Читать книгу The Multi-Millionaire's Virgin Mistress - Кэтти Уильямс, CATHY WILLIAMS, Cathy Williams - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

IT HAD not been a satisfying meeting with Megan.

Alessandro stared out of his floor-to-ceiling office window at the busy, grey London streets five storeys below. Wet pavements were illuminated by lights, and everyone seemed to be laden down with shopping. The usual splurge of money-spending on presents—at least half of which would inevitably be returned to the shops on the first working day after Christmas because they didn’t fit the bill. He had already bought something for Victoria—a diamond necklace which had cost the earth and which he had dispatched his personal assistant to source with the guiding words that it should be classy and very expensive. His personal assistant was extremely efficient.

Thinking about Christmas presents made him think about the one and only Christmas present he had ever bought for Megan. A pair of tickets for a concert by a band she had been crazy about. A dark, intimate venue where the noise had made the walls vibrate. They hadn’t been able to stop grinning.

The memory surfaced seemingly from nowhere, and Alessandro frowned and thought back to his unsatisfactory meeting with Megan. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but the conversation had been awkward, forced, and the more awkward and forced it had become, the keener he had been to go beyond her polite responses and get the real flavour of the person sitting so stiffly opposite him.

He had left the house forty-five minutes after he had arrived, with the very clear impression that he had only been invited for a cup of coffee because she had found herself between a rock and a hard place, and that, having invited him in, she had been utterly uninterested in talking to him. Every word had been squeezed out of her, and each word had been less informative than the one before.

The woman hated him and couldn’t be bothered to hide the fact.

Having enemies was part and parcel of Alessandro’s life. Every successful man had his fair share. But his enemies would never have dared show their faces—and he had never known any woman to be less than madly in love with him! He knew that Megan had good reason. Just as he knew that breaking up with her at the time had been for her own good, whether she accepted that fact or not. There had been an innocence about her approach to life that would have been damaged had he dragged her along in his wake. He had made an attempt to tell her that, but she had listened to him politely, head cocked to one side, and then had said in a cool little voice, ‘Whatever.’

Nor had he been able to get her to talk about her private life. Was she seeing someone? He couldn’t imagine Megan making such a long-haul transfer, leaving behind her family, unless a man was involved. But when he had asked—out of genuine interest—all he had got was the same polite smile and, ‘That’s really none of your business, is it, Alessandro?’

Victoria’s call interrupted his frowning contemplation telling him that she and Dominic were in Reception.

Family outing number one—and Alessandro hadn’t objected because the outing in question was to the promised football game, which Dominic had followed up on with unexpected tenacity for a six-year-old kid. Football games didn’t usually feature high on Dominic’s agenda. His father lived in New York and only assumed a parental role once a year, for a fortnight when he came to London. And Alessandro certainly couldn’t see Victoria slashing her work commitments to take him to a football match, or even for that matter, arranging football lessons for him. She wouldn’t be able to commit to picking him up from them.

The vague feeling of dissatisfaction that had sat on his shoulders ever since he had bumped into Megan three days previously was dispelled slightly by a mental tallying of all the things he had in common with his fiancée—first and foremost their overriding work ethic.

It was all well and good for Megan to sit there with icy hostility stamped all over her face, as though he had single-handedly been responsible for coining the word bastard. What she didn’t realise was that long-term relationships were built on more than just fun and romance. In fact, when it came to marriage, it was far more likely to succeed as a business proposition.

It frustrated him that he hadn’t been able to convey that message to her three days ago. He might not now be scowling as he slung on his coat and headed for the elevator had he done so.

No one enjoyed being vilified for a crime they hadn’t committed, and Alessandro was no exception.

In fact, he decided, as the elevator doors pinged open and he spotted Victoria and her son sitting on the low olive-green and chrome sofa in the reception area, it was almost a good thing that he would be seeing Megan again. If he had a chance to have a word with her—he certainly wouldn’t be engineering any such thing, but if the situation arose—then he would tell her, politely but firmly, that they had both been kids when they had broken up. That it had been for the best. That it was ridiculous for her to be carrying a grudge after seven years.

He was barely aware of Dominic fidgeting next to him in the back seat of his Bentley, which his chauffeur was driving, and he only vaguely tuned in and out of Victoria’s conversation—which he would have to get back to later, because it involved an offshore deal he was working on at the moment.

In fact, he was finding that he was actively anticipating seeing Megan’s face when she realised that he had shown up to her football game. Trust Megan to have a hobby most normal women would steer clear of. He tried to picture Victoria in a football kit, running around on a field somewhere, but his imagination couldn’t stretch to it. She was impeccably well bred, impeccably dressed and utterly uninterested in sport—both playing and watching.

He reached behind Dominic and absent-mindedly caressed her neck, just as the car pulled up to the school grounds.

Caught up in a tackle, Megan briefly registered Dominic’s arrival before refocusing on the game.

She had known he would be coming because his mother had got her secretary to call her. She assumed the unfortunate nanny had been manoeuvred into this particular duty, and then forgot all about it for the remainder of the game—which was a very muddy, very physical, very invigorating one.

An hour later she walked across to three people barely visible because it was now so dark. She would have a two-minute chat with Dominic and maybe try and interest him in some football lessons—a plan which she had already mentioned to Robbie, the guy who coached at the school. In fact, coached at various schools.