Harlequin Presents--April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Dani Collins

  His defiance had been in vain. And now he could only do what must be done. He had no choice but to honour the vow he had made—no matter the cost.

  And it would cost him. But not just him.

  That was the bitterest part of all...

  * * *

  Jenna was in the schoolroom, sorting Amelie’s schoolbooks. There were no lessons now that she was at summer camp all day, so Jenna was packing them away, putting aside the ones she herself had brought to Italy and putting the rest into a cupboard. Her mood was heavy, and that feeling that something was wrong still assailed her.

  Mechanically, she went on, neatly putting Amelie’s exercise books in subject order.

  She heard Evandro’s distinctive heavy tread out on the landing before he opened the door. And as he did, for a split second she had a flashback to the moment when Bianca and her friends had departed and he had come striding in, seizing her up, crushing her into his arms. Making her his own.

  Then the memory was gone. He stood still inside the doorway, not coming forward. She paused in her actions and looked at him. His face was set, the deep lines scored around his mouth more pronounced than usual, and his expression was shuttered. Closed to her.

  A sudden dread consumed her.

  * * *

  ‘Jenna.’

  He said her name. Staccato, terse. He was forcing himself to say what he had to say—in the way that he must say it.

  ‘I’ve heard...’ he began, and the lie was forming in his head—the acceptable lie, the necessary lie. ‘I’ve heard from my aunt. She is my father’s older sister, and lives in Sorrento. She wants to meet Amelie—she’s never yet had the opportunity, as she disliked Berenice and the dislike was mutual—and of course I would like Amelie to meet her great-aunt.’

  He tried to make his voice sound reasonable, conversational.

  But she was standing there motionless, frozen, the colour slowly leaching from her face.

  She knows. She knows what I am doing.

  Emotion twisted inside him, savage and cruel, sinking its fangs into his own flesh. But he forced himself on—there was no other way. No other way to do this.

  ‘So, given that Amelie is now in summer camp, and when it finishes and before term starts I shall be taking her to Sorrento, this seems an opportune time for you to...’ He stopped. Made himself shrug though his shoulders felt like lead, crushing his lungs. ‘It’s been good, this summer with you,’ he said. ‘And I shall remember it with appreciation. But—’ He stopped again.

  She was looking at him, but it was in the way she’d looked at him when he’d brought Bianca here, when Jenna had sat as white-faced as she was now. As if she was looking at him not just across the schoolroom, but across the space that parted them...the space that they could now never cross.

  ‘You’ve moved on,’ she said.

  There was nothing in her voice—nothing at all. Nothing in her eyes or her face.

  They were the words he’d said to get Bianca out of his life. He nodded. It took all his strength to do so.

  Something changed in her face and she began to speak again. At first he did not hear her. Then he did.

  ‘When would you like me to leave?’

  He did not answer—could not. So she supplied the answer herself.

  ‘Today would be best, I think,’ she said. ‘Only—’ Her face suddenly constricted. ‘Amelie... Amelie will be upset. She’s become...become very fond of me...’ She shut her eyes. ‘And I of her,’ she whispered.

  She seemed to tremble, and it took all the strength he possessed to stay where he was.

  ‘I’ll make sure she understands,’ he said. His voice sounded curt, even to himself.

  He turned away. He could take no more of this. Not one fraction of a second more. He pulled open the schoolroom door again and was gone.

  And in his head he heard Berenice’s vicious, mocking laughter.

  * * *

  Behind him, unseen by him, Jenna slowly, very slowly, finished putting the exercise books into the cupboard, closed the door. Then slowly, very slowly, she sank to the ground, her arms clenched around her knees, tears flowing from her eyes, agony slicing across her heart.

  How can he do this to me? So brutally—so callously? Have I been nothing to him, nothing at all?

  Her eyes lifted in stark anguish. She remembered how ruthlessly he’d despatched Bianca from his life.

  He was kinder to her than he was to me—wishing her well...

  She gave a choke, her face buckling, tears scalding. Pain searing like red-hot pincers was breaking her heart in two with the agony of Evandro’s indifferent coldness—and the agony of her trampled love.

  * * *

  Amelie broke into a storm of weeping. Evandro had collected her at the end of summer camp and told her Jenna was leaving.

  ‘But I don’t want her to go! I don’t want her to!’ she sobbed wildly. ‘I want her to stay here with us, Papà!’

  Her tear-stained face pleaded with him, and little hands clutched at him desperately.

  ‘Get her back, Papà! Please, please get her back!’

  He pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. His heart wrung at her tearful grief.

  ‘I can’t, mignonne. I can’t.’

  She can never come back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JENNA LET HERSELF into her flat. It was airless and stuffy, so she went around opening the windows as mechanically as she’d sorted Amelie’s books that morning. As mechanically as she’d closed the schoolroom cupboard door after Evandro had left the room and her useless, pointless tears had dried. And as mechanically as she’d gone up to her bedroom and packed her clothes.

  Not the ones Evandro had bought her. They were not hers. They were for a woman she no longer was.

  The woman who longed for the heart’s desire she could never have. Who longed for a family she could never have. Who longed for love from a man who would never love her.

  Agony had sliced across her heart again—an agony she’d been able to do nothing about. Because there had been nothing more for her to do except what she’d been doing. Nothing more for her to say except what she had said.

  And one more thing. Something she could not leave undone.

  Suitcase shut, passport and wallet in her handbag, she had gone through into Amelie’s bedroom. Pain had twisted inside her—and pity for the child she was leaving, who would come home to find her gone.

  An ancient memory had haunted the edges of her mind—being told that her mother had been killed in a road accident. Told that she would be going to live with her father now, an unknown stranger to her.

  But Amelie’s father is not like mine. That is my comfort. She has a father who loves her dearly, as mine never did, who will always be there for her, always protect her, and for that she is blessed. And I was never her mother—only her teacher.

  So it was as her teacher that she had left her note for Amelie, saying how well she’d done in all her schoolwork, how she hoped the little girl would enjoy her new school in the autumn.

  I will always remember the lovely summer I spent here at this beautiful palazzo, with you and your papà. Be good, poppet, and look after your papà, for he loves you very, very much...

  She hadn’t been able to write any more, with her eyes blurring, tears scalding again. Tears for the little girl she had come to love whom now she would never see again.

  Nor would she see the man she loved either.

  Because she was invisible to him once again.

  * * *

  Evandro’s eyes went to Amelie, where she was playing with the dolls’ house he’d bought her in Naples. She was pushing furniture around, rearranging rooms, but her manner was listless,

  ‘She’s unhappy,’ his aunt said, following his line of gaze into her drawing room. They were sitting out on the
balcony of her spacious apartment overlooking the Bay of Naples. Her eyes came back to her nephew, waiting for an answer. An explanation.

  None came.

  ‘You told me she’d adjusted very well to life here with you in Italy,’ his aunt persisted. ‘So, why is she unhappy?’

  Evandro knew he must say something—but he also knew his aunt never minced her words. She certainly hadn’t about his marriage, taking an instant dislike to his bride when she’d met her for the first time on Evandro’s wedding day, and surveying with foreboding her young nephew’s dazzled expression as he’d poured champagne for Berenice, who’d tilted her head at him coquettishly, eyes glittering with seductive promise, keeping him in hapless thrall...

  ‘I repeat—why is the child unhappy?’

  His aunt’s sharp voice was insistent, breaking in on his grim reverie.

  Evandro sought to make his voice offhand. ‘She’s missing her teacher—the one I hired for the summer to bring Amelie up to scratch for starting school this autumn. That’s why I thought it a good idea to bring her here—to get to know you. I thought a change of scene might help.’

  His words rang hollow, and his aunt looked at him shrewdly.

  ‘There was an article,’ she said, with a speculative edge in her voice, her eyes never leaving him, ‘in one of those wretched tabloids you used to feature in so regularly once that witch of a wife was out of your hair, when you were always celebrating your freedom with some sultry piece or other! Except...’ her voice changed ‘...this last article was different. And so was the female it mentioned.’

  She looked at him, sipping her martini, waiting for his answer.

  Again, it didn’t come.

  She eyed him straight on. ‘It isn’t just Amelie who misses her teacher, is it?’

  He looked away, unable to meet his aunt’s too-perceptive eyes, but not before he saw her expression change.

  ‘You fool, Evandro! Oh, you fool!’ she said softly.

  But he did not need telling. He was fortune’s fool—and had been since the moment he had married Berenice.

  He was never to be free of her malignity.

  Never.

  * * *

  Jenna was job-hunting, scrolling through the vacant teaching positions advertised online. She would move away—out of London. North, south, east, west... It didn’t matter where.

  Because there was only one place where she longed to be. A place that was barred to her for ever now. Barred to her by the one man she wanted to be with. And never could be again. The one place she’d wanted with all her heart, all her being, to be her home...a place to belong to...to be part of... And the one man she’d wanted with all her heart, all her being, to be hers. And she his.

  She saw them, vivid in her mind, as real as if she were there. Saw the gracious palazzo, the sunlit terrace, the beautiful gardens, the shady woods above, the verdant valley below. Saw Loretta and Maria, bustling about, Signora Farrafacci sailing in her stately fashion through the beautiful rooms...and little Amelie running down the stairs, skipping along the terrace, riding her pink bicycle, handlebar ribbons flying, calling out in her piping voice, rushing up to hug her...

  And always Evandro—striding out to the terrace, lounging back in his dining chair at the head of the table, sweeping me into his arms, lowering his mouth to mine...

  She saw it all—but it was as if she were a ghost, drifting through the scene, seeing it but invisible to those in front of her. An outsider with no right to be there, no right to belong.

  No right to love them all...

  She gave a cry of anguish, pressing her hand to her mouth as if she could silence it. Silence all that clamoured within her—stifle and smother the searing agony of longing for what could never be again.

  * * *

  Evandro glanced at his watch. Amelie was staying on late at school today—something to do with choir practice, he recalled. He would fetch her later. Maybe take her out to supper. Something to cheer her up. Though she was settling down at the convent school, he still too often saw a doleful expression on her face.

  But at least she was mentioning Jenna less. He was grateful for that—and not just for Amelie’s sake.

  No, he would not go there. Refused to go back there. To that very last moment when he’d stood in the schoolroom and told Jenna what he had. Brief and to the point.

  It had been the best way to end it.

  And she had gone. Packed her bag and left the palazzo as if she had never been there. Slipping away quietly, self-effacingly. Just...disappearing.

  Invisible once more.

  Now it was just he and Amelie making their home here in the palazzo.

  He was doing his best to encourage Amelie to make new friends, exchange play dates, get involved with all the activities the school offered—like the choir practice she was at today.

  As for himself, he was working from the palazzo as much as possible, although he still needed to be in Turin sometimes as well—still needed to allow for some essential business travel. But Amelie was fine here with his housekeeper and the staff to look after her when he was away, and he always spent time talking with her on the phone every evening, always brought her back a little present when he came home to the palazzo.

  He was arranging his life around her, doing everything he could for her to ensure her happiness. Whatever had to be done.

  Everything that I have to. Everything. Whatever the cost.

  His mouth twisted, indenting the lines around it more deeply.

  A doting father indeed...

  With a jerking movement, he reached for the phone. He had business calls to make, and the afternoon was nearly over. What use was it to think of what it had cost him—of the price he had paid?

  No use. It had cost, and he had paid. That was all there was to it.

  Face shuttered, he started to key in the number he needed. But before he could connect there was a knock on the library door. Not the usual brief tap that presaged the entry of Signora Farrafacci with his coffee, but a sharper, heavier rap against the wood. And when she came in he could see at once that her usual calm demeanour was agitated.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, frowning. He knew his housekeeper had been taken aback by Jenna’s abrupt departure, but he had not encouraged any discussion of the matter and she knew better than to ask.

  She came up to his desk now, definitely agitated. ‘There’s...there’s someone arrived,’ she said. Her voice was discernibly breathless, her bosom heaving. ‘Demanding to see you.’

  Evandro’s frown deepened. ‘Who?’ he said. His first thought was Amelie—that something had happened to her. Alarm stabbed at him. And then a very, very different emotion.

  Signora Farrafacci’s bosom heaved again. ‘It’s...’ She hesitated, then spat it out. ‘Signora Rocceforte!’

  Evandro froze.

  * * *

  Jenna stared out over the water. Its grey mass was smooth, giving no hint of the hidden turbulence beneath as the incoming tide met the outflowing current at this confluence of river and sea. On the far side of the wide estuary the low Kentish shore was almost indistinguishable from the level water.

  She thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Autumn was shortening the days, and the cool air already hinted at winter’s incoming cold. This estuarine stretch of the Thames—in the Essex commuter town where she had found a temporary teaching position to cover an unexpected maternity leave—was not a landscape she knew, and its marshy reaches were bleak for all but the myriad seabirds that found refuge there.

  Was it a similar refuge to the one she sought? Refuge from pain...from memory. From what might have been but never was. Never could be.

  She made herself keep walking along the embankment, deserted except for dog walkers in the gathering dusk. An east wind, low but chill, keened over the water and she welcomed its scouri
ng, as if it could scour out memory as well. And pain. And loss. And abject misery.

  She quickened her pace. She must not wallow in her misery, must not endlessly bewail her loss.

  I have to make a new life—I have to. Have to accept that I filled my head with illusions, creating a false reality for myself—false hopes and false longings. I wanted to belong to Evandro—to be the woman he loved—but I never did and eventually he rejected and ejected me.

  Deliberately she made herself replay the moment of her dismissal. The brief brutality of it. Evandro just standing there, telling her it was an ‘opportune’ moment for her to go. Eliminating her from his life. His bed. Packing her off with nothing more than a few brief words.

  She felt her hands clench in her pockets, half with pain and half with anger.

  I did not deserve such treatment! Such indifferent brusqueness. Such a callous termination of what there had been between us. Especially coming out of nowhere...

  She halted, frowning.

  But had it?

  The blow he’d inflicted in those brief, unbearable moments had been so overwhelming she had not been able to see out from under it. Now she forced herself to replay the nightmare scene.

  He had told her he had heard from his aunt, inviting him and Amelie to visit her. Was that what that letter had been about? The one that had been in the mail that morning? The one that he had picked up before he got to his feet, tersely excusing himself, striding indoors?

  She remembered how she’d stared after him...how she’d felt cold pooling inside her. Remembered the worry spreading through her.

  Something is wrong, she’d thought.

  She heard the words again now, echoing in her memory.

  What could have been so wrong about a letter of invitation from an aunt?

  She frowned again. But had that letter been from his aunt? It hadn’t looked like the kind of letter an aunt would send... She screwed her eyes shut, trying to see it again in her mind. A large white envelope, businesslike, with the address printed, not handwritten, which surely an elderly aunt would have done, if she was writing to a family member? And the stamp...