by Lynne Graham
‘I’m sure Connor would enjoy that.’ Milly’s smile was strained by the thought of what lay ahead of her. And that was facing up to the male who, after that dreadful night three years ago, had refused to meet her again, accept her phone calls or answer her letters. Closure had not been a problem for Gianni. He had judged her, dumped her, and replaced her at spectacular speed.
Suddenly cold inside herself, Milly leafed through the garments she had found unpacked in the adjoining dressing room. She had a curious aversion to wearing the clothes she had worn as Faith Jennings, but she had nothing else available. With regret she recalled the wonderful wardrobe she had loftily chosen to leave behind when she had left Paris three years earlier.
In the end she pulled on a pair of faded jeans she had used for gardening and a long-sleeved black polo shirt. Leaving her tumbling mass of golden hair loose round her shoulders, she set off in search of Gianni.
She emerged onto a huge galleried landing dominated by superb oil paintings. For ‘country house’ she now substituted ‘stately home’. The stamp of Gianni’s ownership was everywhere. The most magnificent furniture, the most exquisite artwork. He surrounded himself with beautiful possessions and he had fabulous taste and considerable knowledge, all acquired as an adult.
An extraordinary man, she conceded reluctantly. Always a target for the paparazzi, rarely out of the newspapers, inevitably a focus of fascination for others. Precious few men rose to Gianni’s level from a deprived and brutalised childhood. A drunken, abusive father, a prostitute mother who had abandoned him, followed by a stepmother who had fed him alongside the dog and chucked him out on the streets of Palermo to fend for himself at the age of ten. Why was she remembering all that? she asked herself angrily.
But all of a sudden it was as if a dam had broken its banks inside Milly’s subconscious: memories gushed out against her volition, demanding her attention, refusing to go away…
The year Milly had turned nineteen her life had changed out of all recognition. Leo, her feckless but very charming father, had died of a sudden heart attack in Spain.
After eleven years of sharing her father’s gypsy lifestyle, Milly had wanted to put down roots and make plans. She had applied for a place on a two-year horticultural course at a London college. With not a single educational qualification to her name it had taken courage to put herself forward, and she had been overjoyed when she’d been accepted as a full-time student.
She had lived on a shoestring in a dingy bedsit, working part-time in a supermarket to supplement her tiny grant. Her first real friend had been the bubbly blonde who’d lived across the landing. Lisa had worked for a strippergram agency and had lived in considerably greater comfort than Milly.
One afternoon, Lisa had come to her door in a real state. ‘I have to do a booking in the City tonight and I can’t make it,’ she groaned. ‘Stevie’s just called to ask me out to dinner and you know what he’s like! If I’m not available, he’ll ask someone else!’
Lisa had given her heart to a real creep. The saga of her sufferings at Stevie’s ruthlessly selfish hands could have filled a book the size of the Bible. Yet when Stevie called Lisa still dropped everything and ran, because he had trained her that way.
‘Please do this booking for me,’ Lisa pleaded frantically. ‘You don’t have to take anything off. All you’ve got to do is jump out of this stupid fake cake dressed as an angel and smile!’
Milly grimaced. Lisa raced back to her bedsit and returned with an armful of celestial white robes and a small gilded harp. ‘It’s a really dated stunt, but these executive-types want something tasteful because they’re scared witless of offending the big boss. It’s his birthday and his name is D’Angelo…angel—get it?’
So that was how Milly had ended up jumping out of Gianni’s birthday cake. She had thrown herself upright and found herself looking straight down into dark eyes that flashed to the most amazing shade of gold. Those eyes had spooked her. Tripping in her oversized robes, she had lurched off the trolley, careened into the board table beside it to send half the drinks flying and had finally landed in a tumbled heap at Gianni’s feet. The ghastly silence her clumsiness had evoked remained with her even now.
‘Happy birthday, Mr D’Angelo,’ she had muttered doggedly.
‘What do you do for an encore?’ Gianni enquired in silken enquiry. ‘Level the building?’
Severe embarrassment flipped into sudden fury at that sarcastic sally. ‘Don’t be such an insensitive prat!’ Milly hissed in angry reproach. ‘Go on—help me up…don’t you have any manners at all?’
A swelling tide of gasps, sharp, indrawn breaths and muted groans rose from the executives still glued to their seats round the board table.
Gianni looked stunned. Then, disorientatingly, he threw back his arrogant dark head and laughed. ‘For a little titchy thing, you’ve got quite a tongue, haven’t you?’
‘You are one ignorant pig!’ Milly told him, even as he extended a lean hand to help her upright. She pushed his hand away and sat carefully untangling the robes from her legs so that she could rise without assistance and take a step back to impose some distance between them.
Gianni then helpfully extended the harp she had dropped on him. ‘What do you do next?’ he asked, lounging back in his imposing chair with an air of sardonic anticipation.
Milly snatched the harp back. ‘If you’re hoping I’m about to start stripping, it’s not your day! I keep all my clothes on.’
Gianni studied her with even greater amusement. ‘Aren’t you supposed to at least sing many happy returns?’
At that reminder, Milly stiffened resentfully. ‘I couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket.’
‘You…are…priceless.’ Gianni savoured her, brilliant eyes fixed like lasers to her expressive face.
Rising from his chair to his full intimidating height, Gianni closed one hand over hers and turned to address their gaping audience. ‘Check the Health and Safety rules next time you decide to give me a surprise. This particular angel could have sued the pants off us if she’d been hurt!’
‘Let go of my hand,’ Milly urged as he carried her across the room with him.
He thrust open the door that led back into the corridor. ‘Was this your last booking?’
‘My only one—’
‘Then I’ll take you home.’
‘No thanks.’ Pulling free of his hold, Milly hurried back to the cloakroom in which she had earlier changed out of her own clothes.
When she emerged, clad in jeans and a sweater, Gianni was still waiting for her.
‘You’re a bit like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?’
‘You’re very beautiful. Don’t act so surprised when I tell you that. It doesn’t wash with looks like yours,’ Gianni drawled with a cynical smile. ‘I’ll take you home. You can get dressed up. We’ll go out to dinner.’
‘No, thanks,’ she said tautly, annoyed that temptation was flickering when he was so screamingly unsuitable. Dressed up? Dressed up in what? Did he think she had a designer wardrobe to fall back on?
‘Why not?’
‘How many reasons do you need?’
‘This is very entertaining. Feel free to speak your mind.’
‘All right. One, you’re too slick for me. Two, you look filthy rich. Three, you have to be at least ten years older than me, and I can’t imagine that we’d have a single thing in common.’
‘Are you always this…sharp-tongued?’
She picked up on the deliberate hesitation, recognised the coolness that had quenched the vibrancy in his extraordinary eyes and felt herself shrivel up inside, but still she said, ‘No, you bring out the best in me.’
‘Instant loathing?’
She shivered, and then, ashamed of her disturbingly unfamiliar need to continually attack him, she decided to be honest. ‘No, I fancied you like mad the minute I laid eyes on you, but it’s not something I want to follow up,’ she admitted, suddenly finding herself alarmingly short of breath. ‘By
e. Have a nice birthday!’
The following afternoon, Gianni was waiting for her to come home from college. Having tripped over him on the landing, Lisa was bending over backwards to entertain him in Milly’s absence.
‘How on earth did you find out where I lived?’
‘Bribed the sleazebag who owns the strippergram agency. He told me your name was Lisa. Then I met Lisa and she explained who you really were.’ Gianni angled a slanting smile over her—a smile that had megawatt charisma.
‘You shouldn’t have come here—’
‘Dio mio…what did you expect? You think I’m about to walk in the opposite direction when you’re feeling the same way I feel?’
‘Tell me one thing we have in common?’ Milly invited.
‘Sex.’
‘When you think of something else, I’ll have dinner with you,’ Milly told him, hot-cheeked.
Gianni stuck a swift foot in the door she was trying to close on him. ‘Quick tempers.’
‘You are so persistent!’
‘OK.’ Strong jawline squaring, he shrugged with eye-catching elegance. ‘I’m out of here.’
She let him get as far as the floor below, and then, stabbed by the sudden realisation that she would never see him again, she darted back out to the landing and hung over the banister to call, ‘Just dinner…all right?’
‘What about breakfast?’ Gianni asked without hesitation.
‘No chance, but I appreciate you being this honest about your intentions. Honesty is very important to me, even if the truth isn’t always welcome. So I should tell you now that I’m not into casual sex and I’m very romantic.’
Gianni sighed softly. ‘One of us is set to crash into a solid brick wall.’
‘It won’t be me,’ Milly told him gently. ‘I couldn’t possibly fall in love with someone like you.’
‘Accidenti…why would I want you to fall in love with me?’ Gianni demanded incredulously. ‘My sole interest in you is—’
‘Shut up before you talk yourself out of a dinner date,’ Milly advised.
Emerging from the frighteningly fresh hold of those memories back into the present, Milly blinked and looked around herself. She was still standing on the gallery. Breathing in deep, shaken by the tremendous pull of the past, she walked slowly towards the stairs.
As she descended the sweeping staircase Gianni strode out into the wonderful Georgian hall below. Instantly she felt her tender heart quake like a stupid jelly, as if three years hadn’t passed, as if her brain was forever locked in time, incapable of moving on and healing. As she stilled two steps up from the foot of the stairs, so that for once she was at his level, her hands closed into defensive fists by her sides.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘GIANNI…’ Milly breathed, and she could hardly get his name past her dry lips.
‘You don’t look at all well,’ Gianni drawled with measured cool, incisive dark eyes resting on her without any perceptible expression. ‘You really should have stayed in bed.’
Yes, he could have handled her best as a total invalid, Milly decided. Then she would have been an object of pity, too weak and pathetic to require confrontation. Gianni went to quite incredible lengths to avoid emotional scenes. He could not bear to be vulnerable. He could not tolerate any loss of control. So he attached himself to objects, not to people. Perhaps Connor would teach him to love. She had failed—oh, boy, had she failed…
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, terrified that he was registering just how much he could still affect her.
Gianni looked back at her. She was so small, so slender, so pale, haunted eyes fixed to him as if he was about to unfurl a set of cloven hooves and a toasting fork. Fine? The fear she couldn’t hide filled him with seething bitterness.
Suddenly he wished her memory had stayed lost. Memories were bloody painful afflictions! That night in the hotel she had been so sweet. Trusting, open, just as he remembered her. The only person alive who had ever treated him as if he was just an ordinary guy. Nagging him when he was late, complaining when he was preoccupied, yawning through the business news and totally forgetting about him when she was out in her precious garden. In every way she had been different from every other woman he had had, either before or since.
Once she would have filled this awful silence, instinctively understanding that he couldn’t, that when he was wound up about something he turned cold and aggressive and silent in self-defence. Then he reminded himself that this bit would be over soon. Not for nothing had he spent the past twenty-four hours seeking a rational solution to the mess they were in. And around dawn, he had come up with the answer.
Not perfect, but simple. And the instant he made that proposal Milly would go back to normal—well, maybe not immediately, he conceded grudgingly, but obviously she’d be over the moon. He’d also have the tactical advantage of surprise. She’d appreciate that he was making a really huge and stupendously generous effort for Connor’s sake. And naturally she’d be grateful. Grateful enough to go back upstairs with him and consolidate their new understanding in the most logical way of all?
Milly knew she was gaping at Gianni like a pheasant looking up the barrel of a shotgun. But the lurch of her heart had appalled her. Feeling that sensitive to dark, deep flashing eyes as chilly as a winter’s day was not a good sign. Noticing that he looked shockingly spectacular in a casual designer suit the colour of caramel was an even worse sign. Say something, a voice in her head screeched, for heaven’s sake, say something. But her mind was a complete blank. She didn’t know where to start or how she would ever stop if she did start. Silence seemed a lot safer.
Milly stiffened as Gianni extended a hand to her. It was the very last gesture she had expected from him. Uncurling her fingers, she lifted her arm in slow motion. He got tired waiting. He brought up his other hand, closed both round her waist and lifted her down to the marble-tiled floor.
A slight gasp of disconcertion escaped her. However, the sudden shrinkage in stature she suffered helped. Suddenly her strained eyes were mercifully level with Gianni’s chest.
‘We’ve got some talking to do,’ Gianni informed her next.
Milly was poleaxed. Only a woman who had been intimately involved with Gianni could have understood that acknowledgement to be ground-breaking and incredible. Whenever she had wanted to talk, seriously talk about personal things, Gianni had had a hundred evasive techniques. ‘Later’ had been a particular favourite, followed by a sudden rampant desire for her body or a pressing appointment. It had taken her a very long time to appreciate that ‘later’ meant never.
‘A lot…’ Milly agreed breathlessly, suddenly experiencing a stark, shameful stab of pained resentment. What had changed Gianni? Who had changed him? Who had finally persuaded him that honest communication was the only option when the going got tough? It was what they had once so badly needed, but the offer was coming way too late for her to benefit.
He showed her into a library, where a log fire was burning in the grate. He strode over to the desk, lifted the phone and ordered coffee. Stilling by the hearth, Milly stretched her unsteady hands out to the heat and let her gaze travel around the magnificent room with its warm red décor.
‘What do you think of Heywood House?’ Gianni asked.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She resisted the urge to admit that it wasn’t at all what she had expected. She didn’t want to stray onto impersonal topics and deflect him from anything he might want to say to her.
‘The gardens are famous. I’ve ensured that they’ve been maintained to the highest standards,’ Gianni advanced smoothly.
Milly wandered over to the nearest window. She adored gardens, but right now she was so enervated she couldn’t even appreciate the wonderful view. ‘It looks tremendous.’
‘There’s a rare plant centre attached to the estate. I rebuilt it,’ Gianni continued. ‘It doesn’t exactly do a roaring trade, but the manager tells me it’s a real haunt for the connoisseur.
Bewildered by this floo
d of extraneous information from a male who barely knew the difference between a rose and a daisy and was content to remain in a state of blissful ignorance, Milly suddenly frowned as her mind homed in on something else entirely, and she exclaimed, ‘For goodness’ sake, Gianni…I haven’t even spoken to Louise! What on earth must she be thinking? She’s my partner and my best friend and I didn’t even phone her!’
The silence spread and spread.
Gianni dealt her a fulminating look. ‘I phoned her. She was very concerned. I said you’d be in touch when you were well enough…OK?’
Milly released her breath, relieved by that assurance. But she wondered why he had delivered the news with such an air of impatience. It wasn’t as if she had interrupted him when he’d been talking about anything important. The door opened and a maid entered with a tray of coffee. It was a welcome diversion.
She sat down in a leather wing-back armchair and poured the coffee. Without hesitation she added three sugars to Gianni’s cup.
‘We’ll deal with practicalities first, get them out of the way,’ Gianni announced with decisive cool. ‘And naturally the first thing I want to know is, have you any idea who left you lying badly injured on that road in Cornwall? And how did it happen?’
Milly jerked and froze, her heartbeat thudding loudly in her ears. Such obvious questions. Why hadn’t she been prepared for them?
‘It must be distressing for you to have to remember that night. But it has to be dealt with.’ Gianni watched her with keen, dark expectant eyes.
Milly was shot right back to that night, forced to recall things she would have preferred to leave buried, things that had nothing whatsoever to do with the accident. She lost colour. Her hand began to shake. She set down her coffee again with a clatter. She hoped to heaven Gianni didn’t ask her what she had been doing in Cornwall in the first place, because if he did ask, she certainly didn’t feel like telling him the truth.
‘Milly…?’ Gianni pressed, more gently. ‘Do you remember what happened now?’
‘M-mostly…not very clearly.’ A taxi had dropped her off at the cottage where Stefano had been staying with his girlfriend. She had forgotten to ask the taxi driver to wait for her: a very foolish oversight. But it had taken a lot of courage to seek out and confront Stefano. And when she had walked back out of that cottage she had felt dead inside and she really hadn’t cared about anything. Not the darkness, not the wind, not the rain. She had just started walking away as fast as she could.