One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Presents

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Lazzaro!’

  Antonia’s vibrant greeting caught them both unawares. Caitlyn was just about to sit herself down in the rather opulent waiting room of the private maternity hospital to catch up on some notes while Luca visited his sister before they headed to the airport. In fact, the only reason Caitlyn hadn’t stayed in the car with Lazzaro’s chauffeur was the fact that she knew Malvolio was still safely at the hotel, and there would be no chance of banging into him. But—looking radiant, pushing a crib along the carpeted corridor from the nursery towards her room—it turned out Antonia was the one who greeted them.

  ‘It is so good to see you—meet your nephew!’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’ Lazzaro frowned, barely giving the infant a glance.

  ‘I was just fetching Luca from the nursery.’

  ‘Don’t the nurses do that?’ Lazzaro asked, but Antonia just laughed.

  ‘So, what do you think of your new nephew?’

  If it had been anyone, anyone else, Caitlyn wouldn’t have been able to resist peeking into the crib and staring at the newborn. Only her eyes were on Lazzaro, watching every flicker of his reaction as he stared down—and she could see the grief stamped on his face even though he smiled, could see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed while staring at the baby.

  ‘He’s beautiful…’ His voice was soft, but raw, his hands bunched into fists as if he was fighting with an instinct to touch him.

  He looked so lost and wretched that Caitlyn was fighting with instincts of her own, tempted to wrap her fingers around his closed ones, to support him somehow in this difficult time—only that wasn’t in Lazzaro’s strange rule book, Caitlyn reminded herself. Discretion was the key—and communication outside the sheets taboo.

  ‘Mum says he’s the image of you and Luca when you were born.’ Antonia was looking at Lazzaro too, her kind, weary face etched with worry, and Caitlyn’s heart went out to her. She was sure this was just as impossible for her too.

  ‘Where’s Marianna?’ Lazzaro dragged his eyes away from the infant. ‘Malvolio said she was at the hospital with you.’

  ‘She is—she’s with Mum…come on.’

  ‘She’s already here?’ Lazzaro didn’t even attempt to keep the appalled note out of his voice. ‘But how?’

  ‘She flew out as soon as she found out I was in labour. If you’d answered your phone, Lazzaro, you’d have known a few hours sooner too! Marco’s with her…’

  ‘Marco?’ Lazzaro frowned.

  ‘Her boyfriend.’

  ‘Hardly a boy…’ Lazzaro sneered, but Antonia wasn’t listening.

  ‘Come and say hi—you too,’ she offered Caitlyn. ‘There’s no need to sit in the waiting room. The more the merrier.’

  Caitlyn was about to politely decline, positive her presence would be the last thing Lazzaro would want at this intimate family gathering, but just as she was about to shake her head, before the words could even form on her lips, Lazzaro gave a nod.

  ‘Come!’ he clipped, in his usual Spartan way, and then he did the strangest thing.

  His hand took her elbow and guided her alongside Antonia. And though it was Lazzaro holding her, somehow Caitlyn was sure it was otherwise—sure for a moment that she was the one holding him up—and though common sense argued loudly, told her he was merely being polite, somehow she knew better.

  Lazzaro didn’t do polite.

  Entering Antonia’s room, he headed over to his mother, kissing her and ignoring Marco, and talking in rapid Italian as Caitlyn hovered uncomfortably.

  ‘Thank you for the flowers.’ Antonia smiled at Caitlyn as she opened the gift. ‘And thank you for these…’ She grinned at Caitlyn’s slightly non-plussed look. ‘Lazzaro would never say such thoughtful things…or choose something so heavenly.’ She held up the tiny outfits Caitlyn had so carefully chosen earlier that afternoon, and the silver rattle that she had hoped was expensive enough to be suitable!

  ‘I did put a lot of thought into them!’ Lazzaro countered with a half-smile. ‘I choose my staff very carefully.’

  Although Antonia made an effort to include Caitlyn, Lazzaro’s mother ignored her, clearly more than used to having staff around. They spoke in Italian, with Marco bouncing little Marianna on his knee as the nona scooped up a sleeping Luca, and though her last week had been spent falling asleep with Speak Italian in Seven Days playing in her ears, Caitlyn still really didn’t understand a word of the colourful language.

  No command of Italian was necessary, though, to comprehend what Lazzaro’s mother was saying when she held out the tiny infant and offered him to her son. ‘Desiderate tenere il bambino?’

  ‘Non posso.’ Lazzaro shook his head. ‘I can’t. We have to be at the airport…’

  ‘Surely you can give him a quick cuddle?’ Antonia pushed, and though she was smiling, Caitlyn could see tears brimming in her eyes as Lazzaro remained adamant.

  ‘We have to go—there is fog in Europe, and the planes are all off schedule. We really ought to make a move.’

  ‘Do you like my baby brother?’ Marianna’s eyes, as black as Lazzaro’s but a lot more trusting, caught Caitlyn’s.

  ‘He’s beautiful.’ Caitlyn smiled. ‘Like his big sister!’

  ‘He’s named after my dead uncle.’

  And no icy European winter could match the sudden drop in temperature on the hot maternity ward.

  ‘Come.’ It was Lazzaro who broke the appalling silence, but his single word unleashed the dam. His mother sped after him, talking in rapid Italian, and as the baby started crying to be fed, unsettled by her new brother, and her uncle who was leaving, so too did Marianna.

  So too did Antonia. And her throaty pleas for her brother to just give his mother what she wanted—five minutes of his time—were the ones that finally stalled Lazzaro. A terse nod and a surly shrug implied that there really wasn’t an issue, that of course he had no problem spending time with them. Then another brief nod as his mother spoke again.

  ‘We will go for a coffee.’ Lazzaro gave his sister a smile ‘You feed the baby, we’ll take Marianna, then I’ll come back and say goodbye.’ He glanced over to Caitlyn. ‘Meet me in the car in half an hour.’

  Which was normal—in the little while she’d been working for him, waiting in reception areas or in the car, chatting to his driver, was a rather regular occurrence, while Lazzaro wined and dined his way through business lunches. Her peripheral presence was necessary in case he wanted her to pluck some figure from her laptop, or—and she still couldn’t quite get her head around it—to buy him some mints!

  What wasn’t normal, though, was being left alone with his sister. What was horribly awkward was pretending nothing untoward had taken place and offering her a smile and rather forced congratulations as she turned to leave. But Antonia’s strangled sob as Caitlyn reached the door was utterly heartbreaking, and whether she was Lazzaro’s PA or not, whether she was nothing more than a convenience, she was still a woman, and few women could have ignored another in such obvious distress.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ Antonia sobbed as Caitlyn came over, her tears spilling onto the screaming baby, his mother’s distress making him wail all the louder. ‘I’m upsetting Luca…’

  ‘Here…!’

  Peeling tissues out of the box on the bedside table, she handed them to the upset woman. When it was clear more than paper was required, Caitlyn relieved Antonia of the screaming baby, rocking him in her arms, trying to hush him as Antonia sobbed on.

  ‘It’s all just falling apart…’ Antonia was inconsolable. ‘I thought with a new baby, if we were all together, then maybe we could move on…’ The tears were stilling now, but her distress was just as raw. ‘It’s never going to get better, is it?’

  ‘Of course it will,’ Caitlyn offered helplessly. ‘These things take time.’

  ‘It’s been more than two years!’ Antonia choked. ‘Two years of grieving for one brother and watching the other disappear. There was a row, a terrible row, before Luc
a died. Lazzaro confronted him. Luca was in debt to the eyeballs, spending money like water, completely out of control…’

  ‘I know…’ Caitlyn nodded—because she did know, and not just from Roxanne. Like everyone else, she had read the newspapers at the time, watched the journalists deliver the court’s findings on the evening news. ‘But Lazzaro couldn’t have known what was to come…’ And he couldn’t have, Caitlyn reasoned. He couldn’t have known Luca would walk out of the argument and into a bar—would get behind the wheel so loaded that the second he turned the key in the ignition the outcome was inevitable.

  ‘It was Lazzaro’s fault.’ Antonia’s sobbed the words out. ‘Why? Why would he do that?’ Antonia stopped as quickly as she had started, pleading eyes looking to Caitlyn’s.

  ‘You said yourself, he had to…’ Caitlyn attempted. But as Antonia placed her shaking hand over her mouth, closed her eyes in horror, she knew Antonia had said more than she had intended—knew that what she had just heard was something she shouldn’t have. ‘What happened, Antonia?’

  ‘I can’t say…’

  She was a pitiful sight. A woman who seemingly had everything—money, looks, a doting husband, beautiful children—only Caitlyn’s heart went out to her. Whether Antonia knew it or not, her world really was falling apart. ‘I am scared for my brother—scared he is heading down the same path as Luca.’

  ‘Lazzaro doesn’t gamble,’ Caitlyn soothed, ‘and he hardly drinks. Lazzaro—’

  ‘Is in hell…’ Antonia finished. ‘Just look out for him…You are working with him, closer to him at the moment than his own family.’ Antonia’s eyes met hers as Caitlyn handed her back little Luca. ‘I’m just asking that you look out for him.’

  ‘I somehow don’t think Lazzaro would appreciate it.’ Caitlyn gave a wobbly smile. The lines were suddenly blurring. He was her boss, nothing else. It was something she had to remind herself of constantly—to remain professional and aloof at all times, and even when he kissed her to somehow remember a kiss was all it was—that even if he had held her last night he had dismissed her in the morning.

  Could she do it? Caitlyn wondered as she farewelled Antonia and walked along the hospital corridor. Could she really put her life on hold for him? Fall more and more in love with him? Only to walk away at the end? Because somehow, even when he was loathsome, the more she saw of him, the more she wanted him, and the more he allowed her to have the more she gratefully received—but then what?

  What happened when she upped her demands? Would she be dismissed, like Jenna? It was Caitlyn now suddenly near to tears.

  When he’d decided he’d had enough, when she’d served her purpose or dared to make a demand, it would be over—not just a fantasy figure to get over, but her first love to recover from.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Malvolio’s voice made her jump, and her eyes darted along the corridor, her heart thudding in her chest as for the first time since he’d tried to kiss her she faced him.

  ‘Lazzaro came to see his sister.’

  ‘I’m not asking about Lazzaro…’ Malvolio hissed. ‘Stay the hell away from my family—got it?’

  Head down, she nodded, walked quickly away. But Malvolio hadn’t yet finished.

  ‘Oh, and, Caitlyn—you might think you’re on to a good thing, in your fancy new clothes and with your fancy new title, but let me tell you one thing about my brother in-law.’ She kept walking, refusing to look back, but his black voice caught up with her before she’d turned the corner. ‘He doesn’t give a damn about anyone—not even his own family. When he’s finished with you—when you’ve served your purpose—he’ll spit you out along with the pips.’

  Lazzaro’s face was as grim as Caitlyn’s when he finally joined her in the car. Climbing in, he didn’t even bother to say hello—just told Jeremy to step on it.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Finally he deigned to look at her.

  ‘Great!’ Caitlyn’s eyes met his in the darkness, glittering with tears and holding his for an impossibly long time. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Great!’ Lazzaro snapped. ‘Things couldn’t be better.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THEY breezed through check-in and Customs and took off on time. The journey was in fact perfect—except for the two coiled springs sharing the first-class cabin.

  As they hurtled across time zones, Caitlyn played a game with the night sky—convincing herself that the day that had started so perfectly was being extended so it could end on a better note, that somehow he’d look over and smile, as if pleased the universe was giving him these extra hours. Only Lazzaro didn’t use them wisely. Barely a word passed between them even as they landed and renegotiated Customs—and stepped out into the freezing morning.

  Freezing!

  Melbourne winters weren’t exactly warm, but they were positively tropical compared to this. Her breath was blowing out white clouds, her teeth chattering as they headed to the waiting car, jumping like a puppy left behind into the heated warmth as the driver loaded their cases.

  But nothing—not Lazzaro’s black mood nor her earlier confrontation with Malvolio—could dim the beauty of Rome, as the sleek black Mercedes drove them at breakneck speed through the ancient city. She longed to ask the driver to slow down—had to stifle a squeal as the Colosseum came into view.

  ‘It really is in Rome…’ She rolled her eyes at Lazzaro’s old-fashioned look. ‘Right in the middle.’ Pressing her nose against the window, at that moment Caitlyn didn’t care about his bloody mood, or her bloody mood, or what was happening, or where things were going. She was in Rome—in Rome—and it was beautiful. The people were beautiful. Stunning groomed women, trailing scarves clipping through the cobbled streets. Elegant men, in long coats…Not caring what Lazzaro thought, she opened the window, closed her eyes for a second against the icy blast of air that hit her, then opened them on a carnival of noise. Mopeds weaving through the heavy traffic, drivers shouting and cursing—she’d never seen so many people. Rush hour in Melbourne was like a Sunday stroll in the park compared to this.

  ‘Close the window,’ Lazzaro snapped. ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘It is!’ Pushing the button, blocking out the noise, just for a second, one very defiant second, she looked at him and gave him a little piece of her mind. ‘In fact it’s probably warmer outside!’

  There were five-star hotels, Caitlyn realised as the car door was opened and she stepped out, and then there were five-star hotels. Heavy gold revolving doors spun her into a stunning foyer, and Caitlyn didn’t know whether to look up or down. Marble pillars stretched to a magnificent high-domed ceiling, and a chandelier surely the size of Caitlyn’s back garden, and thick exquisite rugs dotted the black and white tiled floor. And the beauty of her surroundings was only surpassed by the stunning guests.

  Ranaldi’s Roma was clearly the jewel in the Ranaldi crown.

  Lazzaro’s bloody mood wasn’t aimed solely at her though. After the briefest shower and change in history, with barely a second to take in her stunning suite, there was a sharp rap at her door and work began. Lazzaro met with his staff throughout the day and picked fault with everything—from the food and the selection in the private wine cellar to some unfortunate bellboy whose shirt wasn’t tucked in properly. He waltzed through the place, knowing he owned it, and everyone quailed—and Caitlyn trailed. In fact, by the time the old-fashioned lift creaked her up towards her room that evening, not for the first time since taking the position of Lazzaro’s assistant, all she felt was exhausted…and not just physically.

  His rejection, his cruel dismissal, had cut her to the very core of her being—yet there had been no chance to examine it, no time to process it, to retreat and lick her wounds.

  Till now—only now she was too damned tired.

  There were no fancy swipe cards here. Instead she opened her door with a key that was as old as time, and thankfully closed the door on the longest day of her life. Her tired eyes took in her suite: the vibrant clash
of golds and reds that worked so brilliantly, the intricate flower arrangements, the white shutters at the endless thin windows. Even the vast carved walnut bed couldn’t dominate the massive bedroom, but it was the only thing that held her interest. Not even bothering to take off her make-up, Caitlyn dropped her clothes to the floor and brushed her teeth, then sank into bed, trying to summon the energy to book a wake-up call.

  She sighed at the soft knocking at her door, choosing to ignore it. She was just closing her eyes as the maid let herself in—no doubt to turn down the bed she was already in…

  ‘Caitlyn…’ Though softly spoken, Lazzaro’s word made her jump.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Sitting bolt-upright, she pulled the sheet tightly around her, scarcely able to believe his audacity. ‘Don’t tell me—you’ve got a master key to the place.’

  ‘You didn’t lock your door,’ Lazzaro pointed out, sitting down in the darkness on the bed beside her. ‘Look—’

  ‘No!’ Without waiting to hear what he wanted, she shook her head. ‘I know it’s only seven o’clock, I know you warned me that we’d be busy, and you’ve probably got a million things you want to do this evening and a million people you want to see—’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Please,’ Caitlyn said, not even attempting to keep the note of weariness out of her voice, ‘can’t you manage it without me—just this once?’

  ‘Probably,’ Lazzaro said, his fingers moving to sheet, his breath warm on her cheek. Caitlyn realised he wasn’t here about work. ‘Only it wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice!’

  His depraved response eked out of her the tiniest shocked laugh, and Lazzaro pounced, his mouth claiming hers. But Caitlyn pulled back.

  ‘Don’t!’ she sobbed. ‘You’ve been vile all day…’

  ‘That was work…’ He was raining kisses on her face, his hands pulling her rigid arms to her sides, and, brimming with loathing and longing, she fought to resist as he clouded her mind.