by Lynne Graham
‘You like Christien better than you used to, don’t you?’ Tabby prompted with amused satisfaction.
Dredging herself from her uneasy thoughts, Pippa smiled. ‘I’ve only really got the chance to get to know him properly since I came to stay.’
‘He’s so confident that he used to set your teeth on edge and I can understand that after the way your dad treated your mum and you.’ Tabby sighed with sympathy. ‘I don’t blame you for distrusting men with strong characters.’
Pippa was disconcerted because Tabby seemed to be alluding to an issue that Pippa had believed was a Stevenson family secret.
Reading her friend’s expression, Tabby winced. ‘Oh, no, you didn’t realise I knew about—’
‘Dad and his other women?’ Pippa strove to look unconcerned.
Tabby grimaced. ‘My stepmother let the cat out of the bag during that awful final holiday. Her flirting with your father to annoy mine didn’t exactly add to the friendly atmosphere. I felt so sorry for your mother.’
‘She was a gentle soul and miserable with Dad.’ Pippa discovered that she could feel almost grateful for the opportunity to finally express her pain on her late mother’s behalf. She would never forget overhearing her father telling her mother that he was entitled to stray when he had such an unattractive wife. ‘He could say very cruel things.’
‘It was his way of controlling you and your mum,’ Tabby opined. ‘But a man can be strong without needing to hurt and humiliate women.’
‘I know that.’ But Pippa was only agreeing in the hope that that would conclude a subject that went too close to the bone for comfort. There had been nothing weak about Andreo, but that had not prevented him from hurting and humiliating her, she reflected painfully.
‘Do you?’ Tabby gave her a troubled look. ‘Or has your dad’s big, scary shadow fallen over your relationship with the Italian bloke you won’t tell me about?’
‘I just had a fight with…Andreo…no big deal,’ Pippa quipped with forced lightness of tone, because her fierce pride would not allow her to confess the truth to Tabby, who was secure in her husband’s obvious love for her and their children.
Starved of even such minor facts by her friend’s reserved nature, Tabby could not hide the strength of her desire to know more. ‘Did you even give Andreo the chance to say sorry?’
Pippa went pink with discomfiture and then decided to tell a little white lie for the sake of peace. ‘Actually…we’re talking again. He phoned me last night—’
‘Oh, that’s marvellous!’ Tabby gave her much taller friend a delighted hug of approbation. ‘I wish Christien and I could get the chance to meet him…’
At that opportune moment, Jolie tugged at Pippa’s cotton trousers and provided a welcome distraction by holding up her arms to be lifted. Pippa looked down into the little girl’s trusting gaze and sunny smile and obliged. Jolie had all the confidence of a child who was growing up in an atmosphere of love and contentment. Pippa reckoned that granted the same background to her childhood she herself would have developed a healthier self-esteem.
‘Come and play cars,’ Jake urged in turn. ‘Jolie can watch.’
Tabby rested most afternoons but it was her nanny’s day off and she looked tired. Ignoring her half-hearted protests, Pippa took the children back indoors to give her friend a break.
After dinner that evening, Pippa thanked Christien and Tabby for their wonderful hospitality. In the morning she planned to board a train to the Dordogne to visit her mother’s burial place for the first time. Following that she would head to Paris and seek accommodation and a new job. Christien had already offered her the use of his Paris apartment and lucrative employment, but Pippa preferred not to mix friendship with the acceptance of favours she could not return.
‘Do you think I could persuade Hilary to come for a visit?’ Tabby asked wistfully outside Pippa’s bedroom door.
‘She’d love to come, but between her little sister and the hair salon, she’s very tied down,’ Pippa explained ruefully. ‘I wish one of us had heard from Jen but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.’
‘She was always very shy but I’m sure she’ll get in touch eventually. In the meantime, you and me and Hilary should plan a proper get-together for the new year,’ Tabby suggested before she said goodnight to Pippa.
Pippa was emerging from the shower when she heard a helicopter coming in to land. There was nothing unusual in that. The owner of an international airline, Christien flew himself most places and so did many of his social circle.
Clad in a cool white cotton nightdress, Pippa was setting out clothes for the morning when a hasty knock sounded on the door and Tabby appeared wreathed in a big grin. ‘I’ve got a fantastic surprise for you!’ her friend carolled like an excited schoolgirl. ‘Close your eyes!’
Suppressing a sigh, Pippa did as she was asked. ‘Can I open them yet?’
‘Not until you hear the door close again…and don’t feel you have to hurry down for breakfast in the morning!’ Tabby giggled.
As the door snapped shut Pippa was picturing a beaker of hot chocolate topped with melted marshmallows or some such sentimental reminder of their childhood. But when her lashes swept up she got a severe shock. Instead of a soothing night drink, Tabby had delivered a six-foot-five-inch male to her guest’s bedroom.
‘Tabby’s very sweet,’ Andreo murmured smooth as black ice.
Just one look at him and Pippa felt as if she had been knifed. He was the male she had craved against her will for two endless weeks. The male she had simultaneously craved and hated, whom she had last seen being pawed by the beautiful Lili. Her tummy flipped in rejection of the cruel images flooding her memory. Angry pain was no true barrier against his hard male beauty and that raw physicality of his that made her senses sing. His charcoal grey business suit was tailored to a designer fit over his broad shoulders, lean hips and long, powerful thighs. He looked totally spectacular and her mouth ran dry.
‘How the heck did you find out where I was?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘I didn’t tell anyone!’
‘When you were last on the phone to Marco, he heard someone address you in French—’
‘I’ll never forgive him for telling you—’
‘Be fair, bella mia. You only asked him not to divulge your new phone number and he did respect that. I had to lean on him a little before he mentioned hearing French being spoken—’
Pippa dealt him an aghast look of reproach. ‘You bully…he’s only fourteen!’
‘And even at that tender age, Marco has a healthy regard for family honour and loyalty,’ Andreo delivered dryly.
‘You still haven’t explained how you discovered I was here—’
‘I had your background investigated—’
Pippa stared back at him in disbelief. ‘You did…what?’
‘You have strong connections to France through your own family tree. Your friendship with Tabby and Christien Laroche made this an obvious port of call—’
‘I can’t believe that you dared to come here—’
‘I dare…believe it, amore,’ Andreo incised.
‘Nor can I imagine what crazy stories you told to talk your way through the door—’
Andreo dealt her a look of hauteur. ‘What need had I to tell stories? Your friend seemed unsurprised to see me,’ he stated grimly. ‘Santo Cielo…I had only to say who I was and she offered to take me up to your room!’
Severe embarrassment claimed Pippa. Her own little white lie about Andreo having phoned the night before to heal their differences had come back to haunt her. Naturally Tabby had assumed that Andreo’s arrival would be a wonderful surprise for Pippa and that she herself was helping along a lovers’ reconciliation.
Brilliant golden eyes clung to her fast-reddening face. ‘Care to explain that? Or am I supposed to assume that every guy who calls here asking for you is shown straight up to your bedroom, no questions asked?’
Infuriated by that dig, which pie
rced right to the heart of her belief that she had already made an enormous fool of herself over him, Pippa lost her temper and swung up her hand.
‘Don’t…’ Closing lean fingers round her wrist before she could deliver that potential slap, Andreo sent her a hard look of censure and voiced that single word with icy restraint.
Pippa retrieved her arm from his hold, rage and mortification united inside her now. She was so mad with him that she could hardly catch her breath to speak. ‘Get out of here, then!’
‘No…’ His refusal was cool and level.
‘Then I’ll move to another room…’
‘If you like…I’ll fish my bedtime reading out of my case and settle down for the night,’ Andreo murmured soft and smooth.
Temper had taken Pippa to the door, but at those words that seemed to offer an unknown threat she stilled, her brow indenting. ‘What are you talking about?’
Reaching past her, Andreo opened the door, swept up the leather case and garment bags draped over it and lifted them into the room.
‘Andreo?’ Pippa queried in bewilderment, unable to comprehend why he should suddenly remove the pressure on her and behave as if what she did was immaterial to him.
‘You don’t appear to grasp how angry I am with you,’ he breathed in sudden warning. ‘You owe me an explanation and a grovelling apology—’
Pippa folded her arms with a jerk. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘And in the absence of said grovelling apology, I am likely to sink as low as a guy can sink—’
‘Tell me something I don’t know! I’ve already seen you swarming all over your blonde girlfriend!’ Pippa suddenly slung at him with such feeling rage and pain that her voice had a crack in it.
Andreo studied her with fixed attention, eyes a shimmering gold below spiky black lashes. ‘Correction. She was swarming over me. So you did see me with Lili. I wondered about that—’
‘You said you couldn’t go out for lunch with me because you had business to take care of…some business!’ Pippa bawled at him full throttle.
‘Lili was with me when I phoned you. Within her hearing I could hardly tell you that I was taking her out to lunch to dump her.’
To dump her? To dump her? Those magical words echoed in ringing decibels through Pippa’s brain and made it quite impossible for her to think of anything else. He had been planning to end his relationship with Lili Richards?
Andreo sent her a grim glance. ‘Of course, had you stayed in the same building, not to mention the same country you would have found that fact out for yourself because I would have brought you up to speed on events when I saw you that night.’
Momentarily, Pippa had been silenced. She had to angle back against the high bed for support because her legs felt shaky. Andreo had chosen her in preference to that gorgeous blonde fantasy woman? As a statement of intent, it was almost more than she could credit and then a little native wit crept back in to remind her that he had sworn that he was free of involvement with any other woman.
‘You lied to me,’ Pippa condemned. ‘When we first met I asked if you were involved with anyone else and you said no.’
‘As far as I was concerned it was true. Lili knew she would be travelling for a couple of months. Our relationship was casual. We agreed that if either of us met anyone else we would be free to follow it up. I met you. Lili said she met no one, but I suspect that what she really meant was that she met no one worth mentioning,’ Andreo completed with rich cynicism.
So, according to his version of events, Lili had just existed in the background of his life, a casual bed partner when she’d been physically available. Surely that was all that she, Pippa, could have been to him as well? Had she not originally decided to allow their relationship to run only until she left for France? Hadn’t that been the most sensible attitude? After all, Andreo was not looking for a long-term relationship with her either. It was better to be the one leaving than the one who was left.
In any case, how could she trust a word he said about Lili Richards? Since when was it possible to believe anything a man said when it came to the other woman in his life? How many times had her late father lied to her trusting mother and persuaded her that an affair had been over when it had been in fact still continuing? Or even that his extra-marital activities had existed in her mother’s imagination alone? How many times had he voiced arguments that had sounded credible but that had eventually turned out to be cruel, unfeeling lies?
‘Any comment?’ Andreo murmured flatly.
Pippa shot him a driven glance, imagining how she would feel watching him leave her again only to recoil from that prospect. No matter how bitter and suspicious she was, she still had to fight a demeaning desire to keep him with her. Ashamed of her weakness, she tilted her chin. ‘Coming here was a waste of your time!’
Andreo frowned. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever had a more one-sided dialogue with a woman. You don’t even appreciate what you’ve done.’
‘What I’ve done?’ Pippa echoed with incredulity.
‘Sì. Without a word of warning or explanation to anyone, you vanished into thin air—’
‘I handed in my notice and I returned your gifts…didn’t that all speak for itself?’
‘That you were annoyed about something? Didn’t it once cross your mind that when you disappeared I’d be worried sick about you?’
Pippa jerked up a rebellious shoulder. ‘Why should it have done?’
Savage anger flared in Andreo’s censorious gaze and he moved closer. ‘We were in a relationship. I gave you no reason to believe that I would do anything to hurt or betray you. Dio mio…you trusted me enough to give me a key to your home!’
Her throat closing over on a flood of tears, Pippa focused on a point to one side of him for she did not want to be reminded of how easily she had initially given her trust.
‘When you didn’t answer my messages I went to your home to check that you weren’t lying there ill. I could see that you had packed and left in a hurry and that remained a source of genuine anxiety to me.’
Involuntarily, Pippa glanced up and encountered scorching golden eyes of contempt that froze her to the spot.
‘At that point I had no idea that you had already terminated your employment with Venstar. Concern prompted me to hire private investigators in an effort to trace your movements. Of course, a less honourable guy would just have sat down and opened your diary and read it from start to finish!’
Those final terrifying words hung there in the air while Pippa stared back at Andreo as if he had just developed horns and cloven feet. Every scrap of colour had ebbed from her face. ‘My…my diary? You know I keep a diary?’
‘It was hard to miss. There it was beside your bed—bright pink and furry and adorned with the words, “My diary” and a tiny girlie padlock which I could break with one finger.’ Andreo seemed to positively savour that description and assurance.
‘You saw my diary…’ Pippa was sick with horror at him having got that close to her every written secret thought, especially when her every written secret thought had recently related to him. Why had she given him the key to her home? Why had she not had the wit to hide her diary away?
‘Saw it and lifted it—’
‘Lifted it?’ Pippa gasped strickenly.
‘It’s just amazing the way you’re finally giving me the attention I deserve, cara mia,’ Andreo remarked silkily.
Pippa was paralysed to the spot. ‘Did you break the padlock?’
‘Not as yet but it strikes me as the most straightforward solution to your refusal to talk—’
‘I’m not refusing to talk…where’s my diary?’ she steeled herself to demand.
‘In my case—’
‘You brought it with you?’
Andreo gave her a silent nod of confirmation.
Pippa breathed in very deep and thought fast but there was just no way out that she could see. ‘I’ll do just about anything to stop you reading my diary.’
&n
bsp; ‘That’s what I reckoned too,’ Andreo confided, deadpan.
‘Will you just give it back to me?’ she prompted very softly and gently.
‘No. Right now, it’s a negotiating tool and a guarantee that you think and listen and eventually account for your behaviour,’ Andreo delineated without hesitation.
Her teeth gritted and her fingernails flexed and bit into her palms.
‘But in the short term, I’m willing to grant you a little breathing space. After all, it’s late, we’re in someone else’s home and you’re obviously ready for bed. We can talk tomorrow—’
‘I’m leaving in the morning for the Dordogne—’
‘I know. Tabby did mention how close I’d come to missing you,’ Andreo interposed evenly. ‘Isn’t it fortunate that I have a home in the same region? You’ll be able to travel down with me.’
At the mere idea that she might be willing to travel anywhere with him, Pippa breathed in so deep and long that she was almost convinced she would burst.
‘Is it OK if I have a shower?’ Andreo enquired, setting his case down on the luggage rack by the wall.
‘You can’t sleep here!’ Pippa exclaimed, blue eyes huge.
‘No problem. Perhaps you’d do the honours with our hostess and request a separate room for me.’
Pippa paled and tried to steel herself to the prospect of rising to that challenge. Tabby would be embarrassed by her assumption that her guests would happily share the same bedroom. Pippa would be embarrassed asking for an arrangement that was the equivalent of a public announcement about the hostile state of her current relationship with Andreo. Colour warming her cheeks, she dropped her head.
‘You might as well sleep here tonight. It’s a big bed and it’s late and Tabby and Christien have probably already gone to bed,’ she muttered grudgingly.
As he watched her visibly squirm at the idea of approaching her friend unholy amusement at her discomfiture made Andreo say with exaggerated courtesy, ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s obvious that you’re uncomfortable with the idea.’