Gianni's Pride

by Kim Lawrence

  Over the years he had grown to accept her decision without totally understanding it; he accepted he never would and no longer tried.

  ‘Were you together long?’ she asked, not because she wanted to know but for something to fill the awkward silence.

  ‘Hardly. A week later there was an armed uprising … a hostage situation, and Sam flew out. It was a few months after that when I next saw her … I was back home in London when she looked me up.’ He stopped, his eyes darkening as he relived the memory; he had hardly recognised the woman who had appeared at his door that day. ‘I’d seen Sam give an interview under fire—’

  Which meant he’d been under fire too … in danger. The thought swirled in her brain like a silent scream.

  He stopped and shrugged, shaking his head as he met Miranda’s eyes and added simply, ‘She was magnificent, totally fearless until … the only time I ever saw Sam scared was when she knew she was pregnant.’

  Hearing the depth of admiration in his voice, she thought, He still loves her. The pain she had felt when she’d witnessed Oliver and Tam fall in love was absolutely nothing to what she experienced at that moment … It had been a strong breeze; this was a hurricane. But then she hadn’t loved Oliver—that had been some safe little fantasy. It had taken falling in love for real to make her realise this.

  ‘When she calmed down we discussed it. There was never any question—she was totally clear,’ he emphasised. ‘She would have the baby but that was all. She didn’t want to be a mother.’

  Ironically his first published article as a journalist had been a scathing piece on fathers who would not take responsibility for the children they fathered. Society was a hell of a lot more tolerant of them than they were of a mother who acted in a similar way … When Sam had sat there and begged him to understand and not think badly of her, he had realised that so was he.

  ‘I admit I really thought that after he was born she would change her mind, but she didn’t.’

  Miranda looked at him and shook her head. ‘And …?’

  It took Gianni a few moments to respond. The abrupt statement was more explanation than he was accustomed to supplying. ‘And she … they do have a relationship. Sam is not a stranger to Liam. He knows she’s his mother. Sam is involved …’ As much as she wanted. He had left the offer but not pushing it; he had been elated when she had made the first contact. ‘To a degree, but Sam finds older children … easier than babies …’

  ‘And you don’t have a problem with that?’ Even if she had not been personally involved Miranda would have been curious about this unconventional arrangement.

  Gianni gave a fluid shrug, his expression giving nothing away, but it was a subject where he had practice of hiding his feelings. ‘Why would I?’

  Let me see, Miranda thought. She leaves you to do all the hard graft while she appears just when it suits her like a fairy godmother in fatigues?

  Glamorous fairy godmother.

  ‘I’m the one who makes the day-to-day, practical decisions. We both agreed that it has to be that way. I’m the one there. Or at least the nanny is or my mother is.’ His mobile lips twisted into a self-derisive smile. ‘As you have pointed out, my parenting skills are not exactly brilliant. No, the problem is Sam has met someone she actually cares for, is considering marrying.’ Considering as in she will; yes, he supposed, there was a time when the thought would have made him feel something. That time was so far distant now it was hard to imagine.

  ‘She has?’ Miranda’s heart sank. Surely this would only be a problem if Gianni still had feelings for the mother of his child.

  He nodded. ‘To quote her he’s …’ his upper lip curled into a contemptuous sneer as he paused for dramatic effect before sketching sarcastic speech marks in the air and drawling ‘… the one.’

  Miranda leaned forward in her seat and, chin cushioned on her hands, scanned his face, struggling to read his expression, wondering if it was jealousy that he was concealing behind his ironic grimace.

  ‘But you don’t think so?’ She didn’t need a crystal ball or X-ray vision to see that much.

  ‘They’ve only known one another six weeks,’ Gianni informed her with a disbelieving shake of his head. ‘Six weeks!’ People took longer to choose a new car. ‘Do you think that you can fall in love and know you want to spend your life with someone in six weeks?’

  Six days, Miranda thought as she managed a careless shrug and remembered that she had thought and said much the same thing to Tam when her twin had announced she was in love after her first date with Oliver.

  Tam had laughed in response and admitted actually she had fallen in love with him the first time she’d seen him.

  ‘You remember he was dropping you off when your car had broken down? He got out to open your door, so old-fashioned and sweet and … I thought that you and he were … well, you have no idea how glad I was when you said he was just your boss. Jealous of my own sister—can you imagine?’

  Somehow Miranda had managed to join in with her laughter.

  Gianni nodded, putting his own interpretation on her silence. ‘Of course you don’t, because you’re a practical woman.’

  Miranda was the practical one. Tam … Tam was artistic, much more of a free spirit—this was not the first time she had heard herself described this way. It had never hurt more.

  ‘Sam was, but I suppose she is—’

  ‘In love?’ Miranda interrupted, unable to keep the edge from her voice as she thought of her mum’s face when she had looked at her picture of the newborn twins and said with a soft sigh, ‘It was love at first sight when I saw my girls.’

  Poor Liam. He didn’t have the protection of that special mother’s love. It explained why Gianni was so protective. She slanted a look at his face, seeing not just the perfect bone structure but the strength of character.

  She felt her throat tighten with emotion. Not only was he determined that his son would not feel deprived, but the boy was not going to hear bad things about his absent mother—not from Gianni anyway. She could not think of many men who would display this sort of restraint.

  ‘She’s talking marriage, so I suppose so.’

  ‘I still don’t understand about the article. How …?’

  ‘The boyfriend.’ Such a description did not seem appropriate in Gianni’s mind for a man of sixty—a man as set in his ways as Sam was in hers. For Liam’s sake he wanted things to work out. If Sam’s life fell apart now God knew how far it would put back the tentative relationship she was developing with her son. ‘He saw a photo of Liam and asked, so she told him that he was her son.’

  And if he hadn’t asked? Miranda wondered. How could any woman not be proud of any child, but a child like Liam who was so special? If he was mine, she thought, I’d want everyone to know.

  ‘Isn’t that good?’

  Gianni flashed her a look. ‘It might have been if he hadn’t jumped to the rather unflattering conclusion that I had bullied her into giving me custody and deprived her of contact with her son.’ Which to his mind begged the question of how well this man knew Sam, who was the last person he would have described as a victim.

  Miranda nodded to herself. This was pretty much what the article had suggested with a few embellishments.

  ‘But she … Liam’s mum, she must have put him right,’ she reasoned, still not seeing how this damaging and apparently inaccurate story had ever been allowed to see the light of day.

  ‘Actually, no.’

  ‘I don’t see how—’

  Gianni spelt it out. ‘She didn’t tell him. She was, she told me, waiting for the right moment.’ Despite his amused manner, Gianni had not been exactly happy when Sam had rung to warn him of the offending article. He could look after himself, but the idea of the paparazzi camped on the doorstep of his home, Liam’s playgroup, those lenses focused on his son, had made him sick to the stomach. And the possibility he might one day in the future see the article on some website made him want to ask Sam if she ever thought a
bout anyone but herself.

  He hadn’t gone that far, but he had been furious and he’d let Sam know it.

  ‘Just when is the right moment likely to be so that I know how long I’m likely to have rotten tomatoes thrown at me in the street?’ he had asked at the end of his diatribe.

  ‘God, you hate me and I don’t blame you … You hate me. Alexander will hate me when he knows.’

  She had started crying and Gianni had been horrified and willing to say anything to stop her. If there was one thing that he couldn’t take it was female tears.

  ‘Sam thought the boyfriend would be disgusted when she told him the truth, that he’d judge her.’ He glanced at Miranda and gave a faint smile. ‘People do. Unfortunately before she could work up the courage to come clean he confided the story to a friend and that friend turned out to be a drinking buddy of a journalist called Rod James, who has been looking for a way to screw me for years.’

  ‘But you could have stopped the story or at least refuted it …?’

  He shrugged. ‘She asked me not to respond to the item.’ Sam actually had a point. Responding to a lie would only give the story more credibility to those who would believe what was written anyway. ‘She wanted me to give her the opportunity to tell Alex the truth and not have him read about it.’

  Miranda felt her indignation rise. So it was all right for Gianni to read lies about himself. ‘How long does it take to say I lied?’

  He gave a fluid shrug. ‘In her own time.’

  Miranda stared, struggling to contain the sense of injustice she felt. He was so calm; he was acting as if that had been a reasonable request. Didn’t the woman realise how totally unfair she was being?

  ‘That’s why I came here without telling anyone. The idea was to keep a low profile for a few days and give things a chance to quieten down. It seemed perfect. Lucy is the next best thing to a recluse these days.’ He paused, tilted his head a little and looked at her sideways, his eyes moving over the soft contours of her face. ‘And I woke up in bed with you. But you know about that.’

  The colour bloomed in her cheeks. ‘So you’re not a kidnapper.’ The article had not said so in as many words, but the implication had been strong, even suggesting that the police were trying to locate him.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Just a liar?’

  Gianni winced and murmured, ‘Harsh,’ under his breath.

  ‘Harsh!’ she exclaimed. ‘You let me think you were broke.’ She groaned and covered her face with her hands when she thought of the advice she had given a man who ran a publishing company that had a dozen of the bestselling authors on the planet on its books.

  ‘It seemed … convenient when you jumped to that conclusion,’ he admitted.

  Miranda stared at him in disbelief. ‘I’m not even sure you know you’ve done anything wrong.’

  A flash of impatience crossed his lean face. ‘Is any of this relevant? I’m not a particularly nice man, but you didn’t go to bed with me because you thought I was nice or worthy or that I’d lost all my money unless,’ he suggested, arching a brow, ‘it was pity sex?’

  Caught on the defensive, unprepared and confused by him suddenly going on the attack, Miranda shook her head and was unable to meet his eyes. ‘I’ve no idea why I went to bed with you,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Yes, you have, cara.’

  Miranda swallowed and lifted her eyes. He captured them and he pinned her with a hot, burning look that made her feel utterly helpless.

  ‘I just … you …?’ She moistened her dry lips with her tongue and swallowed.

  ‘You went to bed with me for the same reason I went to bed with you.’

  Miranda despaired when the arrogant confidence that should have made her angry in fact sent a pulse of hot excitement fizzing along her nerve endings. His smile held a challenge she couldn’t rise to because in it was a tension that made her heart beat slow, then as he allowed his dark, smouldering glance to drift slowly down her body she began to quiver as if he had stroked her skin with his fingers and not just his eyes.

  By the time he angled his dark stare at her face, looking at her through the lush screen of his lashes, Miranda was so aroused that she could hardly breathe. ‘Because we have a mutual …’ he paused, his smoky voice deepening to a throaty purr as he put a finger under her chin ‘… hunger …’

  Miranda swallowed. She was literally paralysed with lust … Forget the love, just concentrate on what you can have, Mirrie, she told herself. Let it be enough.

  ‘You know, I think half the reason I didn’t tell you I was not broke was it was actually rather nice to have someone want me for my body, not my chequebook, and to be honest I wasn’t even sure that you’d ever find out.’

  Miranda jerked her face from his grasp and shook her head to clear the sensual fog. ‘Wow, that is honest!’ she breathed with a whistle.

  Gianni watched, the expression on his lean, sardonic face a mixture of wariness and frustration as she scrubbed her face with her hand like someone trying to wake themselves up.

  ‘So have I got this right? In a nutshell you thought that if I ever did find out you’d be long gone so it was basically a win-win situation.’

  He took her hands then in each of his and hauled her to her feet. ‘It does sound bad when you put it like that.’

  Miranda compressed her lips and refused to respond to the charm in his rueful smile. The man was totally shameless. ‘It is bad,’ she said, turning away from him.

  Gianni stepped in closer. She felt the heat of his body before he put his hands on her shoulders. She turned her head, tilting her face to look at him, and Gianni could see the need, the apprehension and the excitement in her eyes. He wanted to be looking in those beautiful, astonishingly expressive eyes when he buried himself in her and felt her softness and heat close tight around him.

  ‘So has she told him?’

  It took a moment for Gianni to drag his mind from the hot, steamy place it had gone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And does he hate her?’

  Gianni pressed his lips to her ear lobe and felt her shudder and gasp as she turned her head to allow him access to her neck. ‘Apparently not.’

  Miranda closed her eyes, a violent tremor running through her slim body as his tongue trailed wetly over her skin. ‘What about the tabloid story?’ she asked thickly. ‘Oh, God, don’t!’

  Gianni lifted his head. There were ribbons of colour along the crests of his high cheekbones as his glittering eyes captured hers. ‘You want me to stop?’

  ‘I want you not to stop,’ she corrected, twisting around to face him.

  His grin flashed white and fierce. ‘Apology second column page three.’

  Miranda, who had pressed her hands along the sides of his face, blinked, her lips an inch away from his. ‘What?’ She sank as she lowered herself off her tiptoes.

  ‘The article,’ he replied, bending his head down to her.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, taking his face between her hands again, but this time she made no attempt to kiss him, she just gazed appreciatively into his face, marvelling at the astonishing beauty. ‘So you’re not hiding any longer. You’re free to leave whenever you want to?’ The realisation sent a little chill through her warm body.

  A furrow appeared between his brows as he slid his hands slowly down her sides, then, holding her by the hips, he dragged her physically into his body. She resisted for a split second before she melted into him, shivering against his hardness as he lifted her hair from her neck, his fingertips lightly grazing her ultra-sensitive skin.

  ‘I suppose I am,’ he admitted, wondering why freedom had never sounded less appealing. ‘You are wrong about one thing.’

  Miranda’s eyes closed on a silent sigh as his breath brushed her neck, the words ‘weak with lust’ suddenly taking on an entirely more literal meaning—if Gianni hadn’t been holding her she would have slithered to the floor.

  ‘I’m not going to forget your name, Miranda.’

  The w
ay he curled his tongue over the syllables sent an illicit shiver down her spine and, Damn it, she thought, he knows it.

  His tongue touched hers and Gianni thought, Or your face, or your voice. He deepened the kiss with a groan and thought, Dio, or your taste!

  Instinctively Miranda fought against the current that pulled her to him. She broke the kiss even though she knew that she’d already fallen too deep to pull back in every way. She loved him and she always would and she’d take whatever she could.

  Her eyes slid from the question she saw in his.

  ‘I think you kissed better when you were not rich and powerful,’ she lied. His kisses were beyond perfect.

  Gianni lifted his head, resenting the stab of guilt he felt at her words. His resentment deepened, his anger aimed more at himself than her—didn’t she realise that he had allowed her closer than he’d ever allowed any woman?

  Even though he could feel the walls he had built up over the years crumbling around his ears, Gianni held on stubbornly to his last line of defence, telling himself that this was about emotions magnified by the isolation of the past week and nothing more profound.

  ‘I don’t know why you are taking this so personally … and it’s not as if I share my life history with every woman I have—’ He felt her stiffen and closed both his mouth and his eyes as she disentangled her slender fingers from his hair. He had known the moment he opened his damned mouth that he was about to say the wrong thing.

  And yet you still said it, Gianni.

  When he opened his eyes she stood there looking up at him with green eyes filmed with ice. She had put a few feet between them but an emotional mile.

  She arched a delicate brow, her scornful smile hiding a simmering anger. ‘Every woman you have casual sex with? My God, Gianni, you have a way of making a woman feel very special. I’m surprised you didn’t give me a number to avoid confusion.’