With the ease of someone who lived in the city, he weaved his way through the busier areas until they were finally at a small café tucked away from the tourist hotspots, although even here the ancient architecture, the charming square with its sixteenth-century well, the engravings on some of the façades, were all photo opportunities.
She dithered behind him, feeling a bit like a spare part as he spoke in rapid Italian to a short, plump man whom she took to be the owner of the café. Then he motioned her inside where it was blessedly cool and relatively empty.
‘You can sit,’ Giancarlo said irritably when she continued to hover by the table. What did his father see in the woman? He barely remembered Alberto, but one thing he did remember was that he had not been the most docile person in the world. If his mother had been a difficult woman, then she had found her match in her much older husband. What changes had the years wrought, if Alberto was happy to work with someone who had to be the most background woman he had ever met? And once again she was in an outfit that would have been more suitable on a woman twice her age. Truly the English hadn’t got a clue when it came to fashion.
He found himself appraising her body and then, surprisingly, lingering on her full breasts pushing against the thin cotton dress, very much in evidence despite the washed-out cardigan she had draped over her shoulders.
‘You never said how you managed to find me,’ Caroline repeated a little breathlessly as she slid into the chair opposite him.
She shook away the giddy, drowning feeling she had when she looked too hard at him. Something about his animal sex-appeal was horribly unsettling, too hard to ignore and not quite what she was used to.
‘You told me where you were staying. I went there first thing this morning and was told by the receptionist that you’d left for the Duomo. It was just a question of time before you followed the herd to one of the cafés outside.’
‘So … have you had a rethink?’ Caroline asked hopefully. She wondered how it was that he could look so cool and urbane in his cream trousers and white shirt while the rest of the population seemed to be slowly dissolving under the summer sun.
‘Have a look at the papers in front of you.’
Caroline dutifully flicked through them. ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what these are—and I’m not very good with numbers.’ She had wisely tied her hair back today but still some curling strands found their way to her cheeks and she absent-mindedly tucked them behind her ears while she continued to frown at the pages and pages of bewildering columns and numbers in front of her, finally giving up.
‘After I saw you I decided to run a little check on Alberto’s company accounts. You’re looking at my findings.’
‘I don’t understand why you’ve shown me this. I don’t know anything about Alberto’s financial affairs. He doesn’t talk about that at all.’
‘Funny, but I never thought him particularly shy when it came to money. In fact, I would say that he’s always had his finger on the button in that area.’
‘How would you know, when you haven’t seen him for over a decade?’
Giancarlo thought of the way Alberto had short changed his mother and his lips curled cynically. ‘Let’s move away from that contentious area, shall we? And let’s focus on one or two interesting things I unearthed.’ He sat back as cold drinks were placed in front of them, along with a plate of delicate little tortas and pastries. ‘By the way, help yourself …’ He gestured to the dish of pastries and cakes and was momentarily sidetracked when she pulled her side plate in front of her and piled a polite mound, but a mound nevertheless, of the delicacies on it.
‘You’re actually going to eat all of those?’ he heard himself ask, fascinated against his will.
‘I know, I shouldn’t really. But I’m starving.’ Caroline sighed at the diet which she had been planning for ages and which had yet to get underway. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I mean … they’re not just here for show, are they?’
‘No, di niente.’ He sat back and watched as she nibbled her way through the pastries, politely leaving one, licking the sweet crumbs off her fingers with enjoyment. A rare sight. The stick-thin women he dated pushed food round their plates and would have recoiled in horror at the thought of eating anything as fattening as a pastry.
Of course, he should be getting on with what he wanted to say, but he had been thrown off course and he still was when she shot him an apologetic smile. There was an errant crumb at the side of her mouth and just for an instant he had an overwhelming urge to brush it off. Instead, he gestured to her mouth with his hand.
‘I always have big plans for going on a diet.’ Caroline blushed. ‘Once or twice I actually did, but diets are deadly. Have you ever been on one? No, I bet you haven’t. Well, salads are all well and good, but just try making them interesting. I guess I just really love food.’
‘That’s … unusual. In a woman. Most of the women I meet do their best to avoid the whole eating experience.’
Of course he would be the type who only associated with model types, Caroline thought sourly. Thin, leggy women who weighed nothing. She wished she hadn’t indulged her sweet tooth. Not that it mattered because, although he might be good-looking—well, staggering, really—he wasn’t the sort of man she would ever go for. So what did it matter if he thought that she was overweight and greedy into the bargain?
‘You were saying something about Alberto’s financial affairs?’ She glanced down at her watch, because why on earth should he have the monopoly on precious time? ‘It’s just that I leave tomorrow morning and I want to make sure that I get through as much as possible before I go.’
Giancarlo was, for once in his life, virtually lost for words. Was she hurrying him along?
‘I think,’ he asserted without inflection, ‘that your plans will have to take a back seat until I’m finished.’
‘You haven’t told me whether you’ve decided to put the past behind you and accompany me back to Lake Como.’ She didn’t know why she was bothering to ask the question because it was obvious that he had no such intention.
‘So you came here to see me for the sole purpose of masterminding a jolly reunion …’
‘It wasn’t my idea.’
‘Immaterial. Getting back to the matter in hand, the fact is that Alberto’s company accounts show a big, gaping black hole.’
Caroline frowned because she genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.
‘Si,’ Giancarlo imparted without a shade of regret as he continued to watch her so carefully that she could feel the colour mounting in her cheeks. ‘He has been leaking money for the past ten years but recently it’s become something more akin to a haemorrhage …’
Caroline gasped and stared at him in sudden consternation. ‘Oh my goodness. Do you think that that’s why he had the heart attack?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I didn’t think he took an active interest in what happened in the company. I mean, he’s been pretty much a recluse since I came to live with him.’
‘Which would be how long ago?’
‘Several months. Originally, I only intended to come for a few weeks, but we got along so well and there were so many things he wanted me to do that I found myself staying on.’ She fixed anxious brown eyes on Giancarlo, who seemed sublimely immune to an ounce of compassion at the news he had casually delivered.
‘Are you … are you sure you’ve got your facts right?’
‘I’m never wrong,’ he said drily. ‘It’s possible that Alberto hasn’t played an active part in running his company for some time now. It’s more than possible that he’s been merrily living off the dividends and foolishly imagining that his investments are paying off.’
‘And what if he only recently found out?’ Caroline cried, determined not to become too over-emotional in front of a man who, she knew, would see emotion in a woman as repellent. Besides, she had cried on him yesterday. She still had the handkerchief to prove it. Once had been bad enough but twic
e would be unforgivable.
‘Do you think that that might have contributed to his heart attack? Do you think that he became so stressed that it affected his health?’ Horribly rattled at that thought, she distractedly helped herself to the last pastry lying uneaten on her plate.
‘No one can ever accuse me of being a gullible man, Signorina Rossi.’ Giancarlo was determined to stick to the script. ‘One lesson I’ve learnt in life is that, when it comes to money, there will always be people around who are more than happy to scheme their way into getting their hands on some of it.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so. Whatever. Poor Alberto. He never mentioned a word and yet he must have been so worried. Imagine having to deal with that on your own.’
‘Yes. Poor Alberto. Still, whilst poring over these findings, it occurred to me that your mission here might very well have been twofold.’
‘The doctor said that stress can cause all sorts of health problems.’
‘Focus, signorina!’
Caroline fell silent and looked at him. The sun wafting through the pane of glass made his hair look all the more glossy. She vaguely noticed the way it curled at the collar of his shirt. Somehow, it made him look very exotic and very European.
‘Now are you with me?’
‘There’s no need to talk down to me!’
‘There’s every need. You have the most wandering mind of anyone I’ve ever met.’
Caroline shot him a look of simmering resentment and added ‘rude’ to the increasingly long list of things she didn’t like about him.
‘And you are the rudest person I’ve ever met in my entire life!’
Giancarlo couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever dared to insult him to his face. He didn’t think it had ever happened. Rather than be sidetracked, however, he chose to overlook her offensive remark.
‘It occurred to me that my father’s health, if your story about his heart attack is to be believed, might not be the primary reason for your visit to Milan.’
‘If my story is to be believed?’ She shook her head with a puzzled frown. ‘Why would I lie about something like that?’
‘I’ll answer a question with a question—why would my father suddenly choose now to seek me out? He had more than one opportunity to get in touch. He never bothered. So why now? Shall I put forward a theory? He’s wised up to the fact that his wealth has disappeared down the proverbial tubes and has sent you to check out the situation. Perhaps he told you that, if I seemed amenable to the idea of meeting up, you might mention the possibility of a loan?’
Shocked and disturbed by Giancarlo’s freewheeling assumptions and cynical, half-baked misunderstandings, Caroline didn’t know where to begin. She just stared at him as the colour drained away from her face. She wasn’t normally given to anger, but right now she had to stop herself from picking her plate up and smashing it over his arrogant head.
‘So maybe I wasn’t entirely accurate when I accused you of lying to me. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that you were conveniently economical with the full truth …’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing you say these things! How could you accuse your own father of trying to squeeze money out of you?’
Giancarlo flushed darkly under her steady, clear-eyed, incredulous gaze. ‘Like I said, money has a nasty habit of bringing out the worst in people. Do you know that it’s a given fact that the second someone wins a lottery, they suddenly discover that they have a hell of a lot more close friends and relatives than they ever imagined?’
‘Alberto hasn’t sent me here on a mission to get money out of you or … or to ask you for a loan!’
‘Are you telling me that he had no idea that I was now a wealthy man?’
‘That’s not the point.’ She remembered Alberto’s statement that Giancarlo had made something of himself.
‘No? You’re telling me that there’s no link between one semi-bankrupt father who hasn’t been on the scene in nearly two decades and his sudden, inexplicable desire to meet the rich son he was happy to kick out of his house once upon a time?’
‘Yes!’
‘Well, if you really believe that, if you’re not in cahoots with Alberto, then you must be incredibly naive.’
‘I feel very sorry for you, Signor De Vito.’
‘Call me Giancarlo. I feel as though we almost know each other. Certainly no one can compete with you when it comes to delivering offensive remarks. You are in a league of your own.’
Caroline flushed because she was not given to being offensive. She was placid and easy-going by nature. However, she was certainly not going to apologise for speaking her mind to Giancarlo.
‘You are pretty offensive as well,’ she retaliated quietly. ‘You’ve just accused me of being a liar. Maybe in your world you can never trust anyone …’
‘I think it’s fair to say that trust is a much over-rated virtue. I have a great deal of money. I’ve learnt to protect myself, simple as that.’ He gave an elegant shrug, dismissing the topic. But Caroline wasn’t quite ready to let the matter drop, to allow him to continue believing, unchallenged, that he had somehow been targeted by Alberto. She wouldn’t let him walk away thinking the worst of either of them.
‘I don’t think that trust is an over-rated virtue. I told you that I feel sorry for you and I really do.’ She had to steel herself to meet and hold the dark, forbidding depths of his icy eyes. ‘I think it’s sad to live in a world where you can never allow yourself to believe the best in other people. How can you ever be happy if you’re always thinking that the people around you are out to take advantage of you? How can you ever be happy if you don’t have faith in the people who are close to you?’
Giancarlo very nearly burst out laughing at that. What planet was this woman from? It was a cutthroat world out there and it became even more cutthroat when money and finances were involved. You had to keep your friends close and your enemies a whole lot closer in order to avoid the risk of being knifed in the back.
‘Don’t go getting evangelical on me,’ he murmured drily and he noted the pink colour rise to her cheeks. ‘You’re blushing,’ he surprised himself by saying.
‘Because I’m angry!’ But she put her hands to her face and glared at him. ‘You’re so … so superior! What sort of people do you mix with that you would suspect them of trying to use you for what you can give them? I didn’t know anything about you when I agreed to come here. I didn’t know that you had lots of money. I just knew that Alberto was ill and he wanted to make his peace with you.’
The oddest thing seemed to be happening. Giancarlo could feel himself getting distracted. Was it because of the way those tendrils of curly hair were wisping against her face? Or was it because her anger made her almond-shaped eyes gleam like a furious spitting cat’s? Or maybe it was the fact that, when she leant forward like that, the weight and abundance of her breasts brushing against the small table acted like a magnet to his wandering eyes.
It was a strange sensation to experience this slight loss of self-control because it never happened in his dealings with women. And he was a connoisseur when it came to the opposite sex. Without a trace of vanity, he knew that he possessed a combination of looks, power and influence that most women found an irresistible aphrodisiac. Right now, he had only recently broken off a six-month relationship with a model whose stunning looks had graced the covers of a number of magazines. She had begun to make noises about ‘taking things further’; had started mentioning friends and relatives who were thinking of tying the knot; had begun to show an unhealthy interest in the engagement-ring section of expensive jewellery shops.
Giancarlo had no interest in going down the matrimonial path. There were two vital lessons he felt he had taken away from his parents: the first was that there was no such thing as a happy-ever-after. The second was that it was very easy for a woman to turn from angel to shrew. The loving woman who was happy to accommodate on every level quickly became the demanding, needy harridan who needed rea
ssurance and attention round the clock.
He had watched his mother contrive to play the perfect partner on so many occasions that he had lost count. He had watched her perform her magic with whatever man happened to be the flavour of the day for a while, had watched her bat her eyelashes and flutter her eyes—but then, when things began winding down, he had seen how she had changed from eager to desperate, from hard-to-get to clingy and dependent. The older she had got, the more pitiful a sight she had made.
Of course, he was a red-blooded man with an extremely healthy libido, but as far as Giancarlo was concerned work was a far better bet when it came to reliability. Women, enjoyable as they might be, became instantly expendable the second they began thinking that they could change him.
He had never let any woman get under his skin and he was surprised now to find his thoughts drifting ever so slightly from the matter at hand.
He had confronted her, having done some background research, simply to have his suspicions confirmed. It had been a simple exercise in proving to her—and via her to Alberto—that he wasn’t a mug who could be taken for a ride. At which point, his plan had been to walk away, warning guns sounding just in case they were tempted to try a second approach.
From the very second Caroline had shown up unannounced in his office, he had not allowed a shred of sentiment to colour his judgement. Bitter memories of the stories handed down to him from his mother still cast a long shadow. The truth he had seen with his very own eyes—the way her lack of any kind of robust financial settlement from a man who would have been very wealthy at the time had influenced her behaviour patterns—could not be overlooked.
‘You must get bored out there,’ Giancarlo heard himself remark when he should have really been thinking of concluding their conversation so that he could return to the various meetings waiting for him back at the office. Without taking his eyes off her, he flicked a finger and more cold drinks were brought to their table.
The Truth Behind his Touch Page 3