by Lynne Graham
Within days, Bianca, his twin, had been smirking at her like the wicked witch. ‘Fat is a total turn-off for Alessio. Only four months along and already you look like a dumpy little barrel on short legs. He wouldn’t be seen dead with you in public. Now he doesn’t want to sleep with you either. Can you blame him?’
No blow had been too low for Bianca. Daisy shivered in remembrance. That spiteful tongue had been a constant thorn in her flesh. Brother and sister had been very close. She had often pictured Alessio confiding in Bianca and had cringed at the suspicion that nothing that happened in their marriage was private. She had imagined Alessio describing her as a dumpy little barrel and had wept anguished tears in her lonely bed. Strange that it had occurred to none of them that the sudden increase in her girth was not solely the result of comfort eating but a sign that she was carrying two babies and not one…
Janet’s house was only round the corner from her flat. Daisy headed for her aunt like a homing pigeon, praying that Tara was still at her friend’s house, wondering if some sixth sense this morning had prompted her to give in to her daughter’s pleas for a little more freedom.
Janet was on the phone when she came through the back door. ‘Put on the kettle,’ she mouthed, and went back to her call.
Daisy took off her suit jacket, caught a glimpse of herself in the little mirror on the kitchen wall and stared in horror. She rubbed at her cheeks, bit at her lips for colour but could still only focus on the stricken look in her eyes. She hoped she hadn’t looked stricken to Alessio and then questioned why it should matter to her. Pride, she supposed. Why hadn’t she managed to be cool and distant? Why had she had to rave at him the way she had?
‘You’re quiet. Tough morning?’ Janet was drawing mugs out of a cupboard.
‘I bumped into Alessio today—’
A mug hit the tiled floor and smashed into about twenty pieces.
‘It affected me like that too,’ Daisy confided unsteadily.
‘Let’s go into the lounge,’ her aunt suggested tautly. ‘We’ll be more comfortable in there.’
Daisy couldn’t stay still in any case. Her nerves seemed to be leaping up and down with jumping-bean energy. She folded her arms, paced the small room and briefly outlined the bare bones of that meeting. ‘And just wait until you hear this bit… His lousy father told him I took the money he offered me!’
Her aunt’s angular face was unusually tense. ‘Alessio mentioned the money?’
‘He wouldn’t believe me when I said that I’d refused it!’
Janet’s bright blue eyes were troubled, her sallow cheeks flushed. ‘Because I accepted it on your behalf.’
Daisy stopped dead in her tracks. ‘You did…what?’
Her aunt walked over to her desk and withdrew a slim file from a drawer. She handed it to Daisy. ‘Try to understand. You weren’t thinking about the future. I was worried sick about how you would manage with a baby if anything happened to me.’
Daisy studied the older woman in a complete daze.
‘It’s all in the file. A financial consultant helped me to set it up. Not a penny of that money has ever been brought into this country or touched. It’s in a Swiss bank account,’ Janet explained. ‘But it’s there for you and Tara should you ever need it.’
‘Alessio was telling the truth?’ Daisy mumbled thickly.
Her aunt sighed. ‘His father came to see me while you were in hospital. He practically begged me to accept the money. He felt terrible about the way things had turned out—’
‘Like heck he did!’
Janet’s face set in stern lines. ‘Vittorio was sincere, Daisy. He said that you were miserable and Alessio was equally miserable and that he had felt forced to interfere—’
‘He couldn’t wait to interfere!’
‘I found it very hard not to tell him that he still had a grandchild on the way,’ the older woman confessed wryly. ‘But, just as his loyalties ultimately lay with his son, mine lay with you. I respected your wishes.’
‘But to take the money…’ Daisy was shattered by that revelation.
‘I still believe I made the most sensible decision. You were very young at the time. You needed financial security—’
‘I’ve managed fine all these years without Leopardi conscience money!’
‘But you mightn’t have done. A lot of things could have gone wrong,’ Janet pointed out. ‘And what about Tara? Don’t you think that she is entitled to have something from her father’s family?’
‘I’ll give it back!’ Daisy swore, too upset to listen.
‘Wait and ask your daughter how she feels about that when she’s eighteen. I doubt very much that Tara will feel as you feel now. She does, after all, have Leopardi blood in her veins—’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Daisy asked defensively. ‘Tara knows exactly who she is—’
‘No, she knows who you want her to be. She’s insatiably curious about her father.’
Daisy was finding herself under a surprise attack from a woman she both respected and loved and it was a deeply disturbing experience. ‘Since when?’
‘The older she gets, the more often she mentions him. She talks about him to me. She won’t ask you about him because she doesn’t want to upset you.’
‘I have never ducked any of her questions. I’ve been totally honest with her.’
Janet grimaced. ‘It’s going to be very difficult for you but I think it’s time for you to tell Alessio that he has a daughter—’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Daisy gasped, thunderstruck.
‘Some day Tara is likely to march into his office in the City and announce herself…and for her sake Alessio ought to be forewarned.’
‘I can’t believe you’re saying this to me.’
‘Do you intend to tell Tara that you met Alessio today?’
There was a sharp little sound from behind them. Both women jerked round. Tara was standing in the hall, wideeyed and apparently frozen to the spot by what she had overheard. Then she surged forward, her pretty face suddenly full of wild excitement. ‘You met my father… Mum, you were speaking to him? Really…genuinely…speaking to him? Did you tell him about me?’ she demanded, as if that revelation might have just popped out in casual conversation.
Daisy was stunned by Tara’s naked excitement, by the crucifying look of hope and expectation glowing in her eyes. She was being faced with a disorientatingly different side of the daughter she had believed she knew inside out. And, shorn of the world-weary teenage front, the innocence of the child had never shone through more clearly. Icy fingers clutched at Daisy’s heart. Janet had been right. Tara was desperate to be acknowledged by Alessio but she had carefully hidden that uncomfortable truth from her mother. Only this morning she had carelessly referred to her father as a ‘major creep’.
‘No… I’m afraid I didn’t,’ Daisy said woodenly, traumatised by what she had seen in her daughter’s face.
‘Your mother didn’t get the opportunity,’ Janet chipped in heavily.
Tara’s face shuttered as if she realised how much she had betrayed and then raw resentment flared in her painfilled eyes. ‘Just because he didn’t want you doesn’t mean he mightn’t want to know me!’ she condemned with a choked sob.
Daisy went white. Her daughter stared at her in appalled silence and then took off. The kitchen door slammed on her hurtling exit.
‘Lord, all I’ve ever done,’ Daisy whispered wretchedly, ‘is try to protect her from being hurt.’
‘As you were?’ Janet squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. ‘Doesn’t it ever occur to you that Alessio could ave changed as much as you have? That the teenager who couldn’t cope with the prospect of fatherhood is now an adult male of thirty-two? Are you telling me that he couldn’t scrape through a single meeting with Tara? That could well be enough to satisfy her and if he won’t even agree to that…well, Tara will have to accept it. You can’t protect her by avoiding the issue.’
‘I guess not…
’ Daisy’s shaken voice trailed away altogether.
Two sleepless nights had done nothing to,improve Daisy’s outlook on life. All she could think about as she walked into the Leopardi Merchant Bank was that in the space of one morning Alessio had brought her whole world down round her ears. And the pieces were still falling. Tara was still very upset about what she had flung at her mother in her distress. Quick-tempered and passionate, Tara was also fiercely loyal and protective. Nothing Daisy had so far said had eased her daughter’s regret at having hurled those angry, hurtful words.
So why were you hurt? Daisy was still asking herself. There had to be something wrong with her that she could still flinch from the reminder of Alessio’s rejection this long after the event. And how could she have been so blind to her daughter’s very real need to know that her father had at least been made aware of her existence? Had Tara even thought of what might come next? Had she some naive fantasy of Alessio welcoming her with open arms and delight?
Or was that her own prejudice and pessimism talking again? But Daisy could only remember Alessio’s distaste when she’d been pregnant, his indifference to her need for him when she had miscarried. That had been the final bitter blow that had driven Daisy away.
Was there the remotest possibility that a male that selfish could respond in an appropriate manner to a painfully vulnerable teenage daughter whom he had never wanted in the first place? Daisy acknowledged that she had known what she was doing when she’d kept quiet about Tara’s existence. The risk of exposing her child to the same rejection that she herself had experienced had been too great.
Daisy got out of the lift on the top floor. If she had thought Giles’s office was the last word in luxury, she was now learning her mistake. The sleek smoked-glass edifice which housed the Leopardi Merchant Bank was stunningly elegant in its contemporary decor. There were two women in the reception area. The older one moved forward. ‘Miss Thornton? I’m Mr Leopardi’s secretary. Could you come this way, please…?’
Daisy reddened. Alessio’s secretary wore a marked look of strain—possibly the result of Daisy’s steadfast determination not to be refused an appointment. Alessio was undoubtedly furious. After all, he had made it very clear that he did not wish to see her again. However, she didn’t know where he lived so she had had no choice but to approach him at the bank.
Her heart pounding at the foot of her throat and reverberating in her eardrums, she walked dizzily into Alessio’s office, a great big room with a great big glass desk and…Alessio standing there, suppressed dark fury and rigid restraint emanating from every lean, poised line of his tall, muscular body.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he demanded with icy precision.
Her head swam, her knees wobbled. She opened her mouth and closed it again. A quite sickening wave of dizziness overwhelmed her and the next thing she knew the blackness was folding in and her legs were crumpling beneath her.
CHAPTER THREE
DAISY surfaced from her faint very slowly. She focused on Alessio’s dark features as he swam gradually into focus, and a dazed smile curved her soft mouth. He was cradling her in his arms, her slight body still limp, her head resting back against his forearm. It felt wonderful. Her violet eyes dreamy, she looked up at him…and melted, a honeyed languor stealing through her as she shifted and curled her toes in wanton anticipation.
‘You have the most gorgeous eyes,’ Alessio breathed in an abstracted undertone, drawing ever closer.
They were lost in his. Pools of passionate gold set between luxuriant black lashes even longer than her own. Daisy expelled a tiny sigh, the raw heat of his lean, hard body curling sensuously into her relaxed limbs. She curved instinctively closer and he lifted a hand almost jerkily and let long brown fingers thread into the fall of her hair, his thumb rubbing caressingly against her earlobe. Her heartbeat went crazy in the thrumming silence.
‘Alessio…’ she mumbled.
‘Piccola mia…’ The familiar endearment left him in an aching sigh.
Warm fingers cupped her cheekbone as he bent his dark head. He captured her moist lips in a devouring kiss and plundered them apart. From that first instant of contact, Daisy was electrified. The erotic flick of his tongue exploring the tender interior of her mouth made her jerk in shock and gasp. lightning heat sizzled through her. Her hands came up to clutch at his thick hair, his broad shoulders, his powerful arms and clung. Every clamouring sense roared off in glorious rediscovery. He crushed her to him and she surrendered with enthusiasm. As she strained up to him in a fever of desire, excitement clawed at her throbbing body in a voracious surge.
With a driven groan, Alessio dragged his mouth from hers and stared down at her with stunned intensity. He snatched in a ragged breath and abruptly stood up, carrying her slim body with him. His strong face set like cement as he gazed into her passion-glazed eyes. Swinging lithely round, he simply opened his arms and let her drop from a height back down onto the sofa he had just vacated.
‘Give me the bad news first!’ Alessio raked down at her.
Daisy had landed in a mess of wildly tangled hair and inelegantly splayed limbs on the mercifully well-sprung sofa. She didn’t know what had hit her. For an instant she didn’t even know where she was but she knew that Alessio was there all right, standing over her like a hanging judge as she attempted to halt a seemingly unstoppable roll in the direction of his plush office carpet. A pair of strong hands caught her and impatiently flipped her back upright into the corner of the seat.
‘“The bad news…”?’ Daisy echoed. Momentarily, utter cowardice had her in its hold. She didn’t want to be forced to think. Not about how time had cruelly slid back to entrap and humiliate her. Not about how excruciatingly pleasurable it had felt to be in Alessio’s arms. Not about how dreadful it felt to be separated from him again. No, she definitely didn’t want to think.
‘You only faint when you’re terrified! Do you think I don’t remember that?’ Alessio launched at her grimly. ‘You drop in a pathetic little heap, then you open those big blue eyes and fix them on me and I have an uncontrollable urge to give way to my baser instincts. That’s how you broke the news of your pregnancy!’
‘My pregnancy?’ Daisy questioned helplessly. ‘I didn’t get that way on my own!’
‘There was nothing accidental about it,’ Alessio condemned harshly.
Daisy froze, shattered by that particular accusation. Even thirteen years ago, it had not occurred to her that Alessio might believe that her pregnancy was anything other than an accident. That his family suspected her of such manipulative behaviour had been no surprise to her, but she had innocently assumed that at least Alessio did not share their suspicions. ‘Are you really trying to accuse me of having deliberately set out to…?’
Alessio spread two brown hands in a frustrated movement of dismissal. ‘We are not going to talk about this.’
‘Now just you wait a minute,’ Daisy objected, springing upright. ‘You can’t throw an accusation like that and then back off from it again!’
‘Did you hear me? Leave yesterday’s bad news where it belongs,’ Alessio spelt out. ‘We are not about to get into that again. We are not going to fight about ancient history like a couple of stupid kids!’
‘Ancient history…yesterday’s bad news…’ How would Alessio react when she informed him that ‘yesterday’s bad news’ was infinitely more current than he had had any cause to suspect? The fight went out of Daisy. She sank heavily back down on the sofa again. ‘You want to know why I told your secretary I had to see you to discuss an urgent, confidential matter—’
‘I think I’m ahead of you there.’ Alessio surveyed her with innate cynicism, his lip curling. ‘You’re broke, aren’t you? You’re in debt.’
‘I don’t know where you get that idea.’ But Daisy turned a guilty pink, unable to avoid thinking about that Swiss bank account filled with Leopardi money. Not just filled but positively bursting at the seams with Leopardi money, the original investm
ent having grown greatly in the intervening years, according to Janet.
Alessio settled down on the matching leather sofa opposite. He looked incredibly formidable to her evasive eyes. He was wearing a superbly tailored navy pinstriped suit and a red silk tie. The expensive fabric skimmed wide shoulders and delineated long, powerful thighs. Hurriedly she tore her gaze from him but he stayed there in her mind’s eye. So achingly handsome, from the top of his smooth, darkly beautiful head to the soles of his equally beautiful shoes. Her throat closed over. Her mind was a complete blank. Why couldn’t he have started losing some of his hair or developed a bit of a businessman’s paunch?
‘Daisy, my time is at a premium. Since you forced this meeting by giving my secretary no opportunity to deny your demand, I had to cancel an important appointment to free a space for you—’
‘A space on the sofa?’ she bit out between gritted teeth.
‘At this moment, I think the less said about that development the better.’
Bitter resentment tensed Daisy. Alessio… all heat and passion one moment, polar ice the next. Daisy had never had his trick of switching off, had never been able to understand how he could make mad, passionate love to her in the night and then turn away from her when she tried to talk. When her emotions were involved, she wore everything on the surface, could not hold her feelings back. But Alessio locked everything away and kept a ferociously tight hold on the key.
‘To be frank, I’m not surprised that you have financial problems,’ Alessio imparted coolly. ‘I imagine the divorce settlement went a long time ago—’
‘And why do you imagine that?’
‘At that age you would have had no idea how to handle that amount of money. But I’m relieved that you are finally acknowledging that you did receive that settlement,’ he drawled. ‘It was very naive of you to assume that I wouldn’t know about it and that you could afford to lie.’