His Poor Little Rich Girl Read Free Page B

modelling world when her name and reputation had been sullied in the very public fallout.
    The leather of Alessandro’s chair squeaked as he shifted his position. ‘How much are you after?’ he asked.
    Rachel’s heart gave a little stumble of surprise. ‘Y-you’ll do it?’
    His eyes remained steady on hers. ‘For a price.’ She tried to read his inscrutable look. ‘Interest, do you mean?’
    ‘Not interest, no.’
    She frowned. ‘I’m not sure I’m following you,’ she said. ‘It’s financial support I’m after at this point to carry me through to a successful launch in Europe. It will have to be drawn up legally, of course. I’m prepared to pay interest but not if it’s unreasonable. I can’t stretch myself too far. I have other commitments and—’
    ‘I am not talking about a loan,’ he said. ‘Consider it a gift.’
    Rachel’s insides gave a flip flop movement. ‘A … a gift?’
    His sapphire-blue eyes held hers. ‘With conditions.’
    ‘I can’t possibly accept a gift of money from you,’ she said.‘I insist on paying it back as soon as I can. It might take a while depending on how successful the launch is but—’
    ‘You misunderstand me, Rachel,’ he said. ‘I am not going to back your label.’
    She looked at him in confusion. ‘But I thought you said you were going to give me a gift of money?’
    ‘I am.’
    Rachel’s heart began to beat overtime. ‘But I don’t understand why you would want to do that,’ she said. ‘The last time we spoke …’ She cleared her throat, not really wanting to recall that dreadful scene on the night of her twenty-first birthday party.
    ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what the conditions are?’ he asked.
    Rachel chewed at her lip. ‘If you want me to apologise for how things turned out … urn … between us, then I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wanted to tell you about Craig and the expectation that one day we would marry. I
should
have told you. But as soon as you and I started dating I just couldn’t seem to do it. I didn’t want anything to spoil what we had …’
    He remained silent, his face now set in stone.
    She took a breath and continued, ‘I’ve had to work so hard to get this far, to be taken seriously after my modelling fiasco. I have people depending on me to make this work. I have staff with mortgages to pay and children to educate and feed. This isn’t just about me wanting to prove I can do it. It’s not just my money that will be lost if this falls over. My business partner has put everything she has into the company as well. I can’t let her down. She’s been a good friend to me.’
    Alessandro slowly drummed his fingers on the desk as he sat watching her shift from foot to foot. He had waited a long time to hear her apologise for choosing another man’s moneyover his love. But was she apologising out of desperation or real regret?
    He studied her features, drinking them in even though he had not for a moment forgotten how she looked. Her grey-green eyes were indelibly imprinted in his brain, so too was her shoulder-length glossy brown hair, the way it caught the sunlight at certain angles bringing out its natural highlights. She had aristocratic cheekbones, and a retroussé nose that gave her heart-shaped face an innocent, childlike air that was at odds with her true personality. She was all innocence on the outside but on the inside she had turned out to be a hard, conniving, conscienceless little opportunist just like every other gold-digger he had known.
    Her mouth was something else he had never quite forgotten, but, instead of it being imprinted on his brain, it was for ever imprinted on his lips. He could still feel that pillowy softness beneath his mouth, the way she had opened to him like an exotic flower to the sun. He could still taste the sensual heat of her, the heady temptation she had dangled before him until she had got tired of playing with the hired help and moved on to more affluent