Gianni's Pride

by Kim Lawrence

  When they had left Miranda ate carrot cake until she felt queasy and went to bed a little while later even though it was barely nine o’clock. She had not lain on the bed staring at the ceiling and thinking dark thoughts for more than a few minutes when there was a knock on the door.

  Any thought that Gianni, driven crazy by lust, had been unable to keep away and had come to beg her forgiveness—the fantasy was still a bit rusty—vanished the moment he stepped inside.

  His face was drawn and pale and his rigid posture was radiating anxiety.

  ‘Before you tell me to go to hell, I’m not here for me. It’s Liam.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Liam?’

  ‘We didn’t make it to the fish place. He got really hot and started crying … I think I should call an ambulance.’

  Miranda was already on her feet. That Gianni was asking for help when it came to Liam was a measure of his concern.

  ‘Have you taken his temperature?’

  Gianni shook his head. ‘God, that was so obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?’ he grated, dragging a hand through his dark hair.

  Miranda extracted the thermometer from under Liam’s arm and turned around with the news that the child’s temperature was raised, but not actually that much. ‘And now we’ve taken off his clothes.’ The little boy, now stripped of the layers, lay in his pants and tee shirt on the bed, his cheeks still flushed, but he had stopped crying and he was dozing. ‘I think he’ll be a lot more comfortable now. Before you go to sleep, Liam,’ she added, raising her voice, ‘how about a drink of juice and a spoon of this medicine that Clare packed? That’s it, good boy,’ she said as the boy swallowed it, then took some thirsty sips from a tumbler.

  She turned and found Gianni watching her.

  ‘So you don’t think it’s serious?’ He hated the feeling of not being in control.

  ‘It’s hard to tell with children, and I’m not an expert, but I think for the moment pushing fluids and keeping an eye on him would be more appropriate than an ambulance, but obviously that’s your call.’

  ‘I overreacted.’

  She smiled. ‘You were just being a dad.’

  ‘Thanks, Miranda. I’m grateful. And about before …’

  She shook her head unable to recall now what the argument had even been about to begin with. ‘We both said stuff.’

  ‘So maybe we could …?’

  Heart beating rapidly, she cut in quickly. ‘I’d like that.’

  He nodded, his dark eyes holding hers, an expression in the polished depths that made her insides melt as his gaze drifted to her mouth. ‘But not tonight, I’m afraid,’ he said, directing a rueful look towards his son, who was now sleeping deeply, before throwing a spare pillow on the sofa at the foot of the bed.

  Miranda nodded. ‘Of course. If you need anything …’ She stopped blushing as she just stopped herself tacking on ‘absolutely anything’.

  The blush deepened as he purred, ‘Oh, if I need anything you’ll definitely be the first to know, cara.’

  It was two-thirty when Miranda tiptoed back into the room carrying a cup of tea. In the bed Liam slept, his breathing soft and even. Gianni was on the sofa, his head on the pillow, his eyes closed, his face half in shadow, the strength of his stupendous bone structure emphasised by the light cast by the bedside light.

  She stood there for a moment just staring, totally mesmerized, her heart beating hard in her chest. It hit her with the force of a tidal wave … She was in danger of falling for him. The realisation sent a rush of cold, clammy horror through her. She was falling for a man who had made it clear he didn’t do love or permanent.

  She sucked in a shaky breath … ‘I won’t. I can’t.’

  His eyes flickered open and Miranda jumped guiltily and almost dropped the cup.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Dear God, what is it with me? Can I only fall for men who are never going to be able to return my feelings?

  ‘I wondered … I thought you might like a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, thanks. Have you been asleep at all?’

  ‘A bit,’ she lied as she placed the cup on the top of a chest of drawers. ‘He seems a lot better.’

  Gianni nodded and held out a hand towards her. ‘But I could do with company.’

  After a fractional pause she took it and allowed him to draw her towards him, not resisting as he pulled her down beside him on the couch.

  ‘Comfy?’ his deep voice asked very close to her ear.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, feeling totally overwhelmed by the intimacy, the physical closeness. He felt warm and hard and so male, her mind closed down under the onslaught of sensory information. She shivered and closed her eyes as he drew her head down onto his shoulder.

  ‘Relax, cara,’ he said, stroking a hand over her fiery curls. He kissed her closed eyelids and murmured, ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Thirty seconds later she was flat out. Listening to her soft even breaths, Gianni lay there and realised that he had never shared a bed or the equivalent with a woman when sex was not on the agenda.

  He shrugged off the stab of concern. One night holding a woman did not mean this had become more than simple sex. The lie did not come as easily as it normally did.

  CHAPTER NINE

  GIANNI caught sight of his reflection in the window.

  It suddenly struck him, Dio, it was over a week since he had worn a tie! He could not recall the last time he had gone more than a day without donning his uniform of sharp suit and handmade shoes. Perhaps, he mused, he should instigate a casual day …?

  A soft sound of amusement rumbled in his throat as he imagined the reaction if he sent a memo to this effect around the Fitzgerald offices. Or maybe not, he thought wryly. His management style had already caused a few ruffled feathers from the old guard, who had been highly suspicious of any change when he first took up the post.

  When they had realised his slightly more informal style and the new initiatives he had instituted, not to mention the bestselling authors he had tempted to join them, did not equate with a lessening of efficiency or, more importantly, profit, he had been viewed with a lot less suspicion, but jeans in the office might, he conceded, be a step too far.

  An office, he realised, there was no reason he could not be sitting in right now.

  So why wasn’t he?

  Eyes filled with self-mockery, he shook his head and thought, Like you don’t know, Gianni. He was almost running to get to the reason he hadn’t packed his bag.

  Real life meant he would not wake up with his arms full of warm, soft Miranda. The memory of their lovemaking that morning sent a flash of heat through his body.

  She was the total essence of femininity.

  He tightened his jaw and slowed his pace just to prove that he could, identifying the weakness that had made him linger here too long. Great sex or not, and that was all it was, the simple fact was there was no room in his real life for a woman like Miranda Easton.

  Were there any women like Miranda Easton?

  Pushing aside the intrusion of the whimsical voice in his head, Gianni reminded himself why this situation could only ever be short term—in a perfect world where he had not allowed his hormones to overrule his head it would not have happened to begin with—he had too many calls on him that took priority.

  She took up too much space in his head. He needed a woman he could forget the moment she left the room and that was not Miranda.

  Not only had she got under his skin in the short time he’d known her, she’d made him aware of an—for want of a better word—emptiness inside him that he had been blissfully ignorant of previously.

  It was an insight he could have done without, but he felt confident that he could fill it with things that did not upset his careful life balance when he returned to reality.

  The thing about Miranda was she didn’t ask for anything, but he still knew that she needed more and, worse, she made him want to give more … ?. Gianni, always conscious th
at he was providing the love and cherishing of two parents, told himself he just didn’t have it to spare.

  It was tough enough giving Liam enough time and attention with the demands of being responsible for a publishing business at a time when the industry was changing. While he was not one of life’s worriers, his father, who watched the progress of what had once been his baby like an eagle, was, and worry, as his mother frequently told him, could have fatal consequences. He was keeping enough balls in the air without adding another.

  They were a total mismatch.

  So why had he not walked away now that the situation that had brought him here was resolved? Was part of the allure the fact she was something he could not allow himself?

  He paused and allowed an image of her face to form in his head. Her delicate skin flushed with passion, her seductive emerald eyes dark and smoky, her full lips pouting. This was the way she had looked that morning as she lay beneath him, her slender arms and legs wrapped tight around him as she pressed her hot, sweet body against his and begged him to take her in a throaty whisper that had snapped clean through his control … Not that he had much control around her.

  But he would, he promised himself. This had been a nice interlude but that was all it was. It was time he ended it … It was just a matter of choosing the right moment.

  Miranda was in the kitchen where he had left her. Everything else had changed. He knew this even before she had turned around to face him.

  He knew it without seeing what was written on the page of crinkled newspaper that had been ironed out smooth and spread out on the table beside the bunch of flowers it had been wrapped around when they had bought them earlier from the roadside stall with the honesty box.

  He had teased her all the way back because she had put a five-pound note into the box rather than leave it a penny short of the one pound fifty request written on the board above the buckets of home-grown bouquets outside the farm gate.

  She had given him a lecture on honesty that had made him feel uncomfortable that he had not yet admitted his financial situation was not quite what he had allowed her to believe. He was aware of the irony of the situation. Being rich and powerful had never previously been something he had felt he had to confess to a woman. A man most people would have considered experienced with the opposite sex, he frequently felt as if he were learning from scratch with Miranda.

  He closed the door and she turned around slowly at the sound, one white-knuckled hand clutching the rim of the table, the other holding the printed page.

  Gianni blew out a long sigh of resignation as she held out the carefully unfolded piece of paper to him in a hand that shook. The expression in her green eyes was a million times more condemning than the lurid headline on it.

  He’d been waiting for the right moment—this moment had right and natural conclusion written all over it. He could leave now without any fear of her caring because she hated him.

  He took the paper and, crumbling it in his hand, dropped it on the floor without glancing at it. He knew what was written there.

  ‘I can explain.’ He might be leaving, but he should explain.

  Miranda’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. ‘Oh, that I never doubted for a moment,’ she drawled contemptuously. ‘You always have a good story, don’t you? And me, well, I believe everything you say, don’t I …?’ The sheer level of her gullibility was staggering.

  Gianni’s grim expression grew concerned as he studied her face. ‘You’re as pale as a ghost. Sit down and let me—’

  He sounded as if he cared … Everything about him was a lie and he was stupid if he imagined she believed all that guff about him kidnapping his son.

  She wasn’t angry because she knew he was rich and successful; she wasn’t sick to her stomach because she believed the lies that they’d written in the tabloid scandal sheet. She was utterly furious because she knew that he’d kept his secrets to keep her at a distance.

  What had he said the previous day when she’d caught him looking grim and asked him what he was thinking about …? I want you in my bed, not my head, cara … well, that just about said it all, and this revelation about his background and past was more evidence of his determination not to let her close. To some extent the growing physical intimacy between them had disguised the fact he kept her at an emotional arm’s length.

  She should run as far and as fast as she could. Why hadn’t she before it was too late? Before she had fallen in love with him. The realisation that she was in too deep to turn back now drew a groan from her.

  ‘I knew … I knew this was happening and I just let it.’

  She clutched her head and groaned, hissing, ‘You bastard, don’t touch me!’

  His face a livid white under his naturally vital skin tones, a blue vein throbbing in his temple, the muscles in his brown neck standing out in taut corded prominence, Gianni took a step back, his hand held up in front of him.

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘I am calm. I’m totally calm!’ she yelled back, levelling a shaking finger at the paper on the floor. ‘And broke …’ she choked. ‘You let me carry on thinking you had no money when all along you’re a F-Fitzgerald!’ she bellowed.

  ‘You’re working for a Fitzgerald and I never made a secret of my name.’

  ‘You never said you were one of those Fitzgeralds.’ Half the books, no, more probably, on the bestseller displays had been published by the company he managed. Not only were they the most successful publishers on the planet, they were one of the longest established.

  He’d even dressed, or rather undressed for the part; nothing could look less like her mental image of CEO than the man standing there in jeans, a shirt hanging casually open to reveal his gleaming, bronzed, tautly muscled torso.

  The article had made clear that the man they were writing about had been born with, not just a spoon, but an entire place setting of solid silver cutlery in his mouth!

  ‘Enough!’

  Miranda didn’t respond to the quiet voice of authority, but after a moment did succumb to the pressure of the hands on her shoulders. Breathing hard, her knees shaking, she sank down into the chair he had dragged out from the table.

  Hand on the wooden back, he twisted the chair and her around to face him.

  Standing feet braced, his hands brushing her shoulders as he retained his grip on the chair, his body curved around her. Miranda looked back at him, the rage and self-disgust churning in her stomach making her feel physically sick.

  ‘You have had your say. Have the courtesy of allowing me my turn.’ His clipped voice showed little emotion but the glow in his dark eyes revealed he was not nearly as calm as he was acting. ‘It is true I am one of those Fitzgeralds, as you call us, which obviously makes me a monster.’

  He had the cheek to sound angry … Miranda released an angry hiss of disbelief through her clenched teeth as she shook her hair back from her face and lifted her chin to fix him with a contemptuous stare.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she invited. ‘I could do with a laugh,’ she added with a bitter laugh.

  Gianni tilted his head slightly in response to her comment.

  ‘The story is dead. There never was a story,’ he pronounced flatly. ‘I have not kidnapped my son. I have legal custody of him and, yes, I know what it says there,’ he drawled sounding weary.

  ‘That load of rubbish?’ She clicked her fingers.

  ‘You don’t believe it?’ He looked bewildered.

  ‘I don’t believe everything I read.’

  ‘Some of it is true.’

  ‘Go on …’

  Gianni nodded and settled back on his heels, balancing on the balls of his feet as he maintained the squatting posture that kept his face on a level with her own.

  ‘I used to be the political editor of the Herald. You can check—it’s a matter of record. It is also a matter of record,’ he continued grimly, ‘that during my tenure I broke a big story concerning a tabloid and some high-ranking civil servants … Cut a long and grubb
y story short, some people went to jail as a result of that story, others, including the man who wrote that load of garbage, lost their jobs.’

  His eyes darkened with contempt. He still thought that Rod James had got off easy but the man—a classic case of someone who refused to take responsibility for his own actions—had another view. He had been running a personal vendetta against Gianni, whom he held totally responsible for his fall from grace. On several occasions his desire to have revenge had led him perilously close to libel; this time he had stepped well over that line.

  Miranda allowed her rigid back to relax fractionally. As she sat back in her seat she vaguely remembered the incident he spoke of. ‘You were a newspaper editor?’

  He nodded.

  Her curiosity about him roused, she couldn’t help herself. ‘So you were a journalist?’

  ‘I was a foreign correspondent for a news agency, first in Europe, then I was transferred to the Middle East. A big story broke just after I moved out there and Sam arrived. She was already pretty much a legend.’

  ‘Sam Maguire is Liam’s mother.’

  An image of an attractive blonde floated into Miranda’s head. Her blonde hair sometimes covered in a concealing headscarf, her full lips always outlined by a brilliant slash of scarlet lipstick, regardless of the circumstances managing to look effortlessly chic in her trademark fatigues and, when the situation required it, a bulletproof vest.

  She was the sort of woman who defied stereotypes; the sort of woman who made normal females like Miranda feel hopelessly inadequate.

  ‘Yes, the living legend herself. I was pretty star-struck when I met her in the flesh.’

  Miranda watched his sensual lips curve into a reminiscent smile as he made the rueful confession and felt a stab of jealousy so vicious she had to disguise her audible gasp with a cough.

  ‘We had an affair.’ He knew now that Sam had been right: what they had shared had been fun but nothing serious or durable.

  They might have drifted apart totally had there not been Liam to link them for ever. The romantic feelings had long gone, but not the hurt and the determination never to allow himself to feel that way again lingered. Because of Liam, Sam would always be part of his life. The infatuation had passed and also the anger that had followed it when she’d left him literally holding the baby.