Italian Invader

by Jessica Steele

  'I've no plan.' Max ignored her sarcasm—indeed, she realised, he appeared to know so much about her, he seemed to expect it. More, he had decided to bury his pride and take it—take whatever she threw at him. Heaven help her, did he want her in his bed so badly? She couldn't work it out. She had been his for the taking once, but… 'I've no plan,' he repeated firmly, 'other than to tell you the whole truth.'

  'That will make a refreshing change!' she erupted briefly to toss in sarcastically.

  But again he weathered her sarcasm, and even smiled a gentle smile as he assured her, 'Believe me, my dear, I'm not usually a liar.' Elyn was drowning from that 'my dear' and was instructing her legs to move and get going while she still could, but then Max added, 'So you see what, almost from my first sight of you, you have done to me.'

  She had done to him? It was too late, she couldn't move. She shot a glance at him—his look was sincere— and she, even though her brain if not her heart shouted that she was being foolish, had to stay.

  'Er—I'm afraid I—er—don't…' Her husky voice faded.

  But Max seemed encouraged. 'If you do not under­stand me, cara, I am not surprised,' he murmured softly. 'For I confess to you that there have been many times since I have met you when I have not understood myself.'

  'Oh?' she struggled, and felt not a scrap clearer.

  'Perhaps if I explain how, from that first moment of meeting you in that doorway, in this building, you were in and out of my thoughts, you will begin to understand.'

  Elyn remembered, oh, so clearly, her first meeting with him. Her insides had started to misbehave from that very moment, she recalled. From that moment she had felt vulnerable where he was concerned, even though she had denied it at the time. But that he too, so he said, had been affected by that unexpected meeting… She just had to hear more, question more.

  'I was… You said I was in and out of your thoughts?' she queried.

  He nodded. 'At first I told myself that it was purely because it is rare—that is to say, it has never been known for any woman of my acquaintance to give me the haughty treatment, and to walk by without a word.'

  'I'll bet!' She couldn't help the words that dropped so acidly from her lips.

  To her annoyance, though, Max looked more pleased than put out. There was certainly a smile hovering on his mouth as he enquired softly, 'You are jealous, Elyn?'

  'Hardly!' she denied disdainfully. He didn't look totally convinced, and she felt like hitting him—though she was not sufficiently annoyed to want to leave before she heard more. 'Are you saying it was not that I'd walked on without a word that caused me to be—er— in and out of your thoughts?'

  'That is what I am saying,' he agreed. 'Can you not pity me, little one, that from merely being in and out of my thoughts, in a very short while you were more in than out, until one day I suddenly found you had taken up permanent residence there.'

  'Oh!' she exclaimed. That was exactly how it was for her, over him! But he couldn't be meaning that, could he? Don't be ridiculous, snorted her brain—and gave her wilting backbone the stiffening kick it needed. 'That's why you thought it would be such good fun to have me think you believed me a design thief, was it?' she challenged.

  'It wasn't like that!' he denied instantly.

  'No? It is from where I see it!' She was at once alarmed for him as much as for herself, when he made a movement as if to get up and come over to her. 'I can hear you quite well from there,' she told him in an urgent spurt.

  He looked defeated for a moment, but then sug­gested, 'You wouldn't consider coming over here, I suppose?'

  'Not a chance!'

  'You are making matters very difficult for me, Elyn, do you know that?'

  'At the risk of instant dismissal,' she retorted, 'good!'

  For long level moments Max studied her mutinous ex­pression, then all at once his strained manner eased, and he commented a little ruefully, 'Perhaps I should have recognised the spirit in you, the trouble you would be to me, the very first time I looked into those defiant and fantastic green eyes.' And while Elyn's backbone became so much water again, he was going on, 'But even had I the sense to realise the anguish the haughty, finely dressed woman who was apparently on my payroll would cause me, I doubt if I could have acted any differently.'

  Anguish! He probably meant pain and anguish from his foot, said her head. But, butted in her heart, her foolish heart, what if he didn't? Perhaps he meant something entirely different, her thoughts darted. 'You mean anguish about that missing design?' she made a choky stab.

  Max gazed steadily at her for a moment, then mur­mured, 'Ah, that design. It was the start of my de­ception.' He followed on, 'Though at first, you, along with anyone else with access to Brian Cole's office, were a suspect.'

  Elyn accepted that. 'Until the culprit was found—I'll go along with that,' she agreed.

  'Thank you,' Max smiled, and went on to tell her how it had been from his side of it. 'Brian was in raptures about his design. With him in such high euphoria when he came to report, I told him not to bring it to me, but went with him to take a look at it.'

  'But it wasn't there.'

  'Not a sign of it!' Max smiled. 'Brian was in shock. It was his baby, his brain-child. He just couldn't believe it. He had left it on his desk—but it had gone.'

  'Poor Brian!' Elyn sympathised.

  'Naturally I had to start asking who, in the time he had come looking for me, and waited while I finished a phone call, had been to his office.'

  'Hugh Burrell told you I'd been there, alone,' Elyn supplied.

  Max nodded. 'I asked for your extension number and rang you—and just knew, when I heard your lovely voice, that it must belong to the arrogant woman I had met early that morning.'

  'Did you?' she gasped, but pulled herself together to ask, 'So you weren't surprised when I walked in—even though you asked me if I was Elyn Talbot?'

  'I could have been wrong.' Just his look said that he'd known he wasn't, and Elyn strove hard to get her mind back to what they had been talking about.

  'You then proceeded to ask me about the missing design.'

  'And was very soon discounting, from your open manner, that you could have anything to do with it.'

  'Really?' she asked, astounded.

  'Oh yes, cara,' he replied softly. 'I had to continue, of course. But the more and more everything seemed to point to you—there being no need for you to be there because you already had the figures you'd come for, the fact that you knew that a couple of members of the design staff wouldn't be there because you'd seen them at the tea dispenser; and above all, because of your con­nections with and for Pillingers, your knowledge of who would be likely to be in the market for such an item— the more convinced I became that it couldn't be you.'

  Looking across at him, Elyn felt certain that he was telling the truth. But he had lied to her before, on this very same subject. 'Did you still feel that when at the end of that same working day you asked me to come and see you?' she questioned warily.

  'I should continue to question you in the design section when Burrell was already rubbing his hands with glee at your discomfiture?'

  'Oh, Max, you are kind!' she exclaimed in a moment of weakness. Hurriedly she pulled herself together again. 'Not that you were so kind when, a week later, you sent for me again! You knew then, for absolute positive certain, that I hadn't touched that design, that Hugh Burrell had, because you had personally dismissed him for that very reason, and—'

  'Please try to understand, dear Elyn,' Max broke into what was becoming an angry tirade. 'I had been in Italy for a whole week with your face haunting me.' That stopped her in her tracks. 'When I had a call to say that Burrell had been caught incriminatingly on film, I de­cided, when Brian Cole could have interrogated him and dismissed him as easily as I, that I must come to England and do the job myself.'

  'Because—you f-felt it was your job to do it?' Elyn asked slowly.

  'That, of course, is what I told myself,' M
ax agreed. 'But I later realised that to personally dismiss that apology for a man was just an excuse. In reality, I wanted to see you again.'

  'Good heavens!' she whispered faintly.

  'Which is why, once I had dealt with him, I asked you to come and see me. And when—please believe me, I'd fully intended to tell you how Burrell had removed that design more, I'm sorry to say, to make life difficult for you than to steal it, when you asked if I'd discovered who'd stolen it, to my amazement I heard myself answer, "Unfortunately not".'

  Elyn was shaken that the grudge Hugh Burrell held against her extended that far, but that was not the issue. 'You had, until then, fully intended to tell me?' she pressed, somehow needing clarification.

  'But yes, please believe me,' he confirmed.

  'Then why… ?' she began to question, feeling totally at a loss.

  'A question I was to ask myself many times, but not find the answer to until much later. All I knew then was that I, who am not a liar, had lied. And that to cover that lie I was going to have to find a reason for calling you to my office.' He looked levelly at her for an un­nerving second or two, then owned, 'I found that reason by looking at you and realising that with you there with me, so lovely, so honest, when I had to return to Italy to attend a function that evening, I wanted you to come with me.'

  'You… I…' Elyn broke off as suddenly her brain began to work overtime. 'You demanded that I go to Italy for training,' she reminded him. 'You knew, because I'd slipped up and let you know how much I needed my salary, that there was no way I could refuse. But was it so absolutely essential that I fly out the next day—that night, if you'd had your way—for training?'

  'What can I say?' Max gave a Latin shrug which she suddenly found most endearing. 'I wanted you where I could see you. My work is mainly in Verona, Italy, yours in Pinwich, England.' He grinned suddenly. 'It would not do, Elyn.'

  She swallowed, and tried hard to keep what sense he had left her with. 'But…' Her voice failed, and she tried again. 'But all the while you let me believe you thought me a crook!' she protested.

  'Oh, but no!' he denied. 'Maybe I never put it into words. But surely my actions…'

  'Actions!' she cut in, and was glad to feel a spark of anger stirring. Grief, he'd be trampling all over her in a minute! 'Your actions spoke far louder than words!' she said hotly. 'Lying to me about Hugh Burrell not having been found out! G—'

  'I've explained. I couldn't—'

  'Getting me to fly out to Italy!' she refused to let him interrupt. But, as more of her brain power woke up, 'You had to fly me out, didn't you?' she snapped. 'Since the news that you'd kicked Hugh Burrell out on his ear was about to break at any moment, you knew that if you hadn't, if I'd stayed at my desk in England, there was no way I was not going to hear of it.'

  'That is true,' he agreed at once. 'But I insist, although that of course did occur to me, that it was not my prime reason for my wanting you in Verona, where I could see you daily.'

  Elyn stared at him belligerently. Though as she had for the moment run out of steam, the best she could come up with was a stubborn, 'But you didn't see me every day, did you?'

  'Oh, Elyn, have you no idea what you have done to me?'

  What Elyn did not need was that at his tone, his words, his look, her ridiculous heart should suddenly leap and that hope should enter the fray.

  All anger suddenly departed, and she discovered that her voice was barely audible. 'No, I d-don't think I really do,' she told him.

  'Oh, sweet Elyn!' he breathed, his look tender, his tone gentle. 'So clever with figures, yet you cannot, and have not yet, worked out—as I own I did not ac­knowledge myself until recently—why it is I wanted you with me. Why it is that I raced from the airport in Verona to the airport in Bergamo to meet your plane that early evening.'

  Stunned for the moment, Elyn blinked. 'But you were on your way home when Felicita contacted you to say my flight had been diverted to…' she began.

  'Because I shall never again lie to you,' Max inter­rupted warmly, 'I am admitting all lies now.'

  'Oh,' she mumbled, not knowing where she was any more.

  'I could not wait until the next day to see you,' he went on. 'Though I own I was not admitting that even to myself at that time when I decided I would be the one to meet your plane in Verona.' Elyn was still gulping at that as he continued, 'When my enquiries revealed that your plane was coming in at Bergamo, I raced from one airport to the other and, having not got my breath back from that, felt my heart ready to stop at the loveliness of you, and of your radiant smile, when you turned round and said, "Oh, hello".'

  'Truly?' she gasped, her eyes saucer-wide.

  'Truly,' he confirmed, and made her heart leap again when, after another gentle look at her, he added, 'Only much later was I able to realise that from that moment on all was lost for me.'

  Hope, a gigantic hope, surged up in her, but she was feeling suddenly too tongue-tied to say anything more than a husky, 'You—er—drove me to the firm's apartment.'

  'And had an evening appointment of long standing with some business people,' he revealed.

  'You—er—didn't want—to leave?' she asked, having instant recall about everything to do with him, and re­membering her feeling then that he had seemed re­luctant to depart.

  He nodded. 'And could not understand it,' he owned. 'Instincts of self-preservation, I believe, were respon­sible for my making sure our paths did not collide the following day. But,' he went on, his mouth picking up most devastatingly at the corners, 'that did not stop me from instructing Felicita—in the interests of your welfare, of course—to keep me informed about your activities, no matter how trivial she might assume those activities to be.'

  'Good heavens!' Elyn gasped.

  'As you say, cara, good heavens! I never thought, when she reported back to me that first Friday you were in Verona that you were planning to spend the weekend sightseeing, that you would be sightseeing anywhere but in Verona. Had I thought, had I known you were planning to go sightseeing in Bolzano, I'd have put a stop to that too!'

  'Too? I don't—'

  'Forgive me,' Max cut in, his dark eyes studying her face. 'Forgive the jealousy that raged in me when you told me you'd been to Bolzano.'

  'You—were jealous?' Elyn asked incredulously.

  'You had not been to Bolzano on your own, I knew,' he replied. 'I suspected you'd been with Tino Agosta. I had, I hoped, already put a stop to your dining with him that Friday night by inventing a bilingual secretary going home ill.'

  'Inventing? But she did go home ill! I spent hour after hour typing out a report which you wanted urgently. A report which…'

  'A report which Felicita had typed in Italian for me the day before, but which,' he confessed, 'I had no need to have typed in English at all.'

  'But—but…' Elyn was reeling.

  'But I was getting deeper and deeper into a mesh of lies,' Max took over. 'I enjoyed having you there in my office. Enjoyed watching how your sharp intelligence was taken with that report. I…' He broke off, then, looking directly into her eyes, 'Elyn—my dear, dear Elyn. You must by now, I think have used some of that sharp in­telligence to have seen how it is with me.' She swallowed a lump in her throat, and he, intently watching her, smiled, then asked, 'Do you still insist, dear heart, on sitting over there?'

  Oh, what was he saying? She knew what it sounded like he was saying, but it was all so unexpected, she couldn't be sure.

  'Shall I come over to you?' he asked when she hadn't moved a muscle to come over to him. Indeed, she seemed welded to the spot.

  He went to shift his position—but 'No, stay where you are!' she cried anxiously, fearful of the pressure he would place on his injured foot.

  He sank back down again, but his eyes were fixed on her when quietly but firmly he asked, 'Are you going to come to me?'

  'Wh-why should I?' she responded nervously—and clutched hard on to the arms of her chair at his reply.

  'Because,' he
said solemnly, sincerely, 'while I admit I have lied to you and have deceived you in the past, I am neither lying nor deceiving now when I tell you that I—love you very much, amore mia. That I love you with all my heart.'

  'Oh, Max!' Elyn whispered, and at her tone, the emotion in her, he was no longer holding back, but was struggling to his feet as if to come to her. 'Oh, no, you'll hurt yourself!' she cried, and was out of her chair and going over to him.

  She reached him just as he made it to his feet, and as his arms opened to her she went straight into them. She was aware of him crooning something in Italian in her ears. It sounded wonderful.

  In his arms she wanted to be, and as her arms went around him that was how, locked together for an age, they stayed. Then, 'Let me look at you,' he demanded, and pulled a little away from her so that he could see into her face. 'Oh, Elyn, Elyn,' he breathed, his eyes adoring on hers. 'It is the same for you, isn't it?'

  She smiled, and nodded speechlessly, but it was enough, for with a cry of joy he pulled her close up to him again, and more long moments passed. She felt his lips at her hair; and gently then, Max pulled back to place tenderly loving kisses on her eyes, before oh, so tenderly he placed a warm and loving kiss on her mouth.

  'Oh, Max,' she whispered, her heart full of emotion when he leaned back to look at her.

  'Dearest Elyn,' he murmured, but then seemed to lose a little of his balance.

  'Shall we sit down?' she suggested hurriedly.

  'We shall,' he agreed, 'and you can tell me how, when I have been such a devil to you, you have still managed to fall in love with me.' They were sitting snugly together on the settee, one of Max's arms about her shoulders as he held her close to his side when, turning to her, he devoured her face for some seconds, then prompted, 'Are you never going to begin?'

  'You're a hard taskmaster,' she teased, wanting to pinch herself to see if this was true. Was it really hap­pening? 'But I should have recognised I was in trouble at the absurd delight I felt when I heard your voice at Bergamo airport saying "Hello, Elyn".'

  Max was the one to look delighted then. But he wanted more. 'Go on,' he urged.