by Kim Lawrence
Miranda, he realised, had been right. He was a coward, an idiot who had built the walls of his own prison brick by brick after he’d been hurt by Sam’s rejection. He’d been so determined to avoid feeling that hurt again he’d cut himself off from the possibility of love, ironically in the process putting himself through weeks of pain and suffering far more intense than anything he had felt when Sam had rejected him and left him holding the baby.
Again Miranda had seen through his self-deception. He had been using Liam as an excuse for living in an emotional bubble.
‘Wow, Gianni just admitted he made a mistake and there were witnesses!’
Not pausing to respond to his baby sister’s sarcastic cry, Gianni strode away in the direction of the backstage area. Not many doors or curtains were closed to the Fitzgerald name, he mused cynically, not realising that it was the steely determination carved in the hard lines of his austere features and the aura of danger he exuded that made people hastily point him in the right direction.
He found her almost immediately. The person wearing the items he had apparently just purchased was sitting on a packing case having her feet rubbed by a tall skinny guy in spectacles who sat beside her.
He knew it wasn’t her, but that didn’t stop the resemblance hitting Gianni like a fist in the chest. Not Miranda, it’s not her, he reminded himself. No, but the resemblance was spooky enough to hurt—a lot.
He made himself pause and consider the situation, the couple, because the body language between them made it obvious they did not notice him approach; they were too wrapped up in one another.
‘I told you this would be too much for you, Tammy,’ he heard the man say.
‘I’m fine, don’t fuss, Oliver.’
Gianni stiffened at the name. This was the man who Miranda claimed to love. He studied the unremarkable face and tried to see what she had seen in him and failed.
So much for sisterly solidarity. Gianni felt his hot protective anger surface as he stared at the sister’s profile. He couldn’t help the staring—they were the features he knew, the features that were burned into his consciousness, yet they weren’t. The differences this close were subtle but, to him, obvious.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘CAN we help you?’ Oliver asked when he had received no response to his questioning look from the tall, brooding, rather dangerous-looking guy.
With his air of restrained violence and the ‘hard man’ aura and the confrontational stare, he was the sort of person that peaceable Oliver would have normally avoided approaching. But he didn’t like the way this character with the Adonis profile and the air of menace was looking at his wife.
‘You’re Oliver?’ His hands balled into fists at his sides, Gianni felt a strong stab of antipathy as he couched the curt question. This man had captured Miranda’s heart … what had she seen in him?
‘I am,’ Oliver confirmed, looking mildly bemused by the level of hostility in the dark stare fixed on his face. ‘Do I know you …?’
‘This is Miranda’s love rat.’
It was Miranda’s twin who spoke as she began to struggle to her feet; the man beside her hurried to help, providing a supportive hand in her back.
As she brushed down the creases from the Lycra-moulded fitted skirt Gianni registered for the first time her condition—she was pregnant.
Dio, no wonder Miranda had issues! He struggled to block the urges that made him want to yell at this pair. He needed information. They were, he told himself, irrelevant. The point was he would never allow anyone to hurt Miranda ever again.
‘Where is she?’ he said, scanning the duo with fierce eyes.
‘Why? You want to break my sister’s heart again, big boy?’
Oliver turned his horrified glance on his wife. ‘Tamara!’
She tuned out her husband and lifted her chin. ‘Well, it’s not going to happen, mate. She’s wise to you.’
‘She is well?’
‘No thanks to you, she’s terrific. She’s got on with her life. She doesn’t need—’
‘No, she’s not fine,’ came the quiet correction.
‘Oliver!’
Her husband shrugged. ‘Well, it’s true, Tammy. She isn’t happy. You can see it—she’s bloody miserable.’
His wife sighed in agreement and turned her accusing gaze on Gianni, who was sifting the conversation for information he could use. ‘And it’s all his fault!’ she quivered.
‘Yes, you’re a very caring sister. You married the man your sister loved.’ Gianni waited for the shock to appear in her face; when it didn’t his eyes narrowed. ‘You knew?’
The guy with the spectacles shook his head. ‘No, you have that wrong. I worked with Mirrie, we … she didn’t—’
‘Oh, Ollie … so sweet and innocent.’ His wife kissed his cheek. ‘Of course I knew. Mirrie is not exactly the world’s best actress. I suppose that makes me a terrible person, but I’m not. And I’m not going to feel guilty for falling in love. Of course, I could have done the noble thing and walked away leaving the field clear for Mirrie. It’s what she would have done had the situation been reversed, I suppose. But what would have been the point? That way we’d both have been unhappy.’
Head tilted a little to one side in an attitude that reminded Gianni painfully of Miranda, her plain-speaking twin continued to stare at him as though she was trying to make up her mind about something.
The silence stretched. ‘Are you going to hurt my sister?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘It’s not me you have to convince, but for the record I believe you,’ Tamara admitted. ‘But then I have a very bad track record when it comes to lying bastards. I spent half my adult life giving my cheater slime-bag boyfriend a second chance and Mirrie was always there for me, waiting to pick up the pieces.’
Tamara glanced towards her husband, who nodded in response to the silent question in her eyes.
‘Mirrie has another house sitting job.’ She pulled an envelope from her bag and tore off a corner and began to scribble on it, lifting her gaze to the tall, gorgeous-looking man who was leaking impatience from every pore. ‘This is the address. I forget the house name but it’s next to the village shop. If someone doesn’t rescue my sister soon I think she’ll end her days in the wretched place. The entire village has taken her to their hearts. It’s a total disaster.’
‘And that would be bad?’
‘Of course it would be bad—there isn’t a single male under sixty who’s straight in the entire place!’ She poked Gianni in the chest and added darkly, ‘If you make me regret this, so help me I’ll hunt you down, and don’t think I won’t.’
Miranda narrowed her eyes and stood back, hammer in hand, to survey the effect. The house she was now house-sitting was in the centre of a village and her duties involved nothing more strenuous than feeding the three cats and a little light housework.
With time on her hands it had seemed natural to become involved in the very active community, who had welcomed the stranger into their collective bosom.
‘A little to the left, I think …’ She adjusted the picture frame with her hand and let out a pleased grunt. ‘Perfect!’ she declared to the empty room.
Tomorrow it would be, fingers crossed. The village-hall-cum-tea-rooms would be bustling with life attracting, not just locals, but tourists passing through on their way to spend the bank holiday weekend by the sea. But right now it was a moment to savour and take pleasure from the results of the somewhat manic community efforts of the last few weeks.
The entire village had been involved, but when her expertise in the kitchen had been discovered Miranda had become the acknowledged ‘expert’. It didn’t matter how much she said she knew nothing about tea rooms, charity events and even less about health and safety regulations—who knew the hoops you had to jump through?—she was still considered some sort of expert.
So even though it had been a group effort she did feel a glow of pride looking at the once dusty floor now gleamin
g with a fresh layer of wax, and the windows framed by Roman blinds the women’s group had run up using the bargain offcuts she had bought online. Everything on the freshly whitewashed walls was for sale—several local artists had been keen to take up Miranda’s offer to display their works on the understanding that the church hall fund would get ten per cent of any profits.
Fingers crossed they would make a bucket of money for the church tower appeal, and it was an early start, she reminded herself as she pulled the keys she had been entrusted with from her pocket.
Lifting the skirt of her long dress off the floor—she was cutting it fine to be at the pre-fundraiser party, a ‘posh frock’ event being hosted by the owners of the local gastro pub—she headed for the door, poking her head in the kitchen, which was in the same ready-to-roll condition as the rest of the place, on the way.
Pausing at the door, she twitched a sweet pea in one of the fresh flower arrangements that adorned every table. It was amazing the talent that existed in a small community, and even more amazing what that community could achieve even in these cynical times when they pulled together, she mused as she opened the big door.
‘Oh, my God, no … no … no …’ She closed her eyes and opened them again. He was still there, not a hallucination—he was real. Gianni Fitzgerald, looking totally magnificent in full formal black-tie splendour, was standing in the doorway of a village hall.
Her mind went blank while her heart began to hurl itself against her ribcage to escape the confines of her painfully tight chest.
She stepped backwards into the room and she carried on stepping until her back hit the wall. Spine pressed into it, she slid slowly down the uneven whitewashed surface. It was not an action of choice; her shaking knees simply would not hold her weight.
Having observed her slow-motion, graceful collapse without a word, Gianni reached out a hand, his dark eyes raking her face, feeling a mixture of lust—she was the most incredible thing he had ever seen—and alarm to see what differences two months had wrought.
What he saw increased his already painfully inflamed protective instincts. She was always fragile but that fragility was now extreme, marked in the jutting prominence of her collarbones and the hollows in her once plump cheeks. Her beautiful skin, white against the black strapless gown she was wearing, had an almost transparent look to it. He could not look at her delicious mouth without seeing too the fine lines of strain around it and feeling a pang of guilt.
When he recalled the shameful occasions over the last weeks when he had childishly wished that she was suffering, he felt resurgence of the self-loathing he had spent the last weeks beating himself over the head with.
Her weight loss was especially shocking, coming directly as he had from her glowing, rounded twin. He had walked straight out of the place and jumped in his car without even speaking to his own family.
He assumed the several calls on his mobile during his drive here had been from them, but he hadn’t checked before he switched it off, his mind totally focused on finding Miranda, who, after her twin’s comments, he had pictured living a mind-numbing existence in a rural backwater peopled by gay men and elderly spinsters.
The guy who had directed him here had been a thirty-year-old and not ugly.
‘Cinderella, you will go to the ball.’
Miranda looked at the long brown fingers and swallowed, the convulsive action causing the fine muscles in her throat to visibly quiver. Sweat broke out along the curve of her full upper lip as she struggled to banish the image of those fingers sliding delicately over her skin.
‘That would make you Prince Charming …’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘So who’s taking you to the ball, then?’
She ignored the question and angled a bewildered look up at the tall commanding figure looking totally incongruous among the chintz and china. ‘How are you here, Gianni?’
He didn’t respond to the question; he just tugged viciously at the tie around his neck, wrenching it free so violently that several buttons fell on the floor, and carried on staring at her.
Miranda tried to focus her thoughts on the buttons scattered on the lovely, clean, freshly brushed floor, trying to decide if they constituted a danger from the health and safety standpoint.
As distraction tactics went it was a total failure!
She hadn’t forgotten about the aura of raw maleness he projected, or the innate sexuality that oozed from every perfect golden pore. She recognised the sheer impossibility pretty quickly of forgetting anything about Gianni, but she had tried really hard not to think about it.
Now she had no choice. She could feel it—hell, she could almost taste it.
‘I drove.’
By the time he delivered the delayed response Miranda had forgotten the question, but his voice drew her restless gaze to his face—oh, God, he was beautiful. The suggestion of levity in his response had not reached his eyes, they remained dark and intense, fixed unblinkingly on her face.
‘Oh, yes … well … You know what I mean, Gianni.’
Her body language rigid with the pressure of the level of self-discipline required to stop herself flinging herself at him, she struggled to catch her breath as she drank in the details she craved before she managed to bring her lashes down in a protective sweep over her hungry stare, scared by the intensity of the hunger and raw craving that gripped her when she looked at him.
‘Rarely, but I’m getting there, cara mia.’
The caressing warmth in his deep voice made the colour rush up under her skin. ‘How did you know? I didn’t give Lucy a forwarding address—’
‘Oh, that was true, was it? I called her a liar.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘She’ll survive,’ he said, dismissing his absent relative with a shrug of his magnificent shoulders. ‘Your sister told me where you were.’
‘Tam!’ The ridiculous contention drew a snort from Miranda, who got shakily to her feet, still hugging the wall for support. Dragging her hair back from her face with one hand, she directed a scornful glare at his lean face, noting as she did the deep groove that appeared to have become permanently etched between his dark brows and the dark smudges beneath his eyes. She hated the fact she cared about these signs of exhaustion when he had probably had a great time earning them, she told herself, thinking of all-night sex sessions with his latest lover.
Even this masochistic assessment didn’t stop her caring.
And nothing, she realised, would ever stop her loving him.
Her slender shoulders sagged. It was almost a relief to stop pretending. What did they say—the first step was admitting you had a problem?
God, did she have a problem!
But at least she still had the support of her twin, who had wormed the story out of her, or at least the details she had felt able to share.
‘She wouldn’t do that,’ Miranda said, moving her head in a firm negative motion. ‘Tam wouldn’t tell you … you don’t even know her. You don’t know we’re—’
‘Twins?’ He had anticipated a little scepticism. Still holding her eyes, he dug in his pocket.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, staring suspiciously at the scrap of paper he held out.
‘Read it and see.’
Taking the paper by a corner, taking care not to allow her fingers to brush his, she took it, aware of Gianni’s sardonic observance of the elaborate steps she took to avoid contact. She refused to look at him. Instead she glanced down at the paper unprepared to see her sister’s distinctive scrawl. Her eyes flew wide in shock and hurt.
‘Actually we had an interesting chat,’ he said, watching the play of emotion across her face as she recognised the writing then read what was written.
Struggling to keep the doubt from her voice and a semblance of control, she levered herself off the wall and took a step towards him.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she contended, stubbornly refusing to accept the evidence of her own eyes. ‘You must have
tricked her … I … Tam was—’
‘Modelling some designer maternity wear at a charity auction—’ He saw Miranda’s eyes widen, her eyelashes fluttering against her pale skin, and added quietly, ‘I was there, Miranda.’
‘It was a favour. Tom, the designer, before he got his break he worked on her show …’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘You were really there?’
‘I think that I might have bought some—actually, all—of the clothes collection.’
‘You don’t know?’ He didn’t seem to be joking.
‘For about ten seconds I thought she was you.’ The memory still had the power to send a rush of powerful emotion through him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was your sister who married the weird love-of-your-life guy you worked with, or that you even had a twin?’
Still turning the maternity clothes puzzle over in her head, Miranda missed the strained edge in his initial admission.
‘Oliver is not weird,’ she defended automatically, thinking, And he’s not the love of my life—you are!
‘If you say so.’ Gianni shrugged his shoulders uninterestedly. In his view any man who preferred her twin to Miranda was a fool.
It had taken him no time to see that her twin lacked all of the qualities that set Miranda apart from other women: the amazing empathy, the gentle caring qualities, the strength, bravery and sheer stubborn resilience and, of course, that amazing husky laugh.
‘There was no reason to tell you I was a twin. What’s wrong, Gianni?’ she taunted. ‘Do you have a thing about twins?’ Her lips moved in a moue of distaste. ‘You’d be amazed how many men share that particular fantasy.’
He met her eyes with a hard look. ‘Actually I would not be at all surprised, cara, at the number of men who shared my fantasy.’ It had been his living nightmare for the last two months that he had pushed her into one of those men’s bed.
His dark eyes swept downwards to the smooth ivory slopes of her breasts where they pressed against the black satiny fabric of her low-cut gown. He swallowed. ‘Has there been anyone?’