the moment he’d sighted her across the ballroom, he’d known. The awareness he’d experienced looking at her photo was nothing compared with tonight’s instant gut-deep certainty.
This woman was his.
Alessandro tossed back the espresso his butler had brewed, feeling the shot of caffeine in his blood.
His earlier flash of memory told him they hadn’t parted amicably. Hell, she’d walked out on him! No other lover had ever done that.
Yet he knew with absolute certainty there was still something between them. Something that accounted for the nagging dissatisfaction that had plagued him since the accident.
Why had they separated?
He intended to discover everything about the yawning blankness that was his memory of the months preceding his accident.
He refused to let her escape till he had answers.
From the moment he’d held her, the sense of unfinished business between them had been overwhelming. Even now he felt the low-grade hum of awareness, waiting for her.
There was more too. Not just the immediate sense of connection and possessiveness. There was an inner turmoil that surely must be long-dormant emotions.
He’d watched her, listened to her, and been dumbstruck by the intensity of his conflicting feelings.
Alessandro had harnessed all his willpower to drive himself to recover from his injuries and turn around the faltering family business. He’d blocked out everything but the need to haul the company from the brink of disaster. Everything else had been a pallid blur.
Until now no one had come close to breaking through his guarded self-possession. Not his step-mother, not the many women angling for his attention. Not his friends.
Despite his wide social circle, he was a loner like his father. The old man had isolated himself, focusing only on business after his first wife’s betrayal and desertion.
As a result Alessandro had learned the Mattani way early, concealing his boyish grief and bewilderment behind a façade. Over the years that façade of calm had become reality. He’d developed the knack of repressing strong emotions, distancing himself from personal vulnerability.
Until tonight. When he’d come face to face with Carys Wells. And he’d…felt things. A stirring of discontent, desire, loss.
He frowned. He had no time for emotions.
Lust, yes. He was no stranger to physical desire. That was easily assuaged. But the disturbing sensations churning in his belly were unfamiliar, caused by something more complex.
A knock sounded on the door. Grateful for the interruption to his unpalatable thoughts, Alessandro put down his cup and turned as the butler crossed the foyer.
Alessandro was surprised to register his shoulders stiffening, locking as tension hardened his stance.
Since when had he, Alessandro Mattani, experienced nerves? Even when the specialists had shaken their heads over his injuries, referring to complications and a long convalescence, all he’d felt was impatience to get out of hospital. Especially when he’d learned the impact his accident, so soon after his father’s death, had caused.
The commercial vultures had begun circling, ready to take advantage of the mistakes his father had made in those last months and of Alessandro’s incapacity.
‘Ms Wells, sir.’ The butler ushered her into the sitting room.
She stood as if poised for flight, just inside the door. Once more that shock of connection smacked him square in the chest. He rocked back on his feet.
Jerkily she lifted a hand to smooth her hair, then dropped it as she caught his scrutiny.
Tension, palpable and vibrating, strung out between their locked gazes.
Carys Wells looked out of place in the opulence of Melbourne’s most exclusive hotel suite. Unless, of course, she was here to provide a personal service to the occupant. Delivering a message or bringing room service.
Alessandro’s thoughts jagged on the sort of personal service he’d like her to provide.
It didn’t matter that he knew any number of more beautiful women. Clever, high achievers who combined chic style, business savvy and an eagerness to share his bed.
Something about Carys set her apart.
Her curves would horrify the perpetually dieting women he knew in Milano. Her dark hair was severely styled, if you could call scraping it back into a bun a style. Her make-up was discreet, and she wore a sensible navy suit that no woman of his acquaintance would be seen dead in.
Yet the way her face had lit with emotion earlier hinted at a more subtle attractiveness. And those legs…The sight of her shapely calves and trim ankles in high heels and dark stockings tugged at his long-dormant libido.
Alessandro’s hands flexed. He wanted to explore further, to discover if her legs were as sexy all the way up.
Instinct—or was it memory?—told him her legs were superb. Just as he knew he’d found pleasure in her neatly curved figure and her deliciously full lips.
Belatedly he dragged his gaze from the woman who’d lured him halfway around the world.
The way she sidetracked him was unprecedented. One way or another he had to get her out of his system.
‘Grazie, Robson. That’s all for tonight.’
The butler inclined his head. ‘There are refreshments on the sideboard should you require them, sir, madam.’ Not by so much as a flicker did he indicate he knew the woman before him to be a co-worker. Then he moved silently away towards the kitchen and the staff entrance.
‘Please—’ Alessandro gestured to the nearby lounge ‘—take a seat.’
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to accept. Finally she walked across the antique carpet to sit in a cavernous wing chair. The glow of lamps lit her face, revealing a tension around her pursed lips he hadn’t noticed before. She looked tired.
Alessandro flicked a look at his watch. It was very late. He’d become accustomed to working long into the night, fuelled by caffeine and his own formidable drive.
Conscience niggled. He should have left this till tomorrow. But he’d been unable to ignore the edgy frustration that drove him relentlessly. He was so close he couldn’t rest till he had answers from her.
He’d already been stymied once. Alessandro had confronted her at the ball only to find he’d been robbed of composure and even the power of speech by a shocking blast of recognition. He’d frozen, the one thought in his atrophying mind to hold her and not let her go.
The completeness of that instant of vulnerability had stunned and shamed him. Never had he felt at such a loss. Not in business. Definitely not in his dealings with women.
Now he was himself once more. It would not happen again.
Alessandro Mattani did not do vulnerable.
He thrust aside the momentary doubt at his tactics and strode across to the sideboard.
‘Tea, coffee?’ he offered. ‘Wine?’
‘I don’t want anything.’ She sat straighter, her chin hitched high in unspoken defiance. That spark of rebellion brought colour to her cheeks and made her eyes sparkle.
Alessandro paused, watching fascinated as she transformed from drab to intriguing in an instant. Then he turned, poured himself a small measure of cognac, and took a seat opposite her.
All the while she watched him with those luminous eyes that had captivated him the moment he saw her.
What did she see? Was she cataloguing the differences in him? It surprised him to discover how much he wanted to read her thoughts. Know what