The Truth Behind his Touch Read Free

Why involve yourself with someone three times your age unless you’re in it for the financial gain? Don’t tell me the sex is breathtaking?’
    ‘I can’t believe you’re saying these things!’ She wondered how she could have been so bowled over by the way he looked when he was obviously a loathsome individual, just the sort of cold, unfeeling, sneering sort she hated. ‘I’m not involved with your father in any way other than professionally,
signore
!’
    ‘No? Then what is a young girl like you doing in a rambling old house by a lake with only an old man for company?’
    Caroline glared at him. She was still smarting at the way his eyes had roamed over her and dismissed her as ‘nothing too beautiful’. She knew she wasn’t beautiful but to hear it casually emerge from the mouth of someone she didn’t know was beyond rude. Especially from the mouth of someone as physically compelling as the man sitting in front of her. Why hadn’t she done what most other people would have in similar circumstances and found herself an Internet café so that she could do some background research on the man she had been told to ferret out? At least then she might have been prepared!
    She had to grit her teeth together and fight the irresistible urge to grab her suitcase and jump ship.
    ‘Well? I’m all ears.’
    ‘There’s no need to be horrible to me,
signore
. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your meeting, or … or whatever you were doing, but I didn’t
volunteer
to come here.’
    Giancarlo almost didn’t believe his ears. People never accused him of being
horrible
. Granted, they might sometimes think that, but it was vaguely shocking to actually
hear
someone come right out and say it. Especially a woman. He was accustomed to women doing everything within their power to please him. He looked narrowly at his uninvited visitor. She was certainly not the sort of rakethin beauty eulogised in the pages of magazines. She was trying hard to conceal her expression but it was transparently clear that the last place she wanted to be was in his office, being interrogated.
    Too bad.
    ‘I take it my father manipulated you into doing what he wanted. Are you his housekeeper? Why would he employ an English housekeeper?’
    ‘I’m his personal assistant,’ Caroline admitted reluctantly. ‘He used to know my father once upon a time. Your father had a one-year posting in England lecturing at a university and my father was one of his students. He was my father’s mentor and they kept in touch after your father returned to Italy. My father is Italian. I think he enjoyed having someone he could speak to in Italian.
    ‘Anyway, I didn’t go to university, but my parents thought it would be nice for me to learn Italian, seeing that it’s my father’s native tongue, and he asked Alberto if he could help me find a posting over here for a few months. So I’m helping your father with his memoirs and also pretty much taking care of all the admin—stuff like that. Don’t you want to know … um … how he is? You haven’t seen him in such a long time.’
    ‘If I had wanted to see my father, don’t you think I would have contacted him before now?’
    ‘Yes, well, pride can sometimes get in the way of us doing what we want to do.’
    ‘If your aim is to play amateur psychologist, then the door is right behind you. Avail yourself of it.’
    ‘I’m not playing amateur psychologist,’ Caroline persistedstubbornly. ‘I just think, well, I know that it probably wasn’t ideal when your parents got divorced. Alberto doesn’t talk much about it, but I know that when your mother walked out and took you with her you were only twelve …’
    ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’ Intensely private, Giancarlo could scarcely credit that he was listening to someone drag his past out of the closet in which it had been very firmly shut.
    ‘How else am I supposed to deal with this situation?’ Caroline asked, bewildered and dismayed.
    ‘I am