She let herself enjoy the seductive domesticity of being in his space. After a delicious dinner, they washed the dishes together—because he frankly hadn’t a clue how to operate the dishwasher—and then she curled into him on the huge sofa in the sitting-room, reading while he flicked through papers with his arm lazily around her.
It all felt so right that it was easy to push away the notion that her love was making a nonsense of her pride and her common sense.
‘Wake me up before you leave in the morning,’ she made him promise, turning to him in bed and sliding her body against his. She had always covered herself from head to toe whenever she had gone to bed but he had changed all that. Now she slept naked and she loved the feel of his hard body against hers. When she covered his thigh with hers, the pleasure was almost unbearable.
Giancarlo grinned and kissed the corner of her mouth as she tried to disguise a delicate yawn.
‘Have I worn you out?’
‘You’re insatiable, Giancarlo.’
‘Only for you, mi amore, only for you.’
Caroline fell asleep clutching those words to herself, safeguarding them so that she could pull them out later and examine them for content and meaning.
When she next opened her eyes, it was to bright sunshine trying to force its way through the thick drapes. Next to her the bed was empty and a sleepy examination of the apartment revealed that Giancarlo had left. She wondered what time he had gone, and tried to squash the niggling fear that he might be going off her. Was he? Or was she reading too much in the fact that he had left without saying goodbye? It was hardly nine yet. In the kitchen, prominently displayed on the granite counter, were six eggs, a loaf of bread, some milk and a note informing her that he could be as twenty-first-century as any other man when it came to stocking his larder.
Caroline smiled. It was hardly an outpouring of emotion, but there was something weirdly pleasing about that admission, an admission of change whether he saw it as such or not. She made herself some toast and scrambled eggs, finally headed out with her guide books at a little after ten and, pleasantly exhausted after several hours doing all those touristy things she had missed out on first time around, returned with the warming expectation of seeing him later that evening.
‘I might be late,’ he had warned her the night before. ‘But no later than eight-thirty.’
It gave her oodles of time to have a long, luxurious bath and then to inspect herself in the mirror in the new outfit she had bought that morning. It was a short flared skirt that felt lovely and silky against her bare skin and a matching vest with three tiny buttons down the front. When she left the buttons undone, as she now did, her cleavage was exposed and she knew that without a bra he would be able to see the swing of her heavy breasts and the outline of her nipples against the thin fabric.
Of course she would never go bra-less in public, not in something as thin and flimsy as this top was, but she imagined the flare in his dark eyes when he saw her and felt a lovely shiver of anticipation.
With at least another couple of hours to go, she was thrilled to hear the doorbell ring.
She was smiling as she pulled open the door. Very quickly, her smile disappeared and confusion took over.
‘Who are you?’
The towering, leggy blonde with hair falling in a straight sheet to her waist spoke before Caroline had time to marshal her scattered thoughts.
‘What are you doing here? Does Giancarlo know that you’re here? Are you the maid? Because, if you are, then your dress code is inappropriate. Let me in. Immediately.’
She pushed back the door and Caroline stepped aside in complete bewilderment. She hadn’t had time to get a single word in, and now the impossibly beautiful blonde in the elegant short silk shift with the designer bag and the high, high heels that elevated her to over six feet, was in the apartment and staring around her through narrowed, suspicious eyes which finally came to rest once more on Caroline’s red, flustered face.
‘So.’ The blonde folded her arms and looked at Caroline imperiously. ‘Explain!’
‘Who are you?’ She had to crane her neck upwards to meet the other woman’s eyes. ‘Giancarlo didn’t tell me that he was expecting anyone.’
‘Giancarlo? Since when is the maid on first-name terms with her employer? Wait until he hears about this.’
‘I’m not the maid. I’m … I’m …’ There was no way that he would want her to say anything along the lines of ‘fiancée’, not when it was a relationship fabricated for Alberto’s benefit, not when it meant nothing. ‘We’re … involved.’
The blonde’s mouth curled into a smile that got wider and wider until she was laughing with genuine incredulity, while Caroline stood frozen to the spot. Her brain seemed to have shifted down several gears and was in danger of stalling completely. Next to such stupendous beauty, she felt like a complete fool.
‘You have got to be joking!’
‘I’m not, actually.’ Caroline pulled herself up to her unimpressive height of a little over five-three. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now.’
‘He’d never go out with someone like you,’ the blonde said in an exaggeratedly patient voice, the voice of someone trying to convey the obvious to a deluded lunatic.
‘Sorry?’ Caroline uttered huskily.
‘I’m Lucia. Giancarlo and I were an item before I broke it off a few months ago. Pressure of work. I’m a model, by the way. I hate to tell you this, but I’m the sort of woman Giancarlo dates.’
There was an appreciable pause during which Caroline deduced that she was to duly pay heed, take note and join the dots: Giancarlo dated models. He liked them long, leggy and blonde; short, round and brunette was not to his liking. She wished, uncharitably, that she was wearing an engagement ring, a large diamond cluster which she could thrust into the blonde’s smirking face, but the trip to the jeweller’s had not yet materialised despite Alberto’s gentle prodding.
‘Look, tell him I called, would you?’
Caroline watched as Lucia—elegant name for an elegant blonde—strutted towards the door.
‘Tell him …’ Lucia paused. Her cool blue eyes swept over Caroline in a dismissive once-over. ‘That he was right. Crazy hours flying all over the world. Tell him that I’ve decided to take a rest for a while, so he can reach me whenever he wants.’
‘Reach you to do what?’ She forced the question out, although her mouth felt like cotton wool.
‘What do you think?’ Lucia raised her eyebrows knowingly. Despite her very blonde hair, her eyebrows were dark; a stunning contrast. ‘Look, you must think I’m a bitch for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway because it’s for your own good. Giancarlo might be having a little fun with you because he’s broken up about me, but that’s all you are and it’s not going to last. Do yourself a favour and get out while you can. Ciao, darling!’
Caroline remained where she was for a few minutes after Lucia had disappeared. Her brain felt sluggish. It was making connections and the process hurt.
This was Giancarlo’s real life—beautiful women who suited his glamorous life. He had taken time out and had somehow ended up in bed with her and now she knew why. In extraordinary circumstances, he had behaved out of character, had fallen into bed with the sort of woman who under normal circumstances he would have overlooked, because she was the sort of woman he might employ as his maid.
Even more terrifying was the suspicion that she had just been there, a convenient link between himself and his father. She had bridged a gap that could have been torturously difficult to bridge, and by the way had leapt into bed with him as an added bonus. He had found himself in a win-win situation and, Giancarlo being Giancarlo, he had taken full advantage of the situation. The note she had found, which she had optimistically seen as the sign of someone learning to really share, now seemed casual and dismissive, a few scribbled lines paying lip service to someone who had made his life easier; a willing bed companion who gave him the privileges of a real relationship while
conveniently having expectations of none.
Caroline hurt all over. She felt ridiculous in her stupid outfit and was angry and ashamed of having dressed for him. She was mortified at the ease with which she had allowed herself to be taken over body and soul until all her waking moments revolved around him. She had dared to think the impossible—that he would love her back.
She hurried to change. Off came the silly skirt and the even sillier top. She found that her hands were shaking as she rifled through her belongings, picking out a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. It was like stepping back into her old life and back into reality. She stuffed the new outfit—which only hours before had given her such pleasure as she had looked at her reflection in the changing room of the overpriced Italian boutique—into the front pocket of her suitcase which she usually kept for her shoes and dirty clothes.
She very much wanted to run away, but she made herself turn the telly on, and there she was when an hour and a half later she heard Giancarlo slot his key into the door.
She had a horrid image of herself in her silly outfit, scampering to the front door like a perfectly trained puppy greeting its master, and she forced herself to remain exactly where she was in front of the television until he walked into the sitting-room. As he strolled towards her, with that killer smile curving his mouth, he began loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt.
Bitter and disillusioned as she was, Caroline still couldn’t contain her body’s instinctive reaction, and she strove to quell the feverish race of her pulse and the familiar drag on her senses. She pulled up the image of the blonde and focused on that.
‘You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to coming back …’ Tie undone, he tossed it onto one of the sofas and walked towards her, leaning down over the chair into which she was huddled, his arms braced on either side, caging her in.
Caroline had trouble breathing.
‘Really?’
‘Really. You’re very bad for me. Somehow trying to work out the logistics of due diligence is a lot less fun than thinking about you waiting for me back here.’
Like a faithful, mindless puppy.
‘I left my chief in command at the meeting. The option of seeing you here, well, it wasn’t a difficult choice.’
Seeing me here … in your bed …
‘Food first? My man at the Capello can deliver within the hour.’
Because why would you take me out and cut into the time you can spend in bed with me? Before you get bored, because I’m nothing like the girls you want to date, girls who look good hanging on your arm … Long, leggy girls with waist-length blonde hair and exotic, sexy names like Lucia …
‘You’re not talking.’ Giancarlo vaulted upright and strolled towards the closest chair, where he sat and then leaned forwards, his arms on his thighs. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t go sightseeing with you today. Believe me, I would have loved to have shown you my city. Were you bored?’
Caroline unfroze and rediscovered the power of speech. ‘I had a very nice time. I visited the Duomo, the museum and I had a very nice lunch in one of the piazzas.’
‘I’m guessing that there’s a ‘but’ tacked on to that description of your very nice day with the very nice lunch?’ Something was going on here. Giancarlo could feel it, although he was at a loss to explain it.
He had woken next to her at a ridiculously early hour and had paused to look at her perfectly contented face as she slept on her side, one arm flung up, her hands balled into fists, the way a baby would sleep. She had looked incredibly young, and incredibly tempting. He had had to resist the urge to wake her at the ungodly hour of five-thirty to make love. Instead he had taken a cold shower and had spent most of the day counting down to when he would walk through the front door. Never before could he remember having such a craving to return to his apartment. ‘Wherever he laid his hat’ had never been his definition of home.
He frowned as a sudden thought occurred to him.
‘Did something happen today?’ he asked slowly. ‘I take no responsibility for my fellow Italians, but it’s not unheard of for some of them to be forward with tourists. Did you get into some bother while you were sightseeing? Someone follow you? Made a nuisance of himself?’ He could feel himself getting hot under the collar, and he clenched and unclenched his fists at the distasteful thought of someone pestering her, making her day out a misery.
‘Something did happen,’ Caroline said quietly, her eyes sliding away from him because even the sight of him was enough to scramble her brains. ‘But nothing like what you’re saying. I didn’t get into any bother when I was out. And, by the way, even if someone had made a nuisance of himself I’m not a complete idiot. I would have been able to handle the situation.’
‘What, then?’
‘I had a visit.’ This time she rested her eyes steadily on his beautiful face. A person could drown in those dark, fathomless eyes, she thought. Hadn’t she?
‘A visit here?’
Caroline nodded. ‘Tall. Leggy. Blonde. You might know who I mean. Her name was Lucia.’
CHAPTER NINE
GIANCARLO stilled.
‘Lucia was here?’ he asked tightly. The hard lines of his face reflected his displeasure. Lucia Fontana was history, one of his exes who had taken their break-up with a lot less grace than most. She was a supermodel at the height of her career, accustomed to men lusting after her, paying homage to her beauty, contriving to be in her presence. She was also, in varying degrees, annoying, superficial, vain, self-centred and lacking in anything that could be loosely termed intelligence. She had met him at a business function, an art exhibition which had been attended by the glitterati, and she had pursued him. His mistake had been lazily to go along for the ride. ‘What the hell was she doing here?’
‘Not expecting to find me,’ Caroline imparted tonelessly. She toyed with the idea of telling him that the blonde had, at first, assumed that she was the maid, the hired help dressed inappropriately for the job of scrubbing floors and cleaning the toilets. She decided to keep that mortifying titbit to herself.
‘I apologise for that. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.’
Caroline shrugged. Did he expect her to be grateful for that heartening promise, just because she happened to be the flavour of the month, locked in a situation which neither of them could ever have foreseen? She felt an uncharacteristic temptation to snort with disgust.
‘I expect there’s probably a whole barrel-load of them lurking in the woodwork, waiting to crawl out at any minute.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Women. Exes. Glamorous supermodels you threw over or, in the case of this one, a glamorous supermodel who threw you over.’
‘Lucia? Did she tell you that she left me?’ Giancarlo felt a surge of white-hot rage rip through him. He knew that he had badly dented her ego when he had dumped her, but the thought of her coming to his apartment and lying through her pearly-white teeth made him see red.
‘Well, I guess it must have been difficult for her to conduct a relationship with someone when she was travelling all over the place, but she said that she’s back now and you can contact her whenever you want. Pick up where you left off.’
No; he was not going to start explaining himself. No way. That was a road he had never been down and he wasn’t about to go down it now. It just wasn’t in his nature to justify his behaviour, not that he had anything to justify!
‘And this is what you’ll be expecting me to do, is it?’ he asked coolly.
Caroline felt her heart breaking in two. She hadn’t realised how much she had longed to hear him deny everything the other woman had said. His silence on the subject was telling. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t going to race over to Lucia’s apartment and fling himself at her feet, but surely if the other woman had been lying he would have denied her story?
‘You’ve gone into a mood because, despite everything, you don’t trust me.’
‘I’m not in a mood!’
<
br /> ‘That’s not what my eyes are telling me. Lucia and I were finished months ago.’
‘But did you end it or did she?’
‘What difference does it make? You either trust me or you don’t.’
‘Why should I trust you, Giancarlo?’ She had been determined not to lose her rag, but looking at his proud, aristocratic face she wanted to slap him. Her own crazy love for him, her stupidity in thinking that what they had meant something, rose up like bile to her throat.
‘You wouldn’t have looked twice at someone like me if we’d met under more normal circumstances, would you?’
‘I refuse to get embroiled in a hypothetical discussion of what might or might not have happened. We met and you’ve had more than ample proof of how attracted I am to you.’
‘But I’m not your type. I guess I knew that all along—deep down. But your girlfriend made it very clear that—’
‘Lucia is not my girlfriend. Okay, if it means that much to you to know what happened between us, I’ll tell you! I went out with the woman and it turned out to be a mistake. There’s only room for one person in Lucia’s life and that’s Lucia. She’s an airhead who can only talk about herself. No mirror is safe when she’s around, and aside from that she’s got a vicious tongue.’
‘But she’s beautiful.’ Caroline found that she no longer cared about who had done the breaking up. What did it matter? Dig deep and the simple fact was that Lucia was more his type than she was. He liked them transient; playthings that wouldn’t take up too much of his valuable time and wouldn’t make demands of him.
‘I dumped her and she took it badly.’ He hadn’t meant to explain himself but in the end he had been unable not to.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’
‘It clearly does or you wouldn’t be making such a big deal of this.’
Caroline thought that what was nothing to him was a very big deal for her, except there was no way that he would understand that because he hadn’t dug himself into the same hole that she had. Every sign of hurt would be just another indication to him of how deeply embedded she had become in their so-called relationship.
The Truth Behind his Touch Page 14