look. ‘You would have to pay me a king’s ransom to become your latest mistress,’ she said.
Alessandro felt his lower spine zap with searing heat at her defiant words. His groin burned with the sudden flash fire of longing, a burgeoning heat that threatened to overthrow every bit of his resolve to have nothing to do with her. He had always wanted to tame her shrewish streak and now was a perfect opportunity to do it. ‘Dangerous words, Rachel,’ he warned silkily. ‘Don’t go throwing challenges down at me like that. I might just take you up on it.’
RACHEL glared at him. ‘People like you think you can buy anything you want, don’t you? But I am not selling myself, and certainly not to you.’
‘Sleeping rough not your thing any more, little rich girl?’ Alessandro asked with a mocking slant to his mouth.
She ground her teeth. ‘I am offering to work as your housekeeper, nothing else.’
‘I think it will be quite diverting to have you around waiting on me hand and foot,’ he said. ‘This is quite a change in circumstances, sì? I’ll have to find something really menial for you to do. I wonder if you will be able to handle it.’
Rachel hauled herself out of the pool with a strength she had not known she possessed. She flung her wet hair back from her face and glared down at him. There was something about him just sitting there with his long tanned legs dangling in the pool that sent her anger skyrocketing. He was acting so cool and collected, so calm and clinical, so in control—of her. ‘You bastard,’ she said through lips trembling with rage. ‘I bet you planned this right from the start.’
‘I haven’t planned anything, Rachel,’ he said in the same calm even tone. ‘I have simply offered you a business proposition. That is all this is: a temporary contract between us. Once Lucia is back you are free to go.’
She put her hands on her hips and continued to glare down at him. ‘So you’re not even going to consider backing my label?’
‘One thing you need to know about me, Rachel, is I don’t rush headlong into things without serious consideration,’ he said. ‘I am not putting my name to something that is not worthy of my time and commitment and hard-earned money.’
‘Will you at least look at my designs and my business plan?’ she asked.
‘I will consider it if you behave yourself.’
‘You mean if I sleep with you,’ she said with a hardened look.
His eyes slowly moved over her, leaving a smouldering path on her flesh in their wake. ‘Is that the way you normally conduct business?’ he asked.
‘No, of course not!’ Rachel said. ‘I just assumed you would want to—’
‘You should not assume anything when it comes to me,’ he said with one of his enigmatic barely there smiles.
Rachel felt emotionally stranded. What did he want from her if not to sleep with her? Their brief affair had not been consummated five years ago. Wouldn’t forcing her to sleep with him for money be the perfect revenge? In the past he had always only ever touched her once she had given him encouragement, which was more than she could say for her ex-fiancé who had seemed to think he could do anything he wanted whenever he wanted irrespective of her wishes.
But if Alessandro were to sleep with her he would find her a very poor partner, certainly nothing like the exotic and physically confident women he was used to. It would be so humiliating to have him find out how limited she was sensually. But for all her inadequacies sexually, she still felt an electrifying energy in the air when she was with him, an undercurrent of sensual heat that was visceral. She felt the dancing nerves of her skin when his eyes rested on her. She felt the stirring of her blood, the escalation of her pulse every time he spoke in that rich, deep, well-modulated voice of his. He was having a tumultuous effect on her senses that she could not in any way control. Was he aware of it? Was that his intention in having her here like this? To show her how it felt to be the one spurned? Why hadn’t she realised one day there would be a price to pay?
‘I will give you the rest of the day to think it over,’ Alessandro said. ‘I will have an agreement drawn up legally. It will be ready by dinner for you to sign.’
Rachel frowned at him. ‘An agreement? What sort of agreement? Why does it have to be so formal?’
‘By agreeing to live here with me for even a day or two you will be required to sign a contract that forbids you to speak to the press,’ he said.
‘You don’t trust my word?’ she asked.
‘You should go and shower,’ Alessandro said, ignoring her question. ‘You will burn if you stay in the sun any longer.’
‘Are you coming in now?’ Rachel asked, not really liking the feeling of being summarily dismissed.
‘No, I want to swim some more,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at dinner. I hope you can find your way around the kitchen. Lucia keeps it well stocked. I would like to dine at eight-thirty and I expect you to dine with me.’
‘Isn’t that a bit unusual?’ she asked. ‘You don’t take any of your meals with Lucia.’
‘This is an entirely different situation,’ he said. ‘You are here as a guest as well as a temporary employee.’
‘I’m not really a guest though, am I?’ she said. ‘You never wanted me here in the first place, or so you said.’
‘If I am not the most welcoming host you have only yourself to blame,’ he said. ‘But now that you are here I am prepared to make the best of it. I suggest you do the same.’
Rachel collected her dress and sandals but decided against dressing and instead took one of the towels that was lying on the sun lounge and used it like a sarong. She glanced back at the pool but Alessandro was still sitting on the edge looking at the water, a frown pulling at his brow. Her heart gave another tiny unexpected squeeze but she quickly shook off the sensation and walked back into the villa and up the staircase to her room.
She wasn’t sure why she went to the window but she found her feet taking her there as if they had developed a mind of their own. She looked down to the terrace below but there was no sign of Alessandro in the pool. He was no longer sitting on the edge either. There was no sign of him anywhere.
She moved towards the en suite but when she came out after her shower she could hear in the background the mechanical whirr of some kind of machinery from deep within the villa. A lift perhaps? She assumed it was Lucia leaving to go to her family. Maybe the housekeeper found the four flights of stairs too much given she had to keep the massive villa in order, which she seemed to do with meticulous care, Rachel thought as she looked longingly at the pristine bed.
A short nap before she started on dinner would hopefully prepare her for another verbal fight with Alessandro. She didn’t like admitting it but she was almost looking forward to it.
After her rest Rachel changed back into her linen trousers and top. She had no jewellery other than a tiny diamond pendant that had been her mother’s. She never went anywhere without it. She had no make-up to put on. Her cosmetics bag was inside her luggage, which had still not been located. She had a tube of lip gloss in her handbag, which made her feel marginally less unsophisticated. She pulled her hair back into an elegant chignon at the back of her head. It was her power hairdo; no stray hairs to make her look like a child that had just come in from playing in the back garden.
She walked down the staircase, her hand sliding down the cool marble as she went. She had to find her way to the kitchen on her own, but then she hadn’t been given a tour. Alessandro had been adamant about the two-day limit on her stay, but now with Lucia’s family crisis working in her favour she had a window of opportunity to change his mind about backing her. How to get him to change his mind was something that was certainly