MELANIE MILBURNE - Rich and Outrageous - His Poor Little Rich Girl / Deserving of His Diamonds? / Enemies at the Altar

‘Is it true?’ Alessandro repeated his question, each word enunciated with lethal precision.

Rachel schooled her features into the haughty mask she had used so many times to disguise her true feelings. ‘Yes, it’s true,’ she said. She gave Craig a tight smile and linked her arm through his. ‘We’re getting married.’

Alessandro didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. His anger was a palpable force. It was like a vibration in the room, invisible sound waves of fury. He gave Rachel a look of savage contempt before he moved past, closing the bedroom door with a snap that was as final as a punctuation mark.

Rachel blinked herself out of the past. She didn’t want to think about her shameful, cowardly behaviour. She didn’t want to think of the two years of hell with Craig, how he had cheated on her the whole time they had been together, how he had borrowed money in her name, falsifying her signature, leaving her up to the eyeballs in debt and her reputation in ruins. She didn’t want to think about the life she could have had with Alessandro. She might not have been in love with him at the time but she hadn’t been far off it. Now he hated her and he had every right to.

The villa was blissfully quiet. Rachel was used to a busy crowded workspace, people bustling about as she tried to get everything done that needed to be done. It was amazingly liberating to be left alone with just her thoughts for company, and not just her thoughts, but her creative energy. She found her mind suddenly buzzing with new designs, elegant, sophisticated and inspired by her exotic surroundings. She took out her sketchbook and drew some outlines, using quick fluid strokes that captured the essence of what she wanted to produce for her next collection, barely stopping until thirst and an aching gnaw in her stomach reminded her it was time to prepare lunch.

Once the meal was set up, this time on a shady part of the terrace, she went in search of Alessandro. He wasn’t in his study or in any of the sitting rooms. The pool was empty, for she had checked it as she had laid the outdoor setting on the terrace.

She walked past a room on the lower level that she hadn’t seen before. She opened the door without knocking. In one quick glance she could see the room was a gym. And then her eyes went to Alessandro, who was on some type of rehabilitation walking frame, beads of sweat on his brow as he forced one leg in front of the other. 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.