Free Enthralled by Moretti by Cathy Williams

tell me—you were drawn to her because of your “care in the community” approach to life.’
    ‘I’m glad you think it’s funny to want to help other people!’
    ‘I don’t. I think it’s admirable. Like I said, I just find the sentiments hard to swallow when they’re coming from you.’
    ‘If I’m such an awful person, why are you taking me out to lunch? Why didn’t you let me find my own way back? The sale’s agreed. Your legal team could take it from here on in.’
    ‘But then I would miss out on the pleasure of watching you.’
    Chase flushed and wondered whether he was being serious or not. She told herself that she didn’t care and squashed the unwanted sliver of satisfaction it gave her when she thought of him watching her and enjoying it. Suddenly, it felt safer to talk about Beth than to sit in silence, as he looked at her, and speculate on all sorts of things that threw her into confusion.
    ‘Her parents were both really well off,’ she blurted out, licking her lips nervously and wishing he would just stop looking at her in that pensive, brooding way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. ‘They were missionaries. Beth says that as though it’s the most normal thing in the world.’
    She began to relax and half-smiled as she remembered the conversation they had had years ago when she had first met her. ‘I mean, they didn’t want to convert anyone, but they wanted to help people in the third world. They rented out their house, which is now the shelter, and took themselves off to Africa where they spent their own money on various irrigation and building projects. In fact, there’s a plaque dedicated to them in one of the little villages over there.’
    ‘Good people.’ Alessandro thought of his own feckless parents and marvelled at the different ways money could be spent.
    ‘They returned to London to live when Beth was a child. I think they wanted her educated over here. Maybe they thought that they had done what they had set out to do. At any rate, they found that they couldn’t just do nothingonce they’d come back, so they did lots of volunteer work at various places. They were both in their fifties by then. They’d had Beth when they were quite old. Beth went to university and studied to become an engineer, but found herself drawn to helping others, and when her parents died and she inherited the house and land, the stocks and shares and stuff, she turned the house into a shelter and hasn’t looked back.’
    ‘So effectively it’s really the only house she’s ever lived in and the only work she’s ever done.’
    ‘Yes. So there you have it. I don’t suppose you can really understand what makes someone like Beth tick.’
    ‘Do me a favour and stop trying to pigeon-hole me because I happen to have a bit of money.’
    ‘A bit of money? You’re as rich as Croesus.’ They were now in front of the restaurant and Chase stared down at her formal working suit in dismay. ‘I don’t feel comfortable dining in a place like this wearing a suit.’
    ‘Don’t wear the jacket and undo the top three buttons of the shirt.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ She looked at him, her cheeks bright red, and he grinned at her. A full-on charming grin that knocked her sideways. It was that same grin that had turned her life on its head eight years ago and had made her continue to see him even though everything in her had been screaming at her to stop.
    ‘You heard me.’ He stepped out of the car and leaned through to give his driver instructions; when he straightened, it was to see that the prissy jacket, at least, had been left behind in the car.
    ‘What about the buttons?’ he asked, with the same sexy grin that made her toes curl and her skin feel tight and prickly.
    He didn’t give her time to think about it. With their eyes still locked, he undid the offending buttons. The softness of her skin under the starchy top... The glimpse of a cleavage... His breath caught sharply