by Betsy Swann
Enzo believed that it was all a dream, she had realised with a sigh of relief. He thought that she was a vision, a girl in his sleep. If this particular dream seemed very real to him in the morning, he would put it down to the excess of alcohol he must have downed after she had left. She had never seen him drunk before, so falling out with her must have shattered him, too.
Swiftly she crossed the foyer and moved towards the exit, leaving her key card on the reception desk.
‘Grazie, signora,’ the receptionist said. ‘Buona notte!’
Izzy wished him a good night as well, relieved that he didn’t recognise her. The other night porter must have gone home while she was upstairs.
She covered the short distance to the waiting taxi und slipped into the back seat.
‘I’ve been worried you’d never come back,’ the taxi driver said over his shoulder and started the car. ‘You know that the tab has been running while you were inside, don’t you?’
Izzy nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’
No doubt the fare had amassed to an extortionate amount, being in Rome, but she had asked him to wait for her, so she couldn’t complain.
She looked out of the window while the taxi glided through the eternal city, which was fast asleep. Tomorrow morning she would return to England, but she didn’t feel like licking her wounds in London. In fact, there was no reason to go to London at all. Her desk in Enzo’s office didn’t need to be cleared, because she had never brought any personal stuff, and she was still on holidays. Her design team at Hetherington’s didn’t expect her back for at least seven days.
So where should she go from here?
A faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth. As it happened, she knew just the place to mend her broken heart in peace and quiet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Trust your heart.
Enzo stood on the balcony adjoining his bedroom and looked down onto the sunny piazza in front of the hotel. A young blonde woman was leaning against the fountain down there and let her fingers glide through the clear waters in the basin. The scene reminded him of Izzy, only that Izzy had gone.
Briefly closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Trust your heart, she had said in his dream last night, and at that very moment he had finally realised what his heart had told him from the start. That she was the woman he loved, the only one. The one meant for him. The one for life. The one he needed to be happy. And he had spoiled it all with his mistrust and his terrible jealousy.
He’d been a fool to send her away. Dio, he hadn’t even let her explain. He’d just thrown her belongings into that suitcase like a madman, all because he had let his mind reign instead of his heart. From the moment he had set eyes on her in her father’s art gallery, he had known she was the one. But although his heart had told him loud and clear that Izzy was the love of his life, his intellect had given him all kinds of reasons why this couldn’t be true. Why she wasn’t worth his trust. Not once had he given her the opportunity to explain, he realised. Not one single time.
Hell. What an arrogant bastard he had been, even calling her terrible names, and all the time Izzy had tried to explain. Again and again. But he had never listened and had never given her a chance.
And now she was gone.
His hands clasped the ornate iron railing of the balcony. Somehow he had to win her back. But what if she didn’t want him anymore after his obnoxious behaviour? What if she hadn’t meant her final plea to trust his heart?
Not Izzy had said that, but the woman in his dreams, he corrected himself. The vision had felt so real that he still couldn’t believe that he had been sleeping. Her touch, her smell, the sweet whisper of her voice…
He shrugged his shoulders. He shouldn’t have had so much alcohol last night.
A beep from his wrist watch reminded him that it was time to start working. He turned. Passing the unmade bed, a twinkle suddenly caught his eye from halfway under the pillow. Frowning, he paused to lift the pillow and immediately recognised the sparkling object on the crumpled sheets.
Izzy’s diamond earring.
Carefully he lifted it from the bed and held it up into the rays of sunshine streaming through the window. Instantly tiny sparkles of light bounced off the facets and started dancing across the ceiling.
So it hadn’t been a vision, after all. The realisation hit him like a sledge hammer. Izzy had returned during the night and made tender love to him, and he had been too dumb drunk to even realise she was real.
***
Muttering a curse Enzo pushed his laptop out of the way and got up to get himself a cold drink. He’d been sitting behind his desk for the past three hours and had managed to work exactly nothing. All he could think about was Izzy and that she had been back during the night.
Dio! The thought that he had allowed her to leave him again instead of grabbing her and keeping her for the rest of his life, almost killed him. How could a man be so stupid?
Angry with himself he took a deep gulp of icy water and slammed the glass back on the table. A knock at the door made him turn around.
‘Come in.’
‘I’m sorry to disturb,’ his personal assistant apologised. ‘But the maid who was cleaning your suite this morning is terribly upset. It seems that the bathroom curtains in the guest room have gone missing, and her supervisor suspects that she has taken them.’
Bathroom curtains?
Enzo frowned. He knew that maid to be trustworthy and reliable. ‘This is ridiculous. Why on earth would she steal a bulky pair of bathroom curtains, when there are enough small silver knick knacks in the suite that would easily fit into her bag? One of those would be much easier to smuggle out of the hotel for any burglar, and nobody would notice straight away.’
‘Exactly my feelings,’ said Flavia. ‘But nonetheless, the curtains have gone. Very expensive curtains, by the way. Blue silk of the best quality and decorated with rhinestones and ornate stitching.”
Dio! That dress…
Leaving a stunned Flavia behind, Enzo stormed out of his office and along the corridor to his suite. Heavily breathing he stopped in the doorway to the guest bathroom, the one Izzy had used.
As soon as Flavia had mentioned the colours of the curtain, he’d remembered it – and had known exactly why Ruby’s fairy tale gown had seemed so familiar. His heartbeat accelerated.
It couldn’t be, could it?
Swiftly he moved across the room to the telephone on one of the bedside tables and phoned reception.
‘It’s Enzo Vallorini,’ he said. ‘Please tell me, what exactly was it that Signorina Jones requested from reception yesterday morning?’
He put the receiver back on the phone and sank heavily onto the bed.
A professional sewing machine. Hell. She had spent the afternoon sewing that dress!
Enzo raked his hand through his hair. How on earth had he not realised the truth? It had been staring in his face, but all this time he had been too blind to see the obvious. He’d been way too sure of his preconceptions about Izzy to figure out that she was Clarissa, the gifted designer, who was behind ‘My Greatest Wish’. One of the most beautiful women walking this planet, inside and out, according to Hetherington.
Never, not for one second, had he suspected that Izzy, the greedy gold-digging slut, and golden-hearted Clarissa were one and the same. Not even when they had become intimate and had shared so many special moments.
Enzo buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t believe that he had been so slow to realise. That it had taken a set of ‘stolen’ bathroom curtains to confront him with the truth.
Ruby’s words came back to his mind. ‘It’s all thanks to Clarissa, the best designer in the world. Without her help, I wouldn’t have been able to come tonight.’ And then she had thrown herself into Izzy’s arms. ‘Thanks so much for everything.’
Dio! It didn’t get more obvious than that. There had been other clues he’d been too blind to see, like the way the staff at the Doria had greeted Izzy w
hen they had visited the restaurant. Her knowledge about Clarissa’s work. Her design suggestions for his own hotels. The fabulous dresses she wore… All her own creations, no doubt. He cringed at the memory how he had told Izzy that she could never compare with someone like Clarissa. Not in a million years.
He frowned. So why the hell had she been working as his brother’s PA? Luca would have taken her on with open arms, had Clarissa applied for a job. So why the secrecy, why no mention of her true identity in her CV? And why office work, one of a sudden, when it was obvious that design was her true vocation?
Deep in thought Enzo returned to his office. So many questions and so many uncertainties, just because he had never bothered to listen to her explanations. Even the letter she had sent him after their break-up, he had returned unopened. Dio, what an unforgiving bastard he had been. Not even the fact that she had still been a virgin after all her alleged affairs with other men had opened his eyes to the truth.
His mind had twisted everything good that he’d seen in her into something despicable, because this was the only way to keep his heart safe. But it had not worked. The more emotional distance he had tried to establish between Izzy and him, the louder his heart had screamed what he had refused to hear. That she was the one, his happy-ever-after.
If she still wanted him.
‘I have decided to return to London tonight,’ he informed Flavia. ‘Is the plane available?’
‘I’ll have to book you a flight with a regular airline,’ she replied. ‘One of your cousins is using the jet at the moment. By the way, I’ve just had a call from Nick Hetherington’s PA in London. The Doria papers should be ready for you to sign by tomorrow.’
‘Great,’ he replied, but somehow he didn’t feel as happy about the deal as expected. How could he ever step into the Doria in Rome again without being reminded of Izzy?
***
As soon as he arrived at London’s Heathrow airport, Enzo gave his driver Izzy’s address. He had to see her. Had to speak to her. Nothing had ever felt more important than this, but he hadn’t dared to contact her by phone, in case she’d hang up on him. He’d deserve it, of course, but this was more than he could stomach at the moment. If she rejected him, which she probably would, he wanted it to be more personal than a simple ‘click’ in the phone line, followed by silence.
Bleakly he peered at the bright lights of London that illuminated the night. His memory shifted back to the journey when his driver had chauffeured them to the airport on their way to Italy. She had innocently mentioned that he reminded her of Peter Pan’s lost boys, and he had taken her remark as nasty and scornful. At the time he had been convinced that Luca must have told her about his humiliating background. That his mother had left him behind in a park when he was a baby. Thinking back to the stunned look on Izzy’s face that had swiftly changed to compassionate, he was now certain that she hadn’t known. She had been genuinely shocked to hear his story.
‘We’ve arrived, sir,’ the driver said, pulling him out of his reveries.
Enzo opened the back door and stepped onto the pavement. Automatically his gaze drifted up to the penthouse, but there was no light. He briefly consulted his watch. Was she already asleep? Swiftly he crossed the road and pushed the glass entrance door open.
‘I’d like to visit Miss Jones,’ he said to the porter. ‘Is she at home?’
The man shook his head. ‘Miss Jones left for Italy two weeks ago and hasn’t returned yet,’ he replied. ‘Your best bet is to ask for her at work. The Hetherington’s hotel, Park Lane.’
Enzo nodded and went back to the limousine. So she hadn’t returned home. The unpleasant image of her leaving the ball in the company of Nick Hetherington flitted through his mind. The thought that she had accompanied Hetherington to his hotel, the very man who had embraced her in that box room, made his hackles rise but instantly Enzo forbade himself to go there. Izzy had sworn that her relationship with Hetherington was harmless, and that meant that she had not shared a room with him at the Doria, and that she was not sharing a room with him now, in his flat or wherever.
Tired, he leant back into his seat. He couldn’t help being jealous. Alone the thought of Izzy with another man made him see red, but he had no right to be possessive. She wasn’t his, not anymore. Not after he had broken their engagement and repeatedly sent her away. And still she had told him that she loved him. Hell. Even that he had thrown back into her face, because he hadn’t believed her. The only thing he could do now was hope that she still felt the same. That she hadn’t changed her mind about him after the way he had treated her.
What if she has gone to Las Vegas? an evil little voice whispered in his head. What if she marries Luca, now that you’ve sent her away?
He clenched his fists and resisted the urge to send Luca a message not to propose to Izzy, because she belonged to him. Luca loved her, he knew, and the knowledge that he was competing against his brother didn’t sit well with him. Whoever might win Izzy’s heart in the end would deeply hurt the other – it was inevitable. Alone the thought of having to attend their wedding made Enzo’s stomach clench. Dio! Luca deserved to find happiness after the disaster with his first wife, but please let him find happiness with someone else, not Izzy.
Enzo forked his hand through his hair. This was all too much for him to understand. Clearly Luca had had an affair with Izzy for some time, and clearly he had been madly in love with her. So much that he had planned to propose marriage to her and still planned to do so. How come an experienced man like his brother, with all his rugged charm and sex appeal, had fallen for a virgin who refused to sleep with him? How could he possibly have entertained a prolonged affair with his PA without ever taking her to bed?
You’ve done the same thing, the evil little voice in his head whispered again. You got engaged without having slept with her.
True, but Luca was different. Luca would never have done that, or at least that’s what he had thought. Obviously he had been mistaken.
Enzo closed his eyes. He didn’t know, didn’t understand. The only fact he really knew was that Izzy was not meant for his brother. She was meant for him. His perfect match. The one for the rest of his life. The one for ever after.
I will never marry Luca, she had promised when he had last seen her, and he had finally trusted his heart and believed her. Difficult as it was, it was important to stick to that trust now. To believe her, no matter what. He would not allow himself to fall for the evidence of a photo again, he swore, or any other proof of her unfaithfulness without asking Izzy for an explanation and believing her word. His obnoxious behaviour had caused too much grief and despair already, and he could only hope and pray that Izzy would find it in her to forgive him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Slowly Izzy bent down and carefully placed the vase with the sweet smelling roses onto the grave. Mermaid, her late father’s favourite flowers which bore lovely white blooms with a golden centre and trailed around the front door of the clapboard house he had left her.
‘They remind me of your mother,’ he’d used to say with a smile. ‘She was as beautiful as a rose. Just like you.’
A tear silently slid down her cheek. Her mother’s beauty had not been strong enough to tie her parents together, and where Enzo was concerned… He could pick any woman he desired. They all started to salivate as soon as he entered a room, so why settle for her, a woman he despised? When he looked at her, he didn’t see the beautiful rose her father had seen. The only thing he noticed, were the thorns.
She wiped the tear away with her fingers and forced herself to a little smile towards the head stone.
‘Whenever I read mum and your letters, Dad,’ she said, ‘I can’t understand how this could have happened. How two people, who deeply love each other could possibly not talk and not communicate and doing so dig the grave for their love.’ She sighed. ‘But you know, that’s exactly what Enzo and I have been doing. Never talking, never explaining… I wanted to, but he wouldn’t let me. I g
uess, I should have tried more. I should have been more persistent and try again and again until he’d finally listen to what I had to say.’
She snapped a wilting leaf off one of the flowers.
‘It’s not easy when someone doesn’t want to listen. When he is so prejudiced that anything you say or do either doesn’t count or speaks against you.’ She smiled a wobbly smile. ‘But don’t worry, Dad. I’ll cope with it just as you coped when Mum left. I only wish you were here to take me in your arms and tell me that everything will be all right.’
Holding the remaining roses in her arm, Izzy went back to the entrance of the cemetery, across the wide gravel path and along the graves of old friends she’d known when she’d grown up here. Close to the entrance was the imposing resting place of the St Clair family who had lived in the manor house for over two centuries. Enzo’s mother had been the last St Clair, and when she married the house had become part of the Vallorini estate.
Izzy’s heart ached when she remembered the expression in Enzo’s eyes, when he had told her about his greatest wish. About the family home that he loved so dearly and that had fallen into the hands of Rebecca Morton after her divorce from his brother. He had looked so desperate, so completely without hope that she just had to try her best to help him get the mansion back.
She smiled. She could hardly believe how swiftly Nick had managed to convince Rebecca that he, or rather ‘My Greatest Wish, was the perfect buyer for the house. The deal had been completed within less than a week. Clearly the actress had assumed that Nick would never return the house to the original owners, because Luca had smashed his nose in a fit of jealousy.
A short walk later she reached the mansion house that stood in a sheltered position close to the beach and opened the wrought-iron gate. The house had been left empty for the past two years, and she had wanted to make sure that Enzo found it warm and inviting on his return.