Page 26 of After-Party Consequences

‘Let me show you to the lakesideterrazza,’ she announced. ‘Where we have your evening meal waiting.’

‘But I didn’t order anything,’ Charley said hastily, a little less pleased as she calculated the cost of a meal in a place like this.

The woman glanced over her shoulder and smiled. ‘The meal is included in your accommodation, Signora Courtney.’ And, because she was clearly a mind-reader, added, ‘There is no extra to pay.’

‘Oh, okay,grazie,’ she said, not wanting to seem ungrateful—even though she wasn’t sure she wanted a meal. She’d been queasy all day and had hardly eaten. But maybe the lack of food was precisely why she felt so depleted? And the menu here was bound to be amazing. Perhaps it would tempt her appetite out of hiding?

Charley followed the woman past the empty dining tables. They walked through a pair of elegantly appointed glass doors. The view was even more breathtaking on the wide terrace which wrapped around the building, the red-and-orange glow of the sunset casting a redolent light over Lake Como and the centuries-old poplar trees, the water lapping gently against a private dock.

Charley sighed. The relaxed, perfectly appointed elegance of La Bella Grande was straight out of a luxury tourist brochure. The super-efficient receptionist led her to a single table, draped in white linen and laid with fine china and crystal stemware...for two people.

Charley frowned again as Alessia excused herself.

How odd.Was another one of the hotel’s guests going to join her?

Her exhausted brain was still trying to process the table setting when she heard footsteps. A tall figure appeared, silhouetted in the dying sunshine, at the far end of the terrace and strode towards her. She blinked.

Was she hallucinating? Because he moved just like...

Then the light from the dining room illuminated dramatic features—and a deep husky voice sent shock waves through her fatigued body.

‘Hello, Charlotte. About damn time you showed up.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

CADELANDRY?In Lake Como? What the...?

‘What are you doing in Italy?’ Charley finally managed to ask, her head starting to ache.

And why do you look so gorgeous?she thought, annoyed with her physical response to him. Still.

The catastrophic frown on his face gave her the answer before he replied.

‘I’m here to see you,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you hear we’re the new It Couple everyone back home is talking about?’ His tone was low and husky, reminding her too forcefully of their one night together, but there was carefully leashed fury beneath—and the ruthless bite of disapproval. ‘I’ve been taking the heat for three weeks for those photos. Now I’ve finally found you, I set up this meeting in private so we can get a few things straight.’

He sounded angry—reallyangry. And while she could sort of sympathise on one level—perhaps it had been a bit cowardly to throw him to the wolves, then high-tail it to Italy—his self-righteous tone, and the judgemental frown, had her own anger at the hurt he’d caused returning full force. Not to mention that he’d just completely ruined her surprise luxury lakeside break.

He must have been the one to pay for all this. It had never been a lucky coincidence, a heaven-sent reward for all her hard work over the past three weeks. It had simply been a billionaire’s trick to trap her so he could tell her off again, like he had four years ago.

Well, this time she wasn’t going to run off with her tail between her legs.

‘I get it. Soyou’rethe injured party now, are you?’ she hurled the accusation back at him. ‘When you were the one who chose to sleep with me on a bet?’

His scarred eyebrow launched up his forehead.‘What?’

‘You heard me. The asinine bet you made with my brother and his friend. I know all about it. Adam told me. The only-dating-one-woman-for-the-summer thing. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because you’re stuck with me now so you can win some stupid property deal. But tell me, when did you decide it wasn’t going to be me? That you would just use me and then discard me? While we were having the best sex of my life or before that? While you were deliberately seducing me with your dance skills?’

And why did you decide it couldn’t be me? That I wasn’t good enough?

The pathetic question echoed in her head, but she cut it off.

He’d made her feel cherished, and then he’d trashed it all. And hurt her, when she’d convinced herself long ago she couldn’t be hurt. It would be funny if it didn’t make her feel so exposed. How could she have fallen into the age-old trap of mistaking great sex for actual emotional engagement?

‘And as if that isn’t bad enough,’ she carried on, because he seemed to have been struck dumb by her offensive, ‘you bribed Carlo and Signor Chiesa to do your bidding. Of all the sneaky...’

‘Wait a damn minute,’ he roared, cutting off her outrage in full swing. ‘Youran out onme, not the other way around. And the bet had nothing to do with why I asked you to dance. Or why I slept with you. I wanted you and you wanted me and we were so damn good together I haven’t been able to forget you. And believe me, I’ve tried.’

She took some solace from his angry acknowledgement their lovemaking had been special for him, as well, but then he spoilt that, too.

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