by Lynne Graham
‘As soon as it can be arranged, I want to leave and go home.’
‘The press will eat you alive if you’re linked with me now,’ Angelo warned her tautly.
Gwenna hugged Piglet tight. ‘If I can survive you, I can survive anything.’
Angelo watched her walk away and he did not know what to do. He felt like a man in a strait-jacket being tortured. The right words wouldn’t come, yet he was a master of manipulation! He didn’t know what was the matter with him. He knew he could handle anything but, for some reason, he could not handle what was happening with her.
* * *
Gwenna beat to death a weed, hammering it into the ground until it was obliterated. Straightening, she sucked in a quivering breath and pushed her hair off her damp brow. Piglet was seated on the path looking anxious a good twenty feet away. Shocked by the turbulent emotions that kept on overwhelming her, she blinked back tears and took in another steadying breath.
It was only a week since she had seen Angelo, seven days of unadulterated hell and misery. Over and over again she kept on reviewing everything that had happened and everything that Angelo had said. He had not said much. He had not denied his guilt, which was in his favour, and he was hopeless at talking about feelings. But he hadn’t fought to keep her either, had he?
Every time she thought about texting him like a lovesick teenager she made herself recall that Angelo, who thrived on aggressive challenge and argument and scorching passion, had done nothing to stop her leaving him. Yet he was absolutely ruthless when he wanted to be. But he still hadn’t tried to drag her off to bed to change her mind, or at least give her a proper chance to think over what she was doing. He hadn’t threatened to hold her hostage or claim custody of Piglet. She could think of a dozen things he could have done to hang onto her—none of which he had done.
Twenty-four hours and the space to think over what had happened would have made a difference to her attitude, she reflected unhappily. For once she had begun looking back she had seen how much their relationship had changed and strengthened. Most importantly she had appreciated that Angelo had abandoned all thought of revenge when he chose to repay her father’s depredations on the garden fund and sustained the loss of the value of the Massey estate without complaint. He hadn’t cared that the downside of his generosity was that, once more, Donald Hamilton had escaped retribution. No, Angelo had indeed put her first. He had showed that he cared more about her peace of mind and happiness. That had been a big step for him. Only what did that matter now, and why did she keep on rerunning it all in her mind? In refusing to accept that Angelo had decided to let her go, she was driving herself crazy!
Piglet’s tail began to wag and he charged off down the walled garden. When she called him, he ignored her. He had got very wilful since he had been spoilt rotten in Sardinia, she ruminated ruefully. He had also been very restless and excitable. The suspicion that he missed Angelo set her teeth on edge. She attacked another clump of weeds with her hoe.
Piglet’s wild barking finally made her look up. Her dog was leaping and dancing in frantic welcome round the feet of the very tall, dark male striding across the grass towards her. Angelo, all potent masculinity and sophistication in a designer raincoat and a sleek business suit. As always, he was the living, breathing definition of drop-dead gorgeous. Her heart started thumping. She let go of her hoe and stepped off the soil onto the gravel path.
Angelo came to a halt ten feet away. His brilliant dark eyes roved over her in a hungry, all-encompassing appraisal, but there was a combative edge to his stance. ‘I’m not leaving without you,’ he intoned with cool resolve, ‘but first you have to listen to what I need to say.’
Her mood had taken wings at that first declaration; however, she had too much pride to show the fact. ‘You didn’t have much to say when I left Sardinia last week.’
‘I thought I deserved it. I was ashamed. I didn’t know what to say to you.’
Her worried eyes brightened.
Angelo looked unusually pensive. ‘Carmelo made a fool of me and who likes to admit that? I knew next to nothing about my mother. I only had a few memories. My enquiries met a brick wall and then I was invited to meet Carmelo and fill in the blanks.’
‘So, of course, you went.’
‘I took the bait. I was so arrogant, so sure I was incorruptible, but I was wrong,’ Angelo admitted stonily and quietly. ‘The old man reeled me in like a fish. He wound me up with the tale of how Donald Hamilton had seduced, robbed and dumped my mother when she was pregnant—’
‘Oh...was she? Pregnant, I mean?’ Gwenna questioned in consternation.
‘Your father says no, but I’m not sure he could be trusted to give an honest answer on that score.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You’ve been to see him...actually talked to him?’
‘This morning. It was the sane thing to do. It’s what I should’ve done when I first found out about him. Instead I tried to play God and I got burned.’
Gwenna was really impressed that he had been prepared to talk to her father but sort of cringing at the same time. ‘What did you think of him?’
‘He’s very slippery with the truth, but he does tell a rollicking good story.’ Angelo shrugged. ‘I can’t blame him for running like hell when he realised my mother was Carmelo’s daughter and the wife of a Sorello. He’s not hero material—’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘He also swears that my mother knew he was already married, and how are we ever going to know otherwise? The truth is, it doesn’t matter to me as much as it did. It’s over and done with. Neither of them were saints.’
Gwenna had not appreciated just how badly his mother had been betrayed, or how deeply attached Angelo must have been to the image of the mother he had lost when he was still very young. ‘But why did your grandfather wind you up about what my father had done?’
Angelo loosed a rueful laugh. ‘Because he could; because it amused him. He saw that I believed I was different. I thought I was better than the tainted stock I came from—’
‘Don’t talk like that...you are better!’
‘Carmelo still taught me a valuable lesson. Power and wealth corrupt.’ Lean, powerful face taut with discomfiture, Angelo murmured curtly, ‘I thought I was above the rules. I thought it was all right to use that power to expose your father—’
‘And then you thought it was all right to use your power over him to have me,’ she completed tightly.
‘Will you ever forgive me for that?’ Angelo asked gruffly.
‘I don’t know.’
Angelo paled and shifted from one foot onto the other. ‘I never wanted anything as much as I wanted you...no woman, no deal, no prize ever exerted that much of a hold on me. You’re in a class of your own, bellezza mia.’
‘I’m not denying that, for some weird reason, I found you very attractive too,’ Gwenna allowed, softening a little because he really did look miserable.
‘But I didn’t treat you properly. I was very stubborn. I couldn’t understand why you couldn’t be happy with what other women had accepted. But I didn’t want you to be like them—in fact I wanted you because you were different.’
Gwenna finally grasped why he had sought her out again and her heart sank like a stone. ‘You’re here to tell me that you’re sorry.’
Shimmering dark golden eyes collided with hers. ‘But not sorry to have met you or known you. I can never regret that. I’m sorry I screwed up. I’m sorry I kept the truth from you. I’m sorry I hurt you,’ he told her urgently. ‘But right from the start I wanted you to love me and want me the way I believed you wanted Toby.’
Tears burned the backs of her eyes and she blinked fiercely. ‘I was lying when I said I thought about him when I was with you.’
Angelo loosed an uncertain laugh. ‘Now she tells me. You put me through hell.�
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‘I couldn’t help it.’
‘You kept on dumping me, but if you give me the chance I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy.’
Gwenna studied him fixedly. ‘Seriously?’ she enquired a tad shrilly, for she was very much afraid of misinterpreting what he was saying.
Without batting an eyelash, Angelo got down gracefully on one knee. ‘Will you marry me?’
Gwenna was so astonished that she couldn’t find her voice at first. He was asking her to marry him. He was asking her to marry him! Her Delft-blue eyes shone. She struggled to think of all the questions she should ask before coming to a decision and then decided not to bother, because there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about what her answer had to be. ‘Yes...’
Angelo sprang upright, surprised at the speed of her response but content not to question it. ‘Does that mean you forgive me?’
‘Not necessarily...but I will marry you.’ Gwenna discovered that her teeth were chattering with shock.
‘Okay,’ Angelo pronounced, wondering if that dazed look was positive or negative, and then remembering what he had not yet said. ‘I love you...I love you a lot, amata mia.’
Dazzled by the enormous sapphire and diamond ring he’d placed on her finger as he confessed his love, Gwenna lifted startled eyes to his lean, darkly handsome face. ‘You don’t have to say that if you don’t mean it.’
Angelo strode forward and caught both her hands in his. Intense tawny eyes claimed hers in a look as possessive and urgent as his hold. ‘I can’t sleep at night without you. When you left Sardinia I thought my life was over. I’ve been in love with you for weeks and weeks without realising it... I really need you to be with me...for ever. ‘
Overwhelmed, Gwenna nodded several times and squeezed his fingers and whispered fervently, ‘I love you too...’
‘What about Toby?’ Angelo enquired with forced lightness of tone.
‘I think I was just really scared of falling in love,’ she confessed with an embarrassed grimace. ‘It wrecked my mother’s life, and Dad has a dreadful track record. Perhaps believing that I still loved Toby when I couldn’t have him made me feel safe—’
‘So, you’re over him?’ Angelo checked, not quite sure what he was being told, but hauling her up against his hard, muscular length just the same. ‘Like, totally over him?’
‘I love him as a friend... You know, I never did fancy him the way I fancied you.’ Gwenna dropped that news in a self-conscious whisper. ‘There’s times when I can’t wait to rip your clothes off.’
‘I know the feeling, amata mia,’ Angelo agreed raggedly, long, tanned fingers skimming through the layers of her jacket and her T-shirt to find the smooth skin of her slender waist.
Gloriously happy and quivering with the hot pulse of excitement that he always aroused, Gwenna wrapped her arms round him. ‘I’m all muddy,’ she muttered apologetically.
‘I’m not fussy,’ Angelo confessed, covering her luscious pink mouth with his, and groaning with sensual satisfaction when she responded with the abandoned enthusiasm that had made him her biggest fan.
* * *
From the gallery above the classic Regency hall of the Massey Manor, Angelo watched with amusement as the assembled members of the press tried without success to catch a photo of Gwenna either standing still or even looking in their direction. Having posed earlier that day to mark the official opening of the gardens, she had had quite enough of the cameras.
A glittering charity benefit in aid of a children’s hospice was being staged in their exquisitely restored English country home. In fact, a whole busy calendar of such events had been organised by the Rialto Foundation, the charitable trust established with Carmelo Zanetti’s legacy. Angelo and Gwenna were giving as much time as possible to the foundation and it had been well supported by the media, who had been well impressed by Angelo’s surrender of that amount of money.
Angelo thought that Gwenna was looking ravishingly beautiful in her pale blue evening dress, with sapphires and diamonds flashing at her throat and ears. He was very proud of his wife. In two years of marriage she had overseen the restoration of both house and gardens, travelled all over the world with him and acquired the name of being a wonderfully laid-back hostess. She also wrote a regular gardening column in a Sunday newspaper. He was the envy of many men.
But the greatest gift that Gwenna had given him apart from herself and her love was the lively little bundle Angelo was cradling against his shoulder. She had been christened Alice Fiorella Massey Riccardi, a giant moniker for a tiny baby. Six months on, they called her Ella. Angelo had been totally unprepared for the instantaneous attachment he had experienced the first time his daughter was placed in his arms. Piglet trotting at his heels—for Piglet did not like large crowds—Angelo took Ella back to her nanny in the nursery and laid her down in her cot. It was time to go downstairs and escort Gwenna onto the floor in the ballroom for the first dance.
‘It’s been a long day. I can’t wait to have you all to myself, amata mia,’ Angelo confided as he closed his arms round her.
A delightful quiver of anticipation rippled through Gwenna’s slight frame. He was so demanding, she thought blissfully. She knew she was a very lucky woman. Whirled round the floor below the magnificent Venetian glass chandeliers, she nestled closer to her husband’s lean, powerful body. It was a wonderful evening.
After she had said goodbye to the last of their guests she shooed Piglet out of the dining room. ‘You’re getting fat,’ she scolded, lifting him away from the plate of cake he had discovered lying beneath a chair. The little animal was assuming an even more barrel-like shape.
She went upstairs and checked on Ella, beaming down at her darling rosy-cheeked daughter with her riot of black curls. She had to admit that her pregnancy had come as a surprise. In fact Angelo had been teasing her about her weight gain long before it had dawned on either of them that an impromptu bout of outdoor lovemaking during the previous summer had borne fruit. But they had found Ella so much fun that they were planning to have another baby quite soon so that their daughter would have a playmate.
Gwenna felt that life had been exceedingly kind to her. She was busy and fulfilled and not even her problem father had managed to put a check on the great joy of her marriage. Admittedly, Donald Hamilton had proved to be an ongoing source of concern. His second marriage had broken up in a welter of acrimony. Forced to live in reduced circumstances and shunned by former friends, the older man had drowned his sorrows in alcohol. Gwenna had tried her best to help but to no avail. She had been very pleasantly surprised when Angelo had taken the trouble to intervene and succeeded where she had failed. Within weeks, Donald Hamilton had been attending regular AA meetings in clean, smart clothes, and last month he had started his new job: advising on how to detect fraud within Rialto.
‘He’ll have no access to money and he’ll be watched like a fox in a hen coop. His boss is an ex-policeman,’ Angelo had assured her when she’d voiced the fear that the temptation might prove too much for her parent. ‘I believe your father has already come up with some useful ideas.’
Angelo strolled up behind her as she removed her last earring. He scanned her dreamy blue eyes in the bedroom mirror. ‘What are you thinking about?’
She went pink, for she had been thinking how touched she had been that he had sorted out her father’s problems purely for her sake. That, in her opinion, was the definition of real lasting love.
‘You were chatting to Toby for ages this evening. Any old vibes for me to worry about?’ Angelo enquired, utterly despising himself for voicing that question but unable to silence it. He got on great with Toby James, but he could never quite forget that Toby had once been a threat to his peace of mind.
‘Angelo...we were talking about the drainage problem in the kitchen garden,’ she proffered gently.
She spun round and he linked his arms round her.
‘I’m much more exciting, bellezza mia,’ Angelo murmured silkily.
‘I know...’ Her breath tripped in her throat as he cupped her hips and lifted her against him in a shamelessly erotic move that literally melted her from outside in.
‘Drainage,’ Angelo repeated in a genuinely pained tone of disbelief.
His kiss was sweet, honeyed intoxication and wonderfully sensual.
‘I may not be creative in the garden—’
‘You’re awfully creative in other ways,’ Gwenna pointed out breathlessly.
His slashing smile was her reward. ‘Because I love you...in bed, out of bed, any place, any time—’
Gwenna let her fingers delve adoringly into his luxuriant black hair. She was filled with a glorious swell of happiness and contentment. ‘I love you too.’
* * * * *
All about the author…
Lynne Graham
USA TODAY bestselling author LYNNE GRAHAM has lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives with her family in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden.
Lynne wrote her first book at fifteen—it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was home with her first child. It took several attempts before she was published, and Lynne has never forgotten the delight of seeing that book for sale at the local store.
Today as the author of more than eighty books for Harlequin Presents she professes that each story is special to her. Visit her website at www.lynnegraham.com.
Books by Lynne Graham
Harlequin Presents®
Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence
Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife
Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress
Virgin on Her Wedding Night