Chapter Two #2
He was a man who never acted on impulse but he had been forced into doing so.
Did he think that she would now somehow use the situation to blackmail him?
All the cards were in his favour because if he decided to launch some sort of lawsuit against her, then he’d win, hands down.
It wouldn’t just be a case of her getting the sack and losing her cleaning job.
Her lips thinned as she fought to contain her temper.
‘Give me what? The right to try and get money out of you? Even though you already made sure to tell me that I’d be in trouble if I didn’t go along with your make-believe scenario that we knew one another?
That you would be willing to involve the authorities?
Honestly? I don’t think trying to get money out of you would be worth a stint in prison. ’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I told you. My housemate has chickenpox and I had nowhere else to go. Well, I suppose I could have shelled out for a room in one of the hotels but I haven’t got money to burn. That’s why…’
‘That’s why what?’
‘That’s why this cleaning job means a lot to me.
You don’t have to worry about me blabbing.
I won’t breathe a word to my housemates or to anyone.
I would just be grateful to hang onto this job.
I’m good at it and I enjoy it. It’s peaceful cleaning this house and the pay is amazing.
I know I should have asked the agency whether I could make use of the house while Alison got over the chickenpox but… ’
‘Naturally they would have said no. I meant, why are you here? In Whistler? When you’re English.’
‘I thought you weren’t interested.’
‘If my ex-wife asks one or two obvious questions, then it would be convenient if I had the truth to hand. I doubt that will happen but preparation is the master of success.’
‘So you’re not actually interested…’
‘No.’
‘It’s personal.’
‘It wasn’t personal five minutes ago when you began volunteering the information. Talk fast, Georgie. Time’s moving along. I need to get things sorted.’
‘Well… I was working in Val d’Isère and…’ Suddenly it did feel very personal, if she were really to tell him what had happened. Suddenly it felt like yesterday. Hans…the hurt…her wounded pride…the humiliation she’d done well to hide.
‘And I fancied a change,’ she said, lowering her eyes.
‘It gets claustrophobic after a while, hanging out with the same people. It’s a tiny crowd.
I wanted a change and Alison, who’d worked the slopes with me there for a year, had returned here to Whistler to pick up where she left off.
She knew I needed a…wanted a change and she pulled some strings and here I am now. ’
Her voice petered off into silence and, for a few seconds, it felt as though his dark eyes could get to the very depths of her and pull out truths she hadn’t told.
‘So,’ she said lamely.
‘It was quick thinking to pull those keys out.’ He changed the conversation with a slow, amused smile that made her go a little weak at the knees.
Why was she having this reaction to him? She hated it. She had sworn off men. One day she would find herself walking back to them, looking for a partner, but right now? Right now, she couldn’t be less interested.
She ignored the smile and the warm, fuzzy feeling his half-baked compliment had given her.
‘I don’t have any intention of asking you for anything, Mr Barbieri.’
‘You can call me Alessandro.’
‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that. I don’t like being on a first-name basis with someone who’s just threatened to set the police on me.’
‘I didn’t think I’d progressed to threats and I’m afraid you’ll have to try because my ex-wife will be here this evening and will be spending the night before leaving first thing tomorrow.
Between now and then I expect you’ll meet her again, if only briefly, and, considering she thinks we’re an item, calling me Mr Barbieri might not be appropriate and, yes, if you don’t go along with that then there might very well be consequences. ’
‘Why is it so important? That I… I…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘I get your curiosity, Georgie, but the why doesn’t matter here.
I appreciate you’re confused but that doesn’t negate the fact that you’re in my chalet without my permission and what’s at stake here is important enough for me to tell you that your best option is to fall in line with what I say.
No further explanations will be forthcoming.
Tomorrow I’ll be leaving and your life can carry on as though this interlude had never happened.
’ He paused. ‘In fact, I’ll make sure you get a generous pay rise. ’
‘No need,’ Georgie said quickly. ‘I’m already paid more than enough.’
‘I doubt you mean that.’
‘Of course I do! I don’t suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘that you know how much you actually pay me, do you? Because it’s all through an agency, but trust me when I tell you that it’s a huge amount for cleaning an empty house once a week.’
Alessandro stared at her, head tilted to the side, allowing the silence to build, then he stood up and continued looking down at her.
‘I will tell you how things are going to move forward at this point,’ he said slowly.
‘I’m going to go downstairs and finalise what requires finalising.
You are going to remain right here, safely tucked away under my watchful eye.
You’re going to go and fetch your possessions, whatever you’ve brought here, and transfer them to my bedroom, which we will be sharing tonight.
It’s the one with the locked doors. You’ll find the key…
’ he nodded in the direction of a cupboard to the right of him ‘…in the safe there. Combination 1884.’
‘I’m not sharing a bedroom with you!’
‘I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter.’
‘I do!’
‘Tell me what your choice is. I’m curious.’
Georgie looked at him with a downturned mouth.
Did she have a choice? No. Not really. Of course, she could lose her job and that would be unfortunate but bearable.
She could, however, lose everything here and, worse than that, he could summon in the police and rightfully accuse her of breaking and entering, key or no key.
She paled at the vision of herself malingering in a cell somewhere, with only a handful of rats for company. Hadn’t there been a film about that?
‘Good. We’re in agreement. Normally, as you might have guessed,’ he mused, ‘I would be concerned that you might be tempted to trade a juicy story for money, whatever you have to say about being as quiet as the grave, but you’re smart enough to realise that to do so would bring the full force of my displeasure down on you. ’
Alessandro allowed that to sink in. Should he consider getting her to sign an NDA? It would mean involving a lawyer and he didn’t want that. Besides, gut feeling told him that any threat of getting the police involved was enough to guarantee her co-operation.
‘This evening, you can stay put.’ He frowned. ‘Have you eaten anything?’
‘I was on my way to get myself some dinner when I was hijacked.’
‘Hijacked. Provocative word. I can’t remember any woman accusing me of hijack before. In fact, I’d say that there were quite a few times when it felt enjoyably the other way around. Okay. I can bring something up for you. I’m assuming that, as you’ve set up camp here, the fridge is nicely stocked?’
Georgie was torn between thinking about him being hijacked by a woman, ‘enjoyably hijacked’, whatever that meant, and the food she had bought and nonchalantly left in the fridge when she’d been busy treating the mansion like her own private playground.
‘I only planned on staying a few days, like I told you,’ she mumbled, ‘so, no, there isn’t heaps of food and there’s no need to bring me anything. I find that I’ve completely lost my appetite.’
Alessandro shrugged and stood up.
‘Suit yourself. I’m going to head downstairs now and I’ll see you later, nicely settled in my bedroom where I can keep an eye on you. And don’t worry, there won’t be any bed sharing. You can make yourself at home on the sofa in the sitting room in my suite.’
‘The sofa?’
‘That’s right. You don’t think that I’m about to give up my bed for someone who shouldn’t be in my house in the first place, do you?
’ He looked at her incredulously. ‘At any rate, you will probably cross paths with Sophia tomorrow morning for five minutes and, once she’s gone, you’ll be free to return to the slopes and carry on doing whatever you’ve been doing there.
I’m assuming you do do something for the remainder of the week when you’re not cleaning my house? ’
‘Is this another question you’re asking even though you’re not that interested in the answer?’
‘Correct. I was ending things on a polite note.’ He glanced at his watch then stared at her for a couple of seconds. ‘I’m not sure what time I’ll be back in the room. No need to wait up.’
With that he was gone and Georgie sprang into action.
She raced upstairs and gathered the scant belongings she had brought with her, making sure to leave the bedroom as neatly tidied as if no one had stepped foot inside.
Her head was all over the place. What was going on?
In a weird way, she was lucky that whatever was going on between him and his ex-wife had meant that he had had to involve her in a conspiracy.
If he’d just rocked up to find her in his house, she had no idea how he would have reacted.
She would probably have been promptly marched down to the nearest police station and tossed into a cell.
She thought about all the valuable artifacts dotted around the chalet and shuddered at the thought of him jumping to conclusions that she might have been after them.
As soon as she was in the master bedroom, she did a quick check on her computer and confirmed that he was, indeed, who he said he was.