Riccardo frowned. Now she sounded as delirious as she had been when she’d had the fever. When he’d seen her so helpless and vulnerable and he had bathed her body and fed her little sips of water, as tenderly as if she’d been a tiny kitten. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
She would never make him understand unless she told him, no matter how painful that was. ‘The dress made me into…into someone I’m not,’ she stumbled. ‘Someone who could hold my own in your world. But I’m not from your world, Riccardo, and I can’t ever be. We should never have made the jump from colleagues to lovers. We just shouldn’t.’
‘You know you don’t mean that, Angie.’
‘Oh, but I do. Really, I do.’Yet wasn’t that the hardest thing in the world to say—especially when he was standing there in jeans and T-shirt, his handsome face looking stubborn and unyielding? The man she had loved for so long that doing so seemed as natural to her as the sun rising in the sky each morning. Her heart full of heaviness, she realised that she hadn’t asked the most fundamental question of all. ‘Anyway, why are you here—and how did you find out where I was?’
‘I asked your mother,’ came the grim rejoinder as he held up his hand to halt this particular line of questioning. ‘And I’m here because I want you back.’
Pain sliced through her and tears began to hover at the periphery of her vision. ‘But I can’t come back,’ she whispered. ‘No matter what you say. I can’t work for you any more, Riccardo—don’t you see?’
Impatiently, he shook his head. ‘I don’t want you to work for me.’
Angie stared at him in confusion. ‘You don’t?’
‘No way—I’ve already given your job to Alicia.’
‘To Alicia?’
‘Sì. She’s very good—you told me that some time back. Promising material for a secretarial post—and, of course, she doesn’t answer back the way you do.’ But then, no woman ever had. And no woman had ever communicated with him on such a fundamental level as Angie had. On every level, really. His rich voice hadn’t once faltered, but now—for the first time in his life—it did as he met the wary shimmer in her eyes. And discovered for the first time in his life that something wasn’t necessarily his for the taking, simply because he wanted it.
Once, he could have snapped his fingers and Angie would have come running—but she had changed, he realized, just as he had. She had put in place barriers to protect herself—which he must now tear down with his bare hands. And yet didn’t her fierce pride and her dignity only reinforce his desire for her?
‘I want you to come back to be with me, cara mia—as my partner, not my secretary. Mia donna. Because sometimes you have to have something taken away from you to realise just how much it means to you. Only it took me a little while to realise why every day seems grey—and maybe a little longer to realise what had been staring me in the face for so long.’
Love. Something he had schooled himself not to believe in—bound up in his own supposedly fail-safe recipe for a marriage. But events had demonstrated that his ideas were illusory. And his heart had made him as helpless as the next man. When he had come back from America and found Angie gone a pain incomparable to any other had ripped through him.
Catching her hand, he brought it to his lips while his black eyes blazed the intensity of their message. ‘I say to you now words I have never spoken to another woman, piccola,’ he said softly. ‘And that is, I love you with all my heart.’
Heart hammering with fear and disbelief, she shook her head, not wanting to believe him…not daring to believe him. Fearful of the pain coming her way if he didn’t mean it. ‘No, you don’t love me. You don’t believe in love, remember? There’s no such thing. It’s “chemistry” and it’s “lust”.’
He flinched as she quoted his words back to him. ‘I was a fool,’ he admitted. ‘An arrogant fool. But sometimes you have to experience something yourself in order to believe in it. And I love you, Angie,’ he repeated softly.
Angie could do nothing to prevent the sudden, hard pounding of her heart. He was arrogant, yes—but his arrogance could be a loveable trait as well as a dangerous one. She thought about the woman she had been when he’d said those words to her. Back then she had been so desperate for his love that she had been completely desolated by his statement. She had been so lacking in selfesteem that she would have fallen on any crumb of affection he had carelessly tossed at her. But she was not that woman any more—and, really, it didn’t matter what you owned or where you came from. True equality was when you gave and received love on a level playing field.
‘Shall I tell you why I love you? Would you like me to?’ he continued inexorably. ‘Where shall I begin? Because you’re beautiful—inside and out. Kind and sweet and strong and sexy. Because you are not afraid to tell me what you think. And because I never realised that someone who had become a friend could become such an exquisite lover.’ He stared down at her, realising almost for the first time that she was standing there, wearing nothing except a flimsy little emerald bikini—and he had been so intent on getting his message across that he’d barely noticed her beautiful body. And that was a first, too.
‘Do you believe me when I tell you that, Angie? That you have become as much a part of my life as the beat of my heart itself?’
The poetry of his words thrilled her and terrified her. Tremulously, she lifted moist eyes to his—scarcely able to believe what lay within her grasp, but knowing above all else that Riccardo always spoke the truth. ‘Tell me again,’ she whispered.
‘I love you.’
‘And again.’
He smiled. ‘I love you.’
And as the last of the bitter barriers came tumbling down, she put her arms around his neck, her face close to his. ‘I love you, too, Riccardo,’ she whispered. ‘So very much.’
Now he laughed, and anyone who knew Riccardo Castellari solely in the boardroom would have been taken aback by the carefree quality of that laugh. Tenderly, he pushed away a strand of hair from one damp cheek. ‘Then why, mia cara—why are you crying?’
She stared up into his beloved face and her heart turned over. ‘Because I’m so happy!’
And there, on a sun-drenched Australian beach—oblivious to the surfers and the swimmers—Riccardo pulled Angie into his arms and kissed away her tears, reflecting that feminine logic was indeed a very strange thing.
EPILOGUE
‘DO YOU want to go down yet?’ Angie gave her hat one final adjustment and then walked to the window to stare down at the beautiful gardens of the castle grounds. ‘We’ve got plenty of time, but it’s always better to be early for an occasion as important as this. And I’d like to have a look at the flowers in the church first.’
Riccardo gave a lazy smile as he let his gaze drift over his wife. ‘In a minute. Just let me look at you first.’ She wore a dress of deep violet which contrasted perfectly with her colouring—the pale skin and the big, greengold eyes. Perched on her head was a feathery little nonsense of a creation in a matching shade. She looked, he thought, chic, jaunty and very, very beautiful.
Caught in the slow ebony scrutiny of his eyes, Angie blushed with pleasure as she read the expression on his face. For a man who had once declared himself a sceptic about love, he had been making up for it ever since, she thought. Big time.
They had married almost immediately after returning from Australia. Riccardo had wanted it, insisted on it—though he’d met no resistance from Angie. He’d wanted to demonstrate the depth and commitment of his feelings for her—and to sweep her off her feet.
In the small, grey-stone church near the Castellari castle, they had married on a beautiful spring day—with skies of brilliant blue and the swell of birdsong seeming to echo the swell of love in the bride’s heart.
Soft tulle whispering over the worn flagstones, she had made her way to the altar, where her proud bridegroom awaited—with Todd marching behind her, in a little pageboy’s outfit. Romano had been best man—darkly enigmatic and s
lightly disapproving, she fancied, but confident she would win him round. Deep down, Romano cared as much about families as Riccardo did—and he would ensure that his new sister-in-law was welcomed into theirs.
Only Floriana had not been in attendance—having been rushed to hospital with complications in the early stages of her honeymoon pregnancy. Angie had wanted to postpone the wedding, but Floriana and Max had refused to let her. And in the end, the alarm had proved false. Discharged into the care of her husband, Floriana had gone on to give birth to a beautiful, bouncing baby boy—and all the preceding arguments had been forgotten in the presence of this new life.
Riccardo had been smitten by his nephew, and so too had Romano. And Angie had been moved to tears when the couple had asked her to be their new baby’s godmother.
Angie adjusted her hat one last time and turned to look at her husband, heartbreakingly handsome in his formal dark suit.
‘You know what an honour this is, in an Italian family?’ he asked her tenderly as he came to stand beside her at the window, putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘To be godmother to a firstborn?’
Angie picked up her handbag and nodded, her luminous smile making her face appear radiant.
‘Yes, I do,’ she whispered. ‘But I am honoured anyway—to be part of this family, and more honoured still to be your wife, my darling Riccardo.’
‘No, the honour is mine,’ he said simply, and as he touched his lips to hers he sighed. ‘Do you think it is possible for us to be any happier, cara mia?’
She thought that it was very possible—and later she would tell him why. When they had returned from Rocco’s baptism and were alone together in their suite at the castle she would tell him the news she knew he longed for.
But for now. One more kiss. Slow, leisurely, perfect.
Just like her life with Riccardo. Her love, her soulmate, her equal.
Copyright
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Sharon Kendrick 2009
ISBN: 978 1 408 91287 4
The Italian Billionaire's Secretary Mistress Page 14