It looked as if every step were a marathon. His mouth was set in a grimly determined line, every muscle in his arms bunched and quivering as they tried to hold his weight as he moved along the short distance across the floor.
Rachel hadn’t been aware of making a sound but she must have because he suddenly looked her way and growled at her, his expression savage, like a snarling dog. ‘Get out. Get the hell out of here!’
Her hand fell to her side, her chest feeling tight and restricted. ‘I’m sorry … I thought you wanted lunch at one …’
He gave her a cutting look. ‘I’m not hungry. Now leave.’
She swallowed convulsively as she took in the equipment surrounding him. Weight machines and bench presses, a treadmill that she suspected he hadn’t used in a while. All of it a reminder of what he had once been and might never be again. She had secretly admired the sculptured perfection of his muscles all those years ago. She had secretly admired him and compared him to the other men in her life: Craig, who was handsome but lacked definition, her father, who after years of excessive drinking and lack of exercise had become a bloated effigy of the striking-looking man he had once been. Alessandro had surpassed them easily; he always had. His touch had lingered like a memory in her flesh, catching her off guard, taking her by surprise, alerting her to the chemistry that simmered underneath the history of their tricky relationship.
‘I told you to get out, Rachel,’ he said, his mouth still flat and tight.
‘That looks like hard work,’ she said, refusing to be daunted, even though her legs were feeling as trembling and unsteady as his seemed to be.
His eyes darkened to midnight blue. ‘It is and I would rather not have an audience.’
She moved across to where a pulley with weights attached was hanging from a machine. ‘What’s this for?’ she asked, touching it experimentally.
She heard him draw in a harsh breath behind her. ‘It’s to maintain my upper body strength,’ he said.
She moved to the leg press machine, running a finger over the smooth shiny metal. ‘And this?’ she asked.
She heard him swear in Italian, a short sharp expletive that for some reason sent a trickling feeling to the base of her spine. Her mind exploded with erotic images of him making love to her, his body strong and in control, pumping, thrusting, filling her with his male presence, stretching her, taking her to the heights of human pleasure. Her face coloured as she realised where her thoughts were taking her.
‘I’ve never seen anyone get hot and sweaty before from just looking at gym equipment,’ Alessandro said drily.
Rachel turned away to inspect the hand weights, desperately hoping her colour would subside. She picked up the lightest pair of weights and did a couple of bicep curls. ‘I’ve never really got into the gym thing,’ she said. ‘I have friends who do several sessions a week. They get antsy if they don’t go. It’s like an addiction.’
‘There are worse things to be addicted to.’
She put the weights down and turned and looked at him again. ‘Yes, I suppose so …’
He was studying her, the hard angry look replaced now with a guarded one. ‘So what do you do to keep so trim and slim?’ he asked. ‘Hot and sweaty sessions with your latest lover?’
Rachel felt her face flame again. ‘I told you I’ve been too busy working on my label. I haven’t dated in a while. Actually, not since I broke off my engagement.’
His eyes registered her statement with a tiny flicker of surprise but then he covered it quickly. His voice when he spoke was cynical. ‘I somehow can’t picture you as a born-again virgin, Rachel. You were always starving for male attention. It didn’t matter who they were as long as you could get their notice. I fell for it and I can imagine many have done so since, more fool them.’
‘You’re never going to let it go, are you?’ she said.
His expression remained coolly calm, detached. ‘I suppose you are referring to my rather clumsy marriage proposal.’
Rachel’s heart was thudding as if she had just done a triple circuit of the equipment in the room with a half marathon thrown in as well. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to … to—’
‘To what?’ He cut her off almost savagely, his eyes blazing again. ‘To admit I loved you?’
She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘I was surprised, that’s all. I didn’t think people fell in love that quickly, or at least not men.’
He gave a grunt of derision. ‘I didn’t love you, Rachel,’ he said. ‘I was in lust with you, just like every other man who came within a bull’s roar of you. Didn’t your father tell you that about men? There are woman you love and there are women you lust after. You are the latter. You will always be the latter.’
Rachel knew her eyes, not to mention her expression, were probably showing much more than she would have liked. Had anyone ever truly loved her? Was it really true that Alessandro had only lusted after her and never seen her for the person she really was? It felt as if a wound inside her had been roughly opened up, exposed and seeping and bleeding all over again. Her father’s words about not loving her mother had haunted her for years. How could men be so cold and calculated about relationships?
‘Then why did you want to marry me?’ she asked after a short tense silence.
He gave her a look that more or less said it all. ‘You were my ticket to success,’ he said. ‘Marriage to you would have instantly elevated me to the higher echelons of society that had previously been denied me because of my less than desirable background.’
She fought hard to cover her hurt, her devastation, her disappointment that yet again some ruthless, unprincipled man had decided she was to be used as a means to an end. ‘But you made it without me,’ she said, thinking out loud. ‘You didn’t need me to achieve what you’ve achieved.’
He gave her a grim smile of satisfaction. ‘I did indeed make it without you, Rachel. I did indeed.’
She moistened her lips again, the cotton wool dryness making her feel slightly ill. ‘So why am I here now?’
‘Why do you think you are here now?’
She took an unsteady breath, not sure how to respond. She felt as if her world had tipped upside down and she had no way of righting it. ‘This is all about revenge, isn’t it?’ she said.
He gave her a veiled smile. ‘What possible way could I have revenge on you?’ he asked. ‘You are beautiful, you are talented, and you are on the pathway to the pinnacle of brilliant success.’
‘As long as I do what you say,’ she put in resentfully.
‘That is entirely up to you,’ he said, and turned back to the equipment. ‘I am not forcing you to do anything. I am prepared to back you but only as long as you play the role of my current mistress.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ she said.
‘Just be yourself,’ he said, and, clutching the rails, began forcing his legs into action.
She frowned as he moved along the short distance, each leg looking as if it were dragging a road train behind it. The beads of sweat broke out above his top lip and across his brow, and the muscles of his arms bulged with the effort of keeping himself upright. His legs moved inch by inch but it looked as if it took an enormous effort. He gritted his teeth and soldiered on, his eyes narrowed in determination.
‘Are you sure you should be trying so hard so soon?’ Rachel said. ‘Shouldn’t you be taking smaller steps or something?’
He looked up at her at that point, his expression caustic. ‘I don’t need your advice, Rachel. I have a team of physical therapists who help me with this. I have a programme I work through each day. Please leave me to get on with this. I don’t want you here.’
She