Stop it, she told herself viciously. My heart is too full to bear, but it’s nobody’s fault but my own. I made the decision to cut my losses and run away from Gianni. If it wasn’t for my stupid pride I could have stayed, at least for a little while longer. Now I have to live with the consequences of leaving. That means me—not the people I live and work with. They deserve better than the sight of me moping around the place!
With a huge sigh and an even bigger effort, Meg put her hands flat on the desk to lever herself upright. Outside, life was going on without her. She might be dead to the world, but that didn’t mean everyone else had to suffer. Beyond her bubble of grief, the sun was a ball of fire, touching the fields with gold. She stood up, but felt suddenly dizzy. She had to clutch at the desk for a second to steady herself. That was a shock. It was then she remembered she hadn’t been able to eat anything more than a few crackers all day, because she had been feeling queasy.
An awful suspicion began to form in her mind. It might be nothing more than a vicious circle of grief killing her appetite, which made her permanently tired and sick at the very thought of food, but on the other hand…
It was ridiculous, of course. She couldn’t possibly be pregnant. Gianni had been meticulous about taking precautions.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
She couldn’t be! She stared at the sunset, trying to think. It was hopeless. There was only one way to ease her mind. Picking up her purse, she headed for town. The pharmacists stayed open later there.
The next few days passed in a blur. If it wasn’t for the huge wall planner blocked out in vivid inks and the reminders popping up on the business computer system, Meg would have been incapable of achieving anything. As it was she went through her routine on autopilot, selecting plants, packing the trailer and heading up to London to stage an exhibit of the Imsey Plant Centre’s finest flowers. It was a nightmare. The streets were full of pregnant women. Buggies jostled for space on every pavement. Babies were everywhere. Meg had never noticed them before. Now they were all she saw, but only one mattered to her: Gianni’s child, growing inside her. She could think of nothing else. Normally the prospect of building a stand at one of the Royal Horticultural Society’s monthly shows would have terrified her. Now it was one more thing to distract her when she had something far more important to worry about. Everyone she saw, wherever she looked, was part of a family. It should have made her glad. Instead her heart became heavier and heavier. The perfect picture of Mum, Dad and children would never be part of her life. She had no room for any man other than Gianni. A single parent could never afford to let their guard drop for an instant. All the responsibility would be hers—caring for her baby, earning the money to keep it fed, clothed and housed…and all the time that little face would remind her of the man she had left behind.
She arrived early at the hall where the winter flower show was to take place. Her mind could never leave Gianni alone, but the work had to be done. Her orchids were in perfect condition, and she wasn’t about to sacrifice them. She had been up for most of the night, cushioning each bloom with cotton wool and securing every flower stem. Now all the tape and packing had to be removed. It was a fiddly job, but Meg knew exactly what she was doing. Her fingers flew over the work and soon she was settling each flower pot into the Imsey Plant Centre display. Before long her table had been transformed into a miniature rainforest. As she was congratulating herself that there was still plenty of time before the show opened a shadow fell over her.
Meg’s sixth sense instantly told her it was Gianni.
She was right. Whirling around, she looked up into the face she had longed to see, and touch, and kiss for so long. A million thoughts tangled through her mind, but she was saved from making a fool of herself. Gianni was not alone. He was flanked by a man in a dark coat, and a teenager holding a very expensive looking digital camera.
‘Buon giorno, Megan. These gentlemen are journalists. They produced a feature for a Sunday supplement on the work we have done together on the Castelfino project—’
‘The work you did,’ she interjected. The men smirked at Gianni. He ignored them, and speared Meg with a glare. He cleared his throat meaningfully.
‘I happened to be attending a conference in England, and took care to check their copy while I was here. It was a good thing I did. I don’t want a feature aimed at the lucrative Christmas market telling only half the story. They are missing your contribution and some photographs, and they needed my influence to get them in here before this place opened,’ he said before she could ask why he had bothered to come with them. His words were fired like bullets from a gun. Meg saw straight away that Gianni didn’t intend the journalists to get any sort of human interest angle.
‘I don’t know…’ she began faintly. From his stance and the gaze he was directing carefully over the top of her head, this was not the way Gianni wanted to spend his time in London. It looked as though the pain wasn’t all on her side. Fighting the urge to throw herself into his arms and beg forgiveness, Meg tried to put herself in his place. He was doing the right thing, despite the way she had treated him. She owed it to him to put on a brave face and toe the company line. So she smiled, and answered all the journalist’s questions. After carefully leaving out all references to her stellar qualifications, she was horrified when her interviewer brought the matter up. With a quick side-long glance at Gianni, she glossed over the matter. After what he had said in the past, he wouldn’t want reminding about them. The photographer worked as she talked, so the whole horrible process didn’t take long.
As her visitors left all Meg’s pent up emotion escaped in a low moan of anguish. Despite all the noise and bustle of exhibitors setting up around her display, Gianni heard. He stopped, dismissed the journalists and walked quickly back to the Imsey stand.
‘What’s the matter, Megan?’
With his companions heading out of the main doors, she expected him to smile. He always smiled when he asked how she was feeling.
But not today.
She swallowed nervously. ‘Nothing—I’m fine. That interview was just a bit of a shock, that’s all. I’m not used to things like that being sprung on me at a moment’s notice. It made me nervous.’
‘That was why I stayed with them. In case you needed some moral support,’ he said tersely.
She thought of his morals, and her baby. Given the circumstances, Gianni couldn’t possibly want this child as much as she did. He wouldn’t want it at all. She came to a split-second decision. The less he knew, the less power he could have over her.
‘I assumed you were making sure I didn’t bad-mouth you to the gentlemen of the press,’ she said casually.
His grim mask slipped a little, and he looked shocked. ‘No. I know you’re far too much of a professional to do that. I also knew you’d be too self-effacing when interviewed. I came along to ensure you got your fair share of the credit.’
‘That’s all?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Then thank you, Gianni,’ she said quietly. ‘When will the article appear?’
‘In time for a big promotion I’ve been arranging in England. That’s why I’m over here,’ he said, quashing any idea that he had travelled from one side of Europe to the other to win her back. Meg knew then she had made the right decision. She could not possibly let him know about the baby. She would dissolve like meringue at the slightest hint of either his hatred or his pity. She needed him to carry on being the rigid, emotionless aristocrat standing before her.
‘Well, as you’re here, shall I supply you with another raft of plants for your latest harem?’
The joke almost lodged in her throat, but she got the words out somehow. Managing to smile was quite a different prospect. It was hopeless. Quickly, she busied herself gathering up a few last tufts of cotton wool and compressing them into a tiny ball, the size of her atrophied heart.
‘Not quite. I only need one.’
Meg’s blood curdled in her veins. There c
ould be only one possible interpretation she could put on his words.
‘Only one? Then it didn’t take you long to find a replacement mistress.’ Her movements were light and careless. They fluttered over the soft moss of the display, refining the tilt of each orchid bloom or broad, smooth leaf.
He shook his head. ‘From the way you kept reminding me of all your qualities, I’m surprised you hadn’t realised you were irreplaceable, Megan. For your information, I’m no longer in the market for a mistress. Not now, and not ever. That part of my life has come to an end.’
‘Then…’ She looked at all the plants she had so artfully arranged in her display. They were all in groups. She was the only singleton, now and for ever. ‘That must mean you’ve found yourself a wife.’
‘Possibly. The final details still have to be decided.’
Meg looked away so he would not be able to see the pain in her eyes. ‘You make it sound like a business proposition.’
‘That rather depends on the arrangements reached. This is my last night in London. I’d like you to bring the plant around this evening.’ He pulled out his PDA, tapped a few buttons and cross-referenced its display with his wristwatch. ‘I shall be free from seven p.m.’
It sounded chilling. Meg stared at him, knowing this should be the last time they met.
‘Will your fiancée be there?’ she asked gingerly.
His mouth became a tense line of disapproval at the word.
‘I have a window of opportunity at seven. That’s all,’ he announced. Then he was gone.
Chapter Ten
MEG could not bring herself to be petty or mean-minded about the plant she chose to fill Gianni’s order. She took her own favourite plant from the display. It had the most beautiful flowers, white petals overlaid with a pink flush and set off with a delicate yellow lip. She took great care in wrapping it. Crackling cellophane would protect it from the December chill, while the yards of pink ribbon she curled to decorate her offering made the finished plant a present she would like to receive herself.
The address of Gianni’s Mayfair apartment was engraved on her heart from their first meeting. That didn’t prepare her for the reality of it. A uniformed doorman showed her in. A phone call had to be made by Reception to check that she was a legitimate visitor. She was whisked up to a penthouse suite by a lift that was whisper quiet. Stepping out into a world of thick, plush carpet and gently hissing air-conditioning, she was faced with a sleek featureless door. There was no handle, knocker or any suggestion who might be behind it. Meg raised her hand, but she didn’t have time to knock. A maid in a smart black uniform and white apron opened the door. She lifted the gift-wrapped orchid from Meg’s hands, but was distracted by a movement from inside the flat.
‘Grazie, Consuelo. You can go home when you’ve dealt with that,’ Gianni’s voice murmured out to greet her. Despite everything, Meg’s heart leapt. When he moved into her field of vision, it stopped altogether. Instinctively, her hand moved to her waist. Then she let it fall away. Gianni mustn’t suspect anything. Tonight, he looked every inch the career bachelor. Moving easily around his spacious apartment, he was in his element. He hadn’t changed out of the suit he had worn for his meeting with the journalists, although he had lost his tie and jacket and his feet were bare. He had removed his gold cufflinks too, and his shirt sleeves fell back to expose his beautiful tan.
‘There wasn’t a chance to thank you for everything you’ve been to me. I wanted to spend some time catching up with each other,’ he said to Meg as the maid pulled on her coat and wished them both a good night.
It sounded a hideous idea to Meg. The last thing she wanted was to be force-fed details of the woman who had overcome Gianni’s lifelong aversion to marriage.
‘How long do we have?’ Meg asked as he led her further into his flat. She looked around with small, nervous movements. Desperate to find any trace of the Other Woman, she was sick with fear she might actually see something. There was nothing obviously feminine on display. Gianni’s apartment was a masculine blend of clean lines and expensive furnishings. Silver curtains held back by golden ropes brushed a luxurious white carpet. Beyond the windows that ran the whole length of one wall, London by night was spread out in a kaleidoscope of flickering lights.
‘We have as long as I like,’ Gianni announced. ‘I need to explain something to you, and must be absolutely certain you have it straight in your mind.’
She nodded dumbly. Moving over to a low coffee table made of a single piece of solid beech, he picked up a crystal decanter of cognac. Two glasses stood on a silver tray. Splashing a finger of spirit into each, he offered one to her. Still lost for words, this time Meg shook her head. He shrugged.
‘Suit yourself—I’ll leave it on the table. You may feel like it later.’ Holding his glass up in the soft glow of wall lights scattered around the room, he admired the clear golden liquid before taking a mouthful. It met with his approval, and he smiled. Seeing his face touched by a trace of the pleasure she had seen there so often, Meg smiled, too.
‘I was wrong, Meg,’ he said unexpectedly, diving in under her guard. ‘I thought that to make you anything more than my mistress would turn you into a woman like my mother. She was a wife, and the ruin of my father. I thought committing to you would submerge everything special, unique and priceless about you beneath a tide of greed. Can’t you see? I couldn’t take the risk of getting emotionally entangled. As my mistress, I could preserve you as my ideal woman, for ever. Marriage would turn you into a wife, and the Meg I knew deserved better than that. You were soft, sweet and sensuous—the ideal mistress, perfect to visit after a hard day at the office. I wanted to keep you, not some shrew obsessed with gym membership and spa treatments. Seeing you turned into all the worst memories I had of my mother was the very last thing I wanted.’
It was a long speech, delivered as Gianni stared down into his glass. Meg stirred, wondering what she could say. He hadn’t finished. ‘My earliest memories are all of conflict. My mother screamed the whole time, my father shouted, and it was all carried on in a windmill of gestures. My childhood was punctuated by the sound of crockery shattering against every surface. I didn’t want to live like that. And then you arrived, wanting more than my body, or my money.’
Confused though she was, Meg couldn’t let that go.
‘I thought you said your mother died in childbirth?’ she probed. In the past few moments her face had worked through every emotion. Fear and confusion had passed. She was now tense with suspicion. Her fingers running back and forth softly across her waistband, she waited for his reply.
‘A child did cause the death of my mother, but it wasn’t me. My half-brother was stillborn.’
Meg couldn’t speak. Nothing she could say seemed appropriate. Finally, when Gianni’s shoulders moved in a silent sigh, she reached out and placed her hand on his sleeve.
‘Your father must have been devastated,’ she said softly.
This time there were no explanatory smiles. He shook his head in despair.
‘You have no idea.’
He swore, a bitter Italian explosion that he could not stifle. Meg looked away.
‘As a child I assumed he was heartbroken. He was—but loss of trust damaged him far more than my mother’s death. She’d conducted affair after affair, eventually falling pregnant to one of her many lovers. My father never spoke of it to me at the time, but shut himself away in the Villa Castelfino. I was sent off to school in England. Someone must have thought I’d be protected from the gossip and stories. They didn’t count on the cruelty of children. In our isolation, both Papa and I grew shells of steel. The moment I left school I came home, hoping we could be a support to each other. I tried to help, but it was no good. He would never mention it. He encouraged me to go out and enjoy myself, on the absolute understanding that the woman I eventually chose to marry was perfect Bellini family material. Papa spent every moment of his life regretting his choice of wife, and didn’t want the same thing
to happen to me.’
‘What a terrible example of married life.’ Meg said slowly, thinking of her own parents’ idyllic partnership. ‘No wonder you never wanted to be tied down.’
‘I wasn’t going to let my heart lead me into disaster. My father married for love and was cheated. If my own mother couldn’t be faithful, how could I possibly trust any other woman?’
‘We aren’t all alike.’ Meg got her point across firmly. ‘It’s a good job my mum is nothing like yours. At least she wasn’t, before I left for Italy…’
‘Things have changed?’ He gave her a knowing look.
She nodded.
‘I told you so,’ he said, but with such regret Meg knew he was sympathising, not trying to score points.
‘It’s nobody’s fault, Gianni. I left you because my feelings were hurt. When I got home, I realised you were right. Times change, people move on. I should have been confident enough in my own abilities to shrug off whatever you and your friends thought about my work. I know I would have proved you all wrong in the end. And I should have been big enough to part with you on better terms.’ She stopped. There was a lump in her throat that threatened to betray her real feelings. ‘We have to end this properly, right now,’ she said in a rush.
‘Of course.’ Gianni’s practised ease broke her heart into still smaller fragments. This must be a regular occurrence for him. A tearful girl, the fond farewell, the pretence of regret…
A mobile phone buzzed angrily from somewhere. Putting down his glass, he strode over to where his jacket lay on a chair. Retrieving the handset from an inside pocket of his suit, he muttered a curse and killed the call without answering it.
The Count of Castelfino Page 14