LYNNE GRAHAM - Second-Time Bride

Giles cleared his throat uneasily. ‘I’m afraid that there isn’t anyone else available this morning. If it wasn’t for this—’ he frowned down at the clumsy plaster cast on his foot ‘—I would have been delighted to personally escort you round the Blairden property. As it is—’

‘Alessio... if we don’t get a move on, I’ll be late for my booking,’ the blonde complained petulantly, unfolding lithely from her chair to reveal a height very little short of Alessio’s six feet three.

The woman was a model—a very well-known model, Daisy recognised belatedly, her dazed eyes scanning that impossibly perfect bone structure. She had seen that same face on countless magazine covers. And what had Giles said her name was? Like a sleepwalker, she moved forward and extended her hand. ‘Miss Franklin...’

Manicured fingertips brushed hers only in passing. Bored green eyes flicked dismissively over her. The blonde slid her hand into Alessio’s in a gesture of possessive intimacy and curved right round him to whisper something in his ear, her other hand moving caressingly up over his chest to curve finally to one broad shoulder.

Daisy went rigid and stared. Then abruptly she looked away, but every nerve in her body screamed as she did so. For a split second, as her own fingers had closed tightly in on themselves, she had been tempted to thrust their bodies apart. That insane urge shook her inside out.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll brief Miss Thornton.’ Giles closed a taut hand round Daisy’s elbow and practically pulled her out into the corridor.

His heavy features were flushed and angry. ‘What’s the silent act in aid of? No wonder the bloke wasn’t impressed! Don’t you know who he is?’

Daisy studied the wall opposite.

‘The Leopardi Merchant Bank...that’s who he is! I mean, you just stood there gawking at him! Hell’s teeth, why does the richest client we’ve had in months have to come through the door the one and only day Barry’s away sick?’ Giles groaned in disbelief.

And it couldn’t be happening to a nicer person, Daisy found herself thinking, because it was easier to think about that than to think of what had just happened. Of all the estate agencies in the London area, why had Alessio had to choose this one? Was it because of the grovelling service Giles offered to the well-heeled? Alessio was so rich that he would get that kind of service anywhere. Her temples pounded with sick tension.

‘Hey...you’re not coming down with this blasted virus too, are you?’ Giles demanded, taking an almost comically fast step back from her.

‘No...’ Daisy finally found her voice again. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Then what’s the matter with—?’ Giles fell abruptly silent as the door behind her opened.

‘Since we’re in a hurry, Miss Thornton’s services will be adequate,’ Alessio asserted flatly.

Goose-flesh prickled along the nape of Daisy’s neck. She didn’t turn round even though she could see Giles regarding that scarcely civil oversight with a fresh look of incomprehension. Adequate? Her teeth clenched. Fierce resentment, backed by a rolling tide of humiliation she didn’t want to admit to, flared through her taut length.

Thirteen years ago she had been unceremoniously dumped and she had done nothing to deserve Alessio’s brutally dismissive reaction to her in front of her boss and his girlfriend. Was it embarrassment? Or was he, just like her, fighting off a distressing surge of adolescent memories? Don’t kid yourself, Daisy, a more cynical voice urged. Even at nineteen, Alessio Leopardi didn’t have a sensitive bone in his body...

Rigid-backed, Daisy descended the wrought-iron spiral staircase that ran down to the ground floor, and walked out through the crowded front office. Her legs felt as if they might fold beneath her at any moment. A deep trembling was beginning inside her. Shock was setting in hard. As she emerged out onto the pavement and began turning in the direction of the staff car park, Alessio drawled from behind her, ‘We’ll use the limo.’

‘Of course,’ she managed half under her breath.

‘So tell us about this house,’ Nina Franklin invited thinly as Daisy slid stiffly along the indicated seat opposite her.

Daisy’s lips parted and closed again. She knew virtually nothing about the property in Blairden Square, not even if there were any offers on it. Since Giles had never allowed her to deal with what he termed the ‘superior residences’ on the agency books, she had had no reason to take any interest in them. Starter homes and apartments were generally her field. But had she been in her right mind she would have checked out the facts before she’d left the office.

A glossy brochure landed squarely on her lap. She jumped. Startled violet eyes switched to the male she had been rigorously avoiding looking at.

‘Time to bone up,’ Alessio said very drily, his expressive mouth as hard as iron.

‘You’re not very efficient, are you?’ his companion remarked in cutting addition. ‘High-powered sales routines are painful but total ignorance is something else again!’

Daisy had coloured but she tilted her chin. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t dealt with this particular property before—’

‘It’s a Georgian terrace,’ Alessio slotted in gently. ‘But don’t worry about it. We can read too.’

Daisy bent her head, his smooth derision stinging like acid on her over-sensitive skin. Why was he treating her like this? Alessio was blunt but he had never been a boor. She didn’t understand his apparent need to humiliate her. Surely he couldn’t still be blaming her after all these years? And it was so ridiculous to be forced to pretend that they were strangers. Was that her fault...or his? He had made no attempt to acknowledge their previous relationship either. But then why should he have? Why should either of them want to? That relationship was all but lost in the mists of time, she told herself, until intelligence intervened. How could that long-ago summer ever be lost for her when she had Tara? Her stomach cramped again into even tighter knots.

The buzz of a mobile phone broke the tense silence. Daisy didn’t lift her head. But she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t even begin to study the brochure. It was as if her whole brain had gone into a state of suspended animation, as if the world had stopped dead the instant she’d glanced up and seen Alessio in Giles’s office. No longer the long, lean youth she recalled but, if anything, even more heartbreakingly handsome...

He had level dark brows, cheekbones sharp enough to cut concrete, an aristocratic blade of a nose, lustrous tawny eyes and a head of glossy black hair, now ruthlessly suppressed into a smooth cut and infinitely shorter than she recalled. His hard-boned features were intensely male, his wide, beautifully shaped mouth pure sensual threat. He could smile and steal your heart with one scorching, teasing glance...but that had been the boy, not the man, Daisy reminded herself painfully.

She flinched as Nina Franklin gave an explosive little shriek of annoyance and thrust the mobile phone back into her capacious bag.

‘I can’t stay!’ she told Alessio furiously. ‘Joss needs me now. I could scream but how can I refuse? He’s done me too many favours. You might as well let me out here. I can walk to the studio faster than you can get me there in this traffic! Look, I’ll try to make it over to the house before you leave.’

‘Relax...it’s not important,’ Alessio murmured soothingly.

‘I could strangle Joss!’ the blonde exclaimed resentfully, and then her green eyes landed on Daisy and hardened to accusing arrows of steel. ‘If you had been on time, this wouldn’t be happening!’

‘Perhaps you would prefer to cancel and make a fresh appointment?’ Daisy suggested with an eagerness she couldn’t conceal.