The endless silence pulsed with fierce undertones.
I cannot believe I am even having this conversation with you! Alessio gritted with ferocious abruptness.
I suppose its comforting to know that you havent changed. Youre still a two-timing, oversexed, immoral rat, Daisy muttered in a choky little voice, valiantly fighting off the threat of the tears damming up behind her burning eyes, ready to spill over.
I am none of those things! Alessio blistered back at her.
Creep, Daisy spat, making a dive to get out of the car. You really are one lousy creep to do this to me! Do you think Im a whore or something? Do you think I dont know youre trying to humiliate me?
A strong hand suddenly whipped out to capture one of hers, holding her back. It was an unfortunate impulse. I dont know what came over me. Call it temporary insanity if you like, he growled savagely. Im sorry!
Let go of me!
He did, and Daisy wrenched open the door and almost fell out onto the pavement, sucking in a great gulp of fresh air as she did so. She was shaking like a leaf. She took a tottering step away from the limousine, her gait that of someone who had escaped a traumatic brush with death.
And its really pathetic to still be shooting the same lines at your age! she slung back at him for good measure.
Dio...will you keep your voice down? Alessio roared at her, causing an elderly lady walking an apricot poodle to step off the pavement with a frown of well-bred disapproval and give the two of them a very wide berth.
Daisy stole a glance at Alessio, took in the shaken look of uncertainty currently clouding his normally sharp-as-paint gaze and grew in stature with the knowledge that he was handling their unexpected encounter no better than she was. Memories from their volatile teenage years and the effects of shock were driving a horse and cart through any effort they made to behave like civilised, intelligent adults.
Look, do you want to see this house or dont you? she asked stiffly.
If you will control your tongue and stop hurling insults, I see no reason why we should not deal with this on a normal business footing, Alessio drawled with icy control.
CHAPTER TWO
AN HOUR and a half later, Daisy surveyed the elegant hall of the Georgian house for the hundredth time and wondered how much more time the owners would spend entertaining Alessio. Her presence had not been required to give the grand tour, oh, dear, no!
The Raschids had stayed in specially when they had leamt that Alessio Leopardi was coming to view their beautiful home. Mr Raschid was a diplomat and apparently had met Alessio at an embassy dinner last year. Eager to renew that acquaintance, the couple had lost no time in telling Daisy to wait in the hall, while assuring Alessio that they would give him a far more interesting tour than she could. Well, she would have been rather out of her depth in a three-way conversation taking place in Arabic.
Alessio hadnt looked at her again. Suddenly she had acquired all the invisibility of a lowly maid. And that was how it should be. Like the Raschids, he was a client, just another client, and clients, particularly very wealthy ones, frequently treated the agency staff as something slightly less than human. When she thought about it, their romance thirteen years ago had broken all the class and status rulesAlessio the adored only son of the Leopardi banking dynasty and Daisy the au pair working down the road from his familys palatial summer villa.
They had not one single thing in common. Alessio had grown up as part of a close-knit,
supportive family circle but Daisy had lost both her parents by the time she was six. Her elderly grandparents had brought her up. Her entire childhood had been filled with loss and death and sudden change. She had never had security. Illness and old age had taken everyone she cared about until her mothers sister had taken her turn of guardianship when Daisy was sixteen. A career teacher in her late thirties, Janet had encouraged her niece to be more independent than her own parents had allowed. But she had been dubious when Daisy had initially suggested spending the summer before her final year at school working as an au pair.
I bet you land a ghastly family who treat you like a skivvy and expect you to slave for them day and night, Janet had forecast worriedly.
In fact, Daisy had been very lucky. The agency had matched her up with a friendly, easygoing couple who owned a small villa in Tuscany and went there every summer with their children. The Morgans had given her plenty of time off and Liz Morgan had gone out of her way to see that Daisy met other young people. The very first week, Daisy had been invited to the party where shed met Alessio.
He had roared up on a monster motorbike, sheathed in black jeans with a hole in one knee and a white T-shirt. Tousled, curly ebony hair had been blown back from his lean, vibrantly handsome features and an entire room of adolescent girls had gone weak at the knees with a collective gasp. What was more, his own sex had clustered round him with equal enthusiasm. Alessio had been hugely popular, the indisputable leader of the pack.