After a few minutes, she tossed her pen on to her desk, and pushed back in her chair. Tilting back her head, she closed her eyes. She couldn’t concentrate, not right at this moment, her mind too full of Edoardo.
The startling ring of the telephone brought her tumbling back to the present. “Glory Sandrin,” she said into the receiver. It was Jennifer at front reception telling that her client Margaret-Louise Lindsay was here for her three o’clock appointment.
She smiled as the older woman entered her office. “Hi, Mrs Lindsay, how are you today?”
The woman nestled into a chair. “I’m all right, thanks, Ms Sandrin.” Then, the words tumbling from her mouth, she said, “Oh, Ms Sandrin, my son is innocent, and no one believes him.”
“I do, Mrs Lindsay. I believe he’s innocent,” she said with strong conviction, “and I’ll fight to the finish to prove it.”
“It’s been a nightmare, Ms Sandrin. The humiliation on the family. My son’s employer accusing him of stealing money from the office safe. My son hasn’t stolen as much as an apple from a neighbour’s tree.” She hastily wiped her hand over her eyes brushing back the hot tears spilling through her fingers and down her cheeks. Glory’s heart ached for her client. “He’s a good boy.”
Glory smiled at that old chestnut he’s a good boy spoken by every parent she’d ever interviewed.
Still, she did believe that Johnny Lindsay was a good boy, and that someone else within the firm had stolen the money, and she intended proving it.
The older woman handed over a cardboard file full of documents. “These are the items you requested. It took a bit of doing finding them.” She gave a shaky smile. “I hope they’re all in order.”
“I’m sure they will be.” Glory smiled receptively. “You didn’t have to bring them in, Mrs Lindsay. You could have sent them by courier.”
“I wanted to tell you something in person.” Mrs Lindsay stood and held out her hand. Glory stood and the women shook hands.
“I know you’ll help him,” the woman said. “You’ve such a wonderful lawyer and a good person as well, and my family and I have great faith in you.” She was stronger now, more confident as she added, “I know you’ll help my son, Ms Sandrin.”
“Thank you for your trust in me. I won’t let you and Johnny down.”
The woman left. At Mrs. Linday’s confidence in her, Glory was stronger, more certain of herself and her situation with Edoardo.
She could handle being his pretend girlfriend as easily as she could argue her client’s case in court.
And come out a winner.
CHAPTER TEN
It was Christmas Day.
And the temperature soared as the summer heat beat down on the city.
Edoardo’s parents had wanted them to come to the country for Christmas dinner but he’d talked them around saying this year he wanted to do all the cooking.
Glory arrived at the Astor Apartments around eleven-thirty, looking up at the top floor where Edoardo’s penthouse was.
She moved inside the large foyer and pressed the elevator up button. Inside she was entertained with television delivering news, weather and current affairs. “Must seriously consider upgrading my apartment,” she murmured.
It was the first time she’d been inside his apartment. They usually went to hers as she’d told him she was more comfortable there. To tell the truth she was safer in her own environment.
He ushered her in by stepping back and sweeping his arm out in a half-circle. “Come into my parlour.”
His apartment was, to put it mildly, spectacular. She admired the porcelain floor tiles and plush cream and beige diamond-patterned carpet.
He took her small suitcase as she’d considered she’d be a ball of perspiration by the time she’d got to his flat and would appreciate a shower and change of clothes.
“Want something to drink?”
Being here amongst his personal things had dried her throat as if she’d been without a drink for days. “Water will be fine.”
He gave a wry smile as if he knew and understood her discomposure. “I won’t be long,” he said, “Make yourself at home.”
She walked out on to a sunny balcony overlooking St Kilda, across Albert Park and Port Phillip Bay to the CBD. The street was so quiet and nearly deserted the stillness broken only by an occasional church bell and the rattle of a tram.
Back inside, he handed her a glass of icy water. The ice tinkled as she brought it to her lips. “Where’s the bathroom?”
He jerked his thumb. “Down the hall, the second on the left.
She placed the glass on to a coffee table. Hmmm, Brazil-based Baita Design, a table design effect of tucking loops into one another, incredibly chic and playful but she knew however, more durable than appearance, it gave his lounge an elegant look.
She left him and found the right door. Inside the bathroom was a religious experience. She gave a small gasp. He surely knew how to live well. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls, bluestone vanity, glass mosaic tiles, all screaming taste and wealth.
She washed her hands, powdered her nose, added a touch of lipstick and returned to Edoardo.
He was playing Christmas music. Voices of a male choir singing carols drifted out. And in the distance she heard the soft cries of Santa’s ho-ho-ho, and imagined the children’s excitement as they woke up Christmas morning to gaily wrapped gifts.
She had always loved Christmas, the giving and receiving of gifts, the time when families got together and enjoyed each other.
Edoardo had dragged a large mahogany table into the centre of the room. He’d said he wanted to have the theme traditional for his parents in red and green with holly, ivy, and shiny apples.
He had made some Lime Vodka and it sat deliciously tempting, in a crystal punch bowl on the sideboard and beside it a bottle of Remy Martin X0 Special Champagne Cognac. He opened the cognac, and pouring some into a glass, tasted the glittering liquid. “Darn good,” he muttered. “Want to try some?”
“Are you kidding?” she said, clearly surprised that he had asked her. “I’d be on my head and singing Dixie in less than a minute.”
“Hey, Glory, relax a little, it’s the festive season,” he said jovially.
She smiled indulgently. “Oh, all right, but a thimbleful.”
He handed her a glass. “To us.”
Glass clinked glass. “To us.” She downed the fiery liquid.
“How do you feel now?”
She grinned. “Warm and tingly.”
“Another?”
She drew in a breath and blew it out slowly. “Wow, like later.”
He glanced around the room, his eyes coming to rest on her face. They stared at each other as if they were seeing each other for the very first time. “What can I do to you — for you?” he amended quickly.
She smiled a warm and eager smile. “Stay in the kitchen and cook my Christmas dinner,” she said. “The food smells really good.”
“It is good.” He wound his arms tightly around her waist. He walked her into the kitchen, stopped and looked down at her. “You smell good.”
She stared, smiling, at his elongated frame, shoulders hunched in his white T-shirt and up at his handsome intelligent face. “So do you.”
“This is great.”
She was filled instantly with a sensation like warm honey rushing through her. “What?”
“You, me, here in the kitchen.”
Her pulse suddenly leaped. She was glad she was here with him.
She remembered last Christmas and the Christmases before that she’d spent with Kate’s family, truly welcomed and thoroughly enjoyable, but it still wasn’t the same as having a family of her own.
She’d often wondered what it would be like to be completely surrounded by loving parents,
devoted husband and children, so many kids that the walls bulged and the roof lifted from the noise of them.
She’d been alone for so long, but not this Christmas. Not today. Today she was with Edoardo and Mamma and Papa were coming and they would swap gifts and enjoy the meal and talk and laugh together.
If she never got another Christmas like this one, this would surely be enough for her.
Without thinking, Glory said to him, “Thanks for today.”
His eyes widened and he cocked his head to one side. “What do you mean?”
“The last Christmas I spent with my family was the one before my mother died and it was never really festive.” She ran a fingertip over the marble bench. “Mum was too sad to celebrate anything and kept herself locked inside her bedroom. I forgot what it’s like.”
She shrugged, wishing somehow that she had never started this conversation. “You know, being involved in the preparations. Waiting for someone special to arrive. Being with — ” She broke off, not sure what she was going to say, but knew she was treading on dangerous grounds.
“Being with?” he insisted.
She laughed. “I’m becoming mushy. It must be the cognac.”
He leaned over and curled a wisp of her hair around his forefinger. “You had it rough.”
“No more than some.”
His fingers moved down her neck and nuzzled along her collarbone. She shivered. He moved in closer and cupped her chin in his hand. His eyes were a startling blue. “I’d like to make things right for you.”
She annoyed her bottom lip with her teeth. “You have,” she whispered.
His lips brushed hers and her knees went weak. He whispered her name, but she barely heard him over the wild beating of her heart. His arms entwined her waist as he dragged her against him. “Let’s not ever leave this kitchen,” he said. “Let’s make our life here away from everything else in the world. Let’s pretend that there’s no one else alive in the world, but us.” His eyes were compelling, magnetic.
It was easy to get lost in the way he looked at her. “Your parents will be disappointed if they don’t get their Christmas dinner,” she said, knowing he would kiss her, wanting it, scared of it.
He turned up his smile a notch. “I suspect they’ll get over it.”
He crushed her to him in a kiss that exploded her heart and sent rushes of desire bolting through her like streak lightning.
She loved him so madly she would die from love’s intensity.
A ting from the clock on the stove brought her to her senses. “If you don’t attend to the turkey, we’ll have to send out for pizza for Christmas dinner.”
Edoardo exhaled a long sigh of contentment. “I adore pizza.”
Joy bubbled in her laugh and shone in her eyes. “I’ll go and set the table. Okay?”
He moved away from her. “Call me if you need me for — anything.”
“I’ll holler.”
Laughing, she left him. He stayed in the kitchen for ages, wanting all the trimmings from bon-bons to a splendid plum pudding with brandy sauce. To provide, he’d told her, an impressive denouement to the meal and especially for his parents, Edoardo made panettone, an Italian yeast cake, tall and light and studded with sultanas with sifted vanilla-flavoured icing sugar to serve when they had their espresso coffee.
At one, she showered and changed into white linen shorts and pink silk shirt. For the hell of it, she boldly pinned a sprig of Christmas holly into the side of her hair.
“You come up well with a wash,” he said as she strolled back to the dining-room.
She grinned. “Don’t overdo the compliments. They might go to my head.”
He pointed to the holly. “Is that there for any special reason?”
She touched the sprig in her hair. “None that I can think of.”
“I can think of one or two. I can’t stop staring at you.” His laugh was soft and oh so warm. “Must be the cognac.”
“Must be,” she responded.
He looked magnificently male in his pale blue jeans and white open-neck silk shirt. She couldn’t remember ever having seen a man so handsome. His hair was still damp from his shower and curled boyishly over his forehead.
Va-Va-Voom.
Dangerously original, shockingly potent and edgy.
A man with sharp corners and no toughness.
Athletic, smart, chiselled.
Whatever he had was enough.
Could he give up the other women and be satisfied with one — her? He seemed so loving, so close, so content to be with her that she was engulfed in dreams of Edoardo and her in happily ever after.
She reached over and brushed his hair back. “I like it when you do the girlfriend thingy,” he whispered. “It makes me feel good.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she lied. She lifted her gaze to his.
“You touching me.”
“I was touching you as a friend,” she said, trying to ease the frantic beating of her heart. Looking at him all but took her breath away.
“I’m finding it harder and harder to think of you as just my buddy.”
Gloriously alive, wonderfully happy knowing everything she’d dreamed of had come true. “It’s the festive season it makes us all feel great. You know, Christmas bells, all that plum puddin’.”
“You’ve got the cutest nose,” he said leaning over and kissing the tip of her nose. “I want to kiss you.”
“There’s no law against it.”
Stretching his arms out, he imprisoned her. At first he kissed her softly, his lips gliding moistly along hers. And then he planted his mouth over hers in a kiss of fierce demand.
Glory became torn by sensations. She returned Edoardo’s kiss with force.
He moved slightly away from her looking down at her with a look she couldn’t decipher.
She reached up to touch Edoardo’s face, trace her fingers over the bridge of his nose and along his cheek. Her hand dropped and her palm came to rest at the base of his throat. She could feel the rapid pulse in his neck.
He quickly bent and caught her lower lip between his. His mouth demanded. They kissed hungrily. “It’s more than the festive season,” he whispered against her mouth. “It’s you who makes me feel great.”
The doorbell interrupted anything else he might have said. It was Mamma and Papa making their entrance, laden with gifts and bottles of champagne as if they were going to entertain several people instead of four.
“Merry Christmas, miei cari,” they cried joyfully. “Is this not the most wonderful time of the year?”
“You look lovely, Mamma, and so handsome, Papa,” Glory said, as indeed they did. The pale shimmer of an organdie blouse, the gleam of gold threads, complimented by a floor-length skirt of calico made Mamma look gorgeous, while Silvio was handsome in cream slacks, blue shirt, and a pale blue jacket.
“What about some of my special vodka punch, ladies and gent?” Edoardo suggested. “Get ourselves right into the festive mood.”
Glory opened a gift of Cartier gold and diamond earrings that would dazzle the sun. “Oh, Mamma, Papa,” she breathed, “They’re exquisite and far too expensive. You shouldn’t have.”
“Si, we should,” Mamma cut in. “Do not ever deprive us of the pleasure of indulging you, cara.” She came and kissed Glory’s flushed cheek.
“Can I get some of that loving, or is it reserved for women only?” Edoardo said.
The women laughed indulgently, both kissing Edoardo lightly on a cheek.
Mamma gave him a Dunhill silk tie handmade in Italy and Panama hat complete with a bright blue ribbon band around the crown. He placed the hat jauntily on one side of his head. “Well, how do I look, girls?”
Wonderful.
“It suits you, Edoardo,” his m
other gushed, “I knew it would.”
As Edoardo gave Glory his gift of a papyrus, his fingers lingered on the palm of her hand. “Do you know the story?”
“Yes, I think I do. It’s Queen Nefertary giving offerings to the Goddess Hathor in exchange for the Key of Life.” She looked into Edoardo’s eyes and when he didn’t look away her heart took up a furious beat. “Nefertary was the wife of King Ramses,” she murmured, totally spellbound by him.
“His favourite wife,” he whispered.
“Oh, Edoardo, It’s so beautiful.”
He would kiss her; if he did and in front of his parents, she would kiss him back with every power she possessed.
And she was powerful. He made her so.
He made her realize just how wonderful it was to be a woman.
He completed her.
She never noticed Mamma coming to stand beside her, studying the papyrus, until she said, “It is authentic, is it not?”
“Almost,” Edoardo answered. “Egyptologists, skilled in the art, reproduced the painting from archaeological discoveries of ancient Egypt. This is authentic papyrus that was handmade in the exact way used by ancient Egyptians around five thousand years ago.”
“You learned that from Raoul.”
“Of course. Wanted to impress.”
“You succeeded. It’s so thoughtful.”
“I remembered you love Egyptian art.”
“So do you.”
He pointed to the painting and as Glory leaned over to study it more closely, he carelessly draped his arm around her shoulders. His touch was fire. “See how it shows the grains and texture each papyrus reed makes,” Edoardo said.
“I love it, Edoardo.” She gave him his gift of a silver fob watch. His name and the date were engraved inside the lid.
Mamma squealed in delight at her stuffed toys of a koala and kangaroo, which she immediately dubbed Stefano and Guiseppe and Silvio seemed pleased with his Chanel Allure range of grooming products.
Mamma began to sing Christmas carols. Her voice, pure alto, was pleasant to hear. Edoardo placed an arm around Mamma’s shoulders and softly blended his voice with hers. “Edoardo,” Mamma gently admonished, “you are singing the wrong words.”
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