. A unit not far from St Auburn’s. I bought it off-plan. It was supposed to be finished two months ago but with all that winter rain we had it’s behind schedule.’
‘I see.’
She moved her legs until they were stretched out in front next to his, her uniform riding up a little to reveal two very well-defined kneecaps and a hint of thigh, and Alessandro’s gaze dropped to the bare flesh before he realised what he was doing.
‘I only took a six-month lease because the project manager assured me the project would be on time. Damn man is as slippery as an oily snake.’
Discombobulated by an impulse to stroke his fingers along the exposed area of leg, Alessandro dragged his attention back to her frowning face, giving little thought to his next words.
‘Do you not have a man? A husband or boyfriend, who can deal with these things for you?’
4
If Nat hadn’t already been annoyed at the world – heatwave, broken lift, difficult landlord – she might have laughed at his typical Italian male assumptions. But unfortunately for Alessandro, she was.
‘I don’t need amanto deal with stuff for me,’ she said sharply.
Frankly she was sick of men. It was because of a bloody man she was in this pickle to start with. Eternal spinsterhood was looking like a damn fine alternative these days. Although the presence of a six-foot-nine Neanderthal next time she visited her half-complete unit did hold some appeal.
He held up his hands in surrender, clearly not wanting to get into a debate about gender roles, which was a good thing because she was suddenly in the mood for a fight and they should be trying to preserve oxygen.
Changing tack, he asked, ‘Have you not got family here you can stay with?’
Nat shook her head. ‘All my family live in Perth. In Western Australia. I’ve only been in Brisbane for six months.’
‘You are a long way from home, Nathalie.’
His accent softened her name and gave it an exotic edge plain old Nat had never possessed. Coming from his lips it sounded all grown up. No girl-next-door connotation. No one-size-fits-all, unisex, if-only-you’d-been-a-boy name.
In one breath he’d feminised it.
And right then, sitting on the floor in the gloom of a broken-down lift, she could see how women fell in love at first sight. Not that she was doing that – she wasn’t quite that stupid. Not any more. After Rob she knew better than to get involved with a man who was in love with another woman. Even a dead one. And Alessandro Lombardi was obviously still deeply in love with his wife.
He’d let down his guard enough before to give her a glimpse of the heartbreak behind the gaze that looked as if it had been hewn from arctic tundra, and she’d be ill-advised to put herself in the middle of all that unresolved grief.
Raising an eyebrow, she injected a note of sarcasm. ‘I’ma long way from home?’
‘Touché,’ he murmured then chuckled. Actuallychuckled. The sound slithering across the floor of the lift like a serpent, inching up her leg, under her skirt, gliding across her belly and undulating up her spine, stroking every hot spot in between.
She was one giant goosebump in three seconds flat.
The ease with which it had enveloped her was shocking but she clamped down hard on her errant body. Sonotgoing there. She shifted her gaze to the floor – a much safer place for it – and they sat in silence for long moments. Nat tapped her phone screen to check the time.
How much longer?
‘So,’ he said, ‘why did you leave Perth? Was there a reason or did you have a crashing desire to see more of your country?’
Nat wasn’t sure why he felt the need to converse but maybe making small talk would halt errant thoughts from evolving. ‘I had a fancy to see the sun rise over the ocean.’
It was flippant but the subject definitely didn’t fit under the category of small talk.
