by Penny Jordan
Had he found something? Dio, had he ever!
Veronica peered over Leonardo’s shoulder at the computer screen.
‘My God,’ she gasped, pointing at the screen. ‘That’s me.’
‘That it is,’ Leonardo said slowly.
‘But…but…’
‘It’s attached to a recent report from a private detective agency based in Sydney,’ he explained. ‘Clearly Laurence wanted to find out how you were faring before he died. Also clearly,’ he added, glancing up into her widening eyes, ‘What he discovered made him decide to change his will and leave you his villa here on Capri.’
‘What…what does it say about me?’ she asked, obviously shaken by this news.
And well she should be, Leonardo thought, not sure if he felt sad for her. Or furious that she had deceived him.
‘I think it best that I print out the report and let you read it for yourself,’ he said with creditable composure.
‘All right,’ she agreed.
‘Perhaps you should also sit down.’
* * *
Veronica sank onto the nearest dining room chair, her heart sinking as well. She knew exactly what the report would say, her mind scrambling to find some excuse she could give to Leonardo as to why she’d let him think she’d been out there, socialising and having an active sex life, one that required her to take the pill. Oh, Lord! She had to keep that lie going. Leonardo would be understandably furious if she told him she wasn’t on the pill.
Her stomach tightened as the printer spat out the report.
She wondered if the investigator had found out the whole truth about Jerome as well.
Possibly not. He’d hidden his affair well.
‘Here,’ Leonardo said, and slapped the pages down on the dining table. He was angry with her, she could see. Which was understandable.
The report wasn’t long. Only three pages. But it spelled the situation out exactly as she’d feared. It made her sound like some grieving widow, not the bitter wronged woman she actually was. Or had been.
But she wasn’t that woman any longer, was she? Leonardo had shown her she’d been a fool to hide away, nursing her grievances and shunning the opposite sex. Okay, so he wasn’t the kind of man to pin any future hopes on. Which was bad luck. She did so like him. But he’d still been good for her, giving her back her libido, along with a more optimistic way of looking at the opposite sex. She would remember him for the rest of her life.
Veronica decided then and there to embrace the truth. Though, not as far as Jerome’s affair. Leonardo had already said he didn’t want to hear any man-bashing. And, really, it was none of his business. Neither would she be telling him she wasn’t on the pill.
‘Well?’ Leonardo prompted, having drawn out a chair opposite her and sat down. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’
Veronica’s lifted her eyebrows in a nonchalant gesture. ‘There’s not much I can say. The report has spelt it out and it’s all true. My fiancé was killed in a motorcycle accident just before our wedding. I was devastated, then deeply depressed for a long time. And, yes, ever since then I’ve lived the life of a nun. There haven’t been any sheikhs or any other men in my life, or in my bed, for three years.’
‘Not exactly the impression you gave me, is it?’ he threw at her.
Her shrug was a brilliant echo of the shrugs he often used. ‘What can I say? When I found out Laurence was my father and that he’d left me a villa on Capri, I finally saw the error of my ways. I decided then and there to throw off my nun’s habit and start living life again.’
His lips pursed, his dark eyes narrowing with obvious distrust.
‘So when did you start taking the pill?’ he demanded to know.
‘Girls take the pill these days for many reasons,’ Veronica said haughtily, but with her fingers crossed under the table. ‘It protects you from osteoporosis, as well as reducing premenstrual tension. It is not always about avoiding an unwanted pregnancy, although nothing beats a condom for safe sex,’ she added tartly for good measure.
The best defence was always attack. Or so she’d read.
He looked both distracted and offended. ‘You keep on saying things like that,’ he snapped. ‘I assure you, I am perfectly safe. And I am not as bad as you think.’
‘Yes you are, Leonardo. But no sweat. I like you the way you are. You’re great fun, and fantastic in bed. On top of that, I certainly won’t have to worry about leaving you behind with a broken heart when I go back to Australia.’
His mouth opened then closed like a floundering fish’s.
She might have laughed if her last words hadn’t made her own heart lurch all of a sudden. Maybe she was the one who should worry about going back with a broken heart.
Leonardo finally found his tongue. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said, sounding totally flummoxed.
‘You don’t have to say anything, do you?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LEONARDO TRIED TO keep his outrage going, but it was hard in the face of her nonchalance over the situation. When she smiled at him, he simply had to smile back.
‘Truly,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘You are impossible!’
‘So my mother tells me. Oh, Lord, that reminds me,’ she said, jumping up and leaving the report on the dining table.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To get my phone and send Mum the photos I took today. I might ring her as well. You go drink your coffee and see if you can find anything more on that computer. Then afterwards you can show me where the wine cellar is. I also might have to rustle up something for us to eat. I don’t know how late it is, but I’m starting to feel darned hungry.’
She dashed off, leaving Leonardo staring after her with hunger of a different kind.
Shaking his head at himself, he reached over and picked up the report, reading it through again. Nothing new struck him, though this time he felt more compassion for Veronica’s plight. It must have been very hard for her, losing the man she loved shortly before their wedding. The first time he’d read the report his reaction had been shock, plus anger at the way she’d deceived him. Leonardo was never good with female deception. Now, admiration crept in with his compassion. It had been brave of her to throw off her depression and come to Capri. Brave to adopt a brighter, happier personality, instead of the dreary one which came across in that report.
Laurence had done a good thing, leaving her this place. Though, damn it all, he should have contacted his daughter earlier. She was his flesh and blood. Okay, so she might not have been conceived in the normal way, but what did that matter? She was still family.
When Leonardo folded the pages over then stood up, a memory teased his mind, a memory of Laurence doing exactly the same thing that last weekend. Clearly, he’d been reading this very report when Leonardo had come to visit him. But, also clearly, Laurence hadn’t wanted to tell him about it. Instead, he’d folded the pages and hurried away, hiding the contents from him. Why? Leonardo was puzzled. They’d been very close friends. With Ruth dead and Laurence himself dying, there’d been no reason why he shouldn’t have told him that he had a daughter in Australia. They could have discussed the situation together.
But Laurence had remained silent on the matter, choosing instead to drink wine and make idle conversation with Leonardo about his family’s constant pressuring him to get married. Leonardo felt quite hurt that his friend hadn’t confided in him about his secret daughter. Instead, he’d hurried off to London, changed his will then died without explaining why he’d structured his last wishes that way.
Leonardo could only speculate. He didn’t know. He supposed it had to have been to get Veronica to come here personally. Though, there had been no guarantee of that. She could have sold the place from Australia and never darkened this doorstep. Still, Laurence wouldn’t have thought of that. He really h
adn’t had a great imagination. If he’d decided something would happen a certain way, then it had to happen that way. It was as well that he’d made him executor of the will. Leonardo suspected that, if he hadn’t met Veronica all those years ago, she might not have come to Capri.
What a terrible thought!
So was the thought that Veronica would soon be leaving. He wondered how he could persuade her to stay longer. It wasn’t just the sex. It was her company—rather like having Laurence still here, only better.
He had just sat down at the computer again when Veronica returned.
‘I didn’t ring Mum,’ she explained. ‘I just sent her the photos and a text. She told me the other day that I didn’t have to ring all the time and that I should just have a good holiday away from everything. I took her at her word this time. Did you find anything more on the computer?’
‘No,’ he replied, not wanting to admit that he hadn’t even looked, that he’d been reading the report again.
‘Oh, well. At least we have an idea now about why he left me his house. He must have known Mum would tell me he was my father and that I’d want to come here and find out all about him.’
Leonardo had his doubts about that, but declined to say so. Laurence had had a very unemotional way of looking at most things. His daughter had some of his pragmatism but, being a physiotherapist and not a geneticist, this possibly inherited characteristic had been softened by her more caring profession and her sex. She could be tough, he could see that. But she was still all woman, with a woman’s tendency to surrender herself totally in bed. Just thinking about how she felt under him fired his testosterone once more. It pained him to think that one day she would just be a dim memory.
But she’s not gone yet…
Leonardo walked over to her and took her in his arms. ‘If he hadn’t left you this villa,’ he said, ‘today would never have happened.’
‘What a horrible thought,’ she said, her voice teasing but her eyes sparking with instant desire.
‘I’ll get some pizzas delivered afterwards,’ he pronounced as his mouth slowly descended.
‘What about the wine cellar?’
His lips hovered above hers, his heart thundering in his chest as he fought for control. ‘I’ll take you down there afterwards as well. Though, you might find it a little chilly without your clothes on.’
He thrilled to her widening eyes, plus his recent knowledge that she wasn’t nearly as sexually experienced as she’d pretended to be. Hell, he was the first man she’d slept with in three years. He vowed to make this weekend something she would never forget. But to do that he would have to concentrate on her pleasure, not his. Even now he could feel his body racing away with him.
He breathed in deeply, telling himself that making love was not the same as a downhill skiing competition. It was not a case of first to finish in the shortest possible time. It was more like ice-skating, where technique and artistry instead of speed won the day.
He kissed her slowly, doing his best to concentrate on her reactions and not his own. If only she hadn’t wrapped her arms up around his neck. If only she hadn’t pressed her breasts against him. If only she hadn’t moaned…
It undid him, that moan.
To hell with taking things slowly! All thought of control was abandoned as he started stripping her where they stood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘THIS IS ONE of the best pizzas I’ve ever tasted,’ Veronica said truthfully as she took another large bite.
They were sitting out on the terrace, night having descended. They were fully dressed again, a necessity with the evening air having turned fresh.
‘But of course,’ Leonardo said smugly. ‘It’s Italian. But this wine is French.’ And he picked up one of the glasses of red which sat on the small table between them.
He’d finally shown her where the cellar was, the entry behind a doorway that she’d mistaken for a closet. It was an enormous basement and, yes, chilly, with wall-to-wall shelves only half-filled with wine. Veronica had stared at the empty spots and felt sad at the thought of how much her father must have drunk to get liver cancer.
‘I did know it was French,’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘Even an Aussie philistine like myself can recognise a French label when they see it. I’ll have you know that I know a few Italian words as well.’
‘Oh, really? Tell me some.’
‘Let’s see… There’s pizza, and arrivederci, and grazie, and bellissima. And the best one of all. Si. I like that one. Si.’
‘You’ll be speaking like a native in no time,’ he said drily.
‘Si,’ she repeated, her eyes smiling at him over the rim of her wine glass.
His eyes twinkled back at her.
‘So how come you speak such good English?’ she asked after she’d put her glass back down and picked up her slice of pizza.
‘I did learn English at school. But I’d have to say my command of the language was mostly due to the fitness trainer my uncle hired for me when I became serious about my skiing. He was English and he refused to speak anything but English. His name was Hugh Drinkwater and he was quite a character. He was also a very bad skier. But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t teaching me to ski. I had a coach for that. He taught me the discipline of fitness. Believe me when I say there is no one better than an Englishman when it comes to discipline. He was ex-army and took no prisoners.’
‘But you liked him,’ she said, having heard the affection in his voice.
Her statement seemed to surprise him. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I did. But he was a hard taskmaster.’
‘A necessity with you, I would imagine, Leonardo.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come, now. You’ve been shockingly spoiled all your life. You would have needed someone tough to whip you into shape.’
He laughed. ‘You could be right there.’
‘I am right. So, what happened in the end? What were the injuries which forced you to retire before you wanted to?’
‘Too many to enumerate. I broke practically every bone you could break at one time or another. And pulled just about every muscle.’
‘I read that you were a very reckless skier. But very brave,’ she added, not wanting to offend him.
‘I was a risk-taker, that’s true. You have to take risks to win. Apparently, I took after my grandfather in that regard. Though his risks were in business, not on the ski slopes. My uncle inherited his talent for making money, but not my father. He hated the cut and thrust of the business world. When my grandfather died, Papa took his share of the money, put most of it into the bank and bought that hotel down there with the rest.’ He nodded down the hillside to where the Hotel Fabrizzi stood. ‘Papa’s a hard worker but he likes a simple life. Running a small hotel suits him.’
‘And your mother?’ Veronica asked. ‘Does she like life on Capri?’
‘She loves it. So do my sisters. I love it too, but only in small doses. It’s too quiet for me. When they came to live here, I stayed in Milan with Uncle Stephano. I wanted to ski professionally and I couldn’t do that from here. He sponsored me and taught me the textile business during the off season. There’s nothing I don’t know about manufacturing and selling fabrics.’
‘Do you still miss it?’ she asked. ‘The skiing life?’
When he shrugged, she saw that that was what he did when he didn’t want to answer a question, or face something.
‘You couldn’t do it for ever, Leonardo,’ she pointed out. ‘Age would have caught up with you, even if injuries didn’t.’
‘I would have liked to do it a little longer,’ he bit out. ‘I was favourite to become world champion that year.’
‘We don’t always get what we want in life, Leonardo,’ she said with a touch of her old bitterness.
‘True,’ he said, not picking up on her change in
mood. But it had changed, the happiness which Leonardo’s company brought to her spoiled by thinking about Jerome’s treachery.
She stood up abruptly, having found that doing things was the best antidote for unhappy thoughts. At home, she would distract herself with work. Housework, if she wasn’t seeing a client at the time.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked her.
‘Cleaning up,’ she replied as she swept up the dirty plates.
‘I can see that. But why? It can wait, can’t it? You haven’t finished your wine and I was enjoying our conversation.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. Talking to you is like talking to Laurence. He used to make me open up and tell him my worries. It’s a relief sometimes to confide in someone else, especially someone nice and non-judgemental. And it’s far cheaper than seeing a therapist.’
Veronica stood there, holding the plates, genuinely surprised by his admission.
‘I can’t imagine you ever seeing a therapist.’
‘I did for a while. Being forced to retire affected me terribly. But, in the end, I realised that going over and over my feelings wasn’t doing me any good, so I stopped.’
Veronica put the plates back down and settled back into her chair.
‘Yes, I’m not sure that’s the right way to get over things. The world seems obsessed with celebrating anniversaries at the moment, especially ones remembering quite wretched events. I honestly think it’s a bad thing to dwell on the past. I did it for far too long. You have to accept reality and then move on.’
Even as she said the brave words, Veronica recognised it was a case of easier said than done. After all, until recently she’d hugged her misery around her like a cloak, afraid to move on, afraid of some other man hurting her as Jerome had done. But at least she had finally moved on. And she doubted Leonardo would hurt her. She wouldn’t let him, for starters, this last thought crystallising her decision to end their fling tomorrow. It was too much of a risk to keep on seeing him. He was way too attractive. And way too good in bed.