by Lynne Graham
‘I got lost,’ Milly muttered tightly.
‘Where was this? Why were you were on foot?’
‘I’d gone visiting…and, coming back, I messed up my transport arrangements. So was walking,’ she began afresh, staring blindly at the silver sugar bowl, determined not to tell him any actual lies. ‘It was a horrible wet night.’
Gianni bent down, closed a hand over her knotted fingers and eased her slowly upright into the circle of his arms. ‘It was also a long time ago, cara. It can’t hurt you now.’
Helplessly, Milly leant into him for support, but she felt like a fraud. ‘There really isn’t much to remember, Gianni. I think I may have heard the car that hit me approaching but that’s it. There’s nothing else. I don’t recall seeing a car or being hit.’ She bowed her damp brow against his chest. ‘What has always given me the creeps is the knowledge that somebody robbed me while I was lying there hurt. I had an overnight bag with me.’
‘The hit-and-run driver and the thief may well have been the same person,’ Gianni ground out, and she could feel the massive restraint he was exerting over his anger on her behalf. The knowledge of that anger comforted her. ‘I’m afraid the police will be hoping for more details than you’ve been able to give me.’
‘The police?’ Milly echoed in surprise.
‘Some bastard left you lying by the side of that road like a piece of rubbish!’ Gianni reminded her with barely suppressed savagery. ‘You’d be dead if a passing motorist hadn’t seen you and contacted the emergency services. It’s a complete miracle that you didn’t have a miscarriage!’
Milly sighed. ‘I don’t really want to talk to the police about this again.’
Gianni veiled his gaze. ‘You’ll have to make a new statement, but I can understand that you don’t like the idea of it all being raked up again,’ he conceded soothingly as he settled her back into the wing-back chair. ‘I’ve still got a few questions I’d like answered, but we’ll leave them for now.’
‘Yes…’ Milly averted her pounding head, stomach still churning. She really didn’t want Gianni to know she’d gone to see Stefano. She knew what interpretation he would put on that revelation. And Stefano had clearly known better than to ever mention her visit. That was no surprise to her. Gianni’s kid brother had treated her like Typhoid Mary that night. With great difficulty, Milly put away that memory.
‘Right,’ Gianni breathed in a next-on-the-agenda tone, as if he was chairing a board meeting. ‘I imagine you’d like to know where we’re heading now.’
Considering that in two entire years with her Gianni had not once even hinted that they might be heading anywhere beyond his next flying visit, Milly was taken aback by that concise assurance. She looked up, sapphire-blue eyes very wide and wary.
Gianni leant back against his desk, looking incredibly sophisticated and elegant in his unstructured caramel suit and black T-shirt. Milly averted her head again and rubbed at a worn seam on her jeans with restive fingers.
‘To start with I should tell you why I bought this place two years ago.’
Milly frowned, not understanding why that should be of interest to her.
‘Heywood House is convenient both to the airport and the City of London. I hoped that once I found you both, you would move in here—’
‘Move in here?’ Milly glanced up in frank bewilderment. ‘Why?’
Gianni sighed, as if she was being incredibly slow on the uptake. ‘Naturally I want you to live at a location where I can easily maintain regular contact with Connor. Heywood House fits the bill very well.’
‘Two years ago, you purchased this property for me?’ Milly was thinking out loud, and she flushed with embarrassment when reality sank in a split second later.
Gianni had bought a stately home and turned it into a treasure house. Naturally not for her benefit but for his child’s! Even that far back Gianni had been making plans. Selecting the kind of home he wanted his child to grow up in, filling it with priceless artwork and furniture to create a gilded cocoon of wealth and privilege. Could she ever have dreamt three years ago that he would warm to the concept of being a father to such an extent? With an effort, she forced her attention back to him.
‘To all intents and purposes Heywood House will be yours, until Connor reaches his twenty-fifth birthday.’ Gianni made that distinction with complete cool. ‘I intend to sign all the documentation to that effect and this is now your home. I want you to feel secure here.’
Everything to be tied up all nice and tight and legal. Very much Gianni’s stamp. Gianni had already worked out how best to control her and, through her, his child. Where they lived, how they lived. And, to that end, Heywood House would be put in trust for their son. Milly stared down into her untouched coffee, feeling incredibly hurt and humiliated. He didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her now—but then had he ever?
For the first time since she had recovered her memory, Milly recalled the DNA testing Gianni had mentioned. A shudder of very real repulsion ran through her in response. One glimpse of her with Stefano and that had been that. Instantly Gianni had been willing to believe her capable of any evil. Two years of her loving faith had been eradicated in a nano-second. Now, it seemed, he didn’t even trust her not to try and make a claim for a share of this house at some time in the future.
‘I thought you’d be pleased about the gardens and the plant centre.’ Gianni regarded her like a generous benefactor, still awaiting the gratitude he saw as his due and keen to give her a helpful nudge in the right direction. ‘Obviously those factors influenced my choice of this particular property.’
Unable to credit that, hating her as he did, he could have been influenced by any desire to please her, Milly swallowed hard. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that I might want to live somewhere of my own choosing?’
‘Within certain parameters,’ Gianni qualified without hesitation. ‘This is my son we’re talking about, but let’s put that issue aside for now. I have something far more important I want to discuss with you…’
A slightly jagged laugh escaped Milly’s tight, dry throat. Her nerves were already stretched tight as piano wires.
‘What’s so funny?’ Gianni asked.
‘Once, whenever I said anything like that to you, it really used to spook you,’ Milly reminded him helplessly.
His lean, dark features clenched hard, the dark, deep flashing eyes chilling to polar ice. “‘Once” is not a barrier we want to cross. I don’t want to rake over the past.’
The sudden freeze in the atmosphere raised goosebumps on Milly’s over-sensitive skin. She tore her strained and shadowed gaze away. She got the message. Three years ago he had denied her the chance to give her version of what happened the night he had found her with Stefano. And now he was telling her that she would never get that chance. Never, ever. Only Gianni, so practised at keeping unpleasant or awkward things in tight little separate compartments, could fondly imagine it possible for her to respect such an embargo.
‘For Connor’s sake, we need to move on,’ Gianni added with cool emphasis.
Honest communication? Why on earth had she got her hopes up? They were to move on without ever having paused to consider. Gianni hadn’t changed one iota. And Gianni was far too proud to confront an episode that had undoubtedly savaged his ego. So their entire past had now become a conversational no-go area. For Connor’s sake. That phrase had an almost pious ring of superiority. Naturally it did. Gianni thought Connor’s mother was the immoral slut who had lured his kid brother into bed with her.
‘I’d like my son to have my name,’ Gianni admitted.
Milly raised dulled eyes, wishing he could look ugly to her just once, wishing his flaws would shriek at her loud enough to destroy the dangerous emotions swilling about inside her. But, no, Gianni lounged back against that desk looking drop-dead gorgeous, relaxed and in spectacular control of the situation.
Milly rose to her feet. She parted her lips, and with a defiance she could not withstand
breathed raggedly, ‘Your brother assaulted me.’
Gianni froze. A kind of incredulous outrage laced with black fury flared in his brilliant eyes.
‘Just thought you should know,’ Milly completed shakily.
‘Keep quiet…’ All cool ditched, Gianni studied her with glittering rage and derision, every line of his big, powerful body poised like a predator about to spring. ‘I won’t listen to your lies. I will not discuss this with you, capisce? One more word and I walk out of this room—’
‘Go ahead.’ Milly stood her ground. Indeed, all of a sudden she felt as if she was wedged in concrete, ready to hold steady through any storm.
‘And I head straight for my lawyers and I throw everything I’ve got at you and fight for custody of Connor!’
Milly’s stomach lurched as suddenly as if Gianni had thrown her off a cliff. White as milk, she gazed back at him in horror.
‘Now you’ve got the message,’ Gianni murmured grittily, his anger back under lock and key as he recognised her response.
The shock of that unashamed threat savaged Milly. And suddenly she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. She was too damned scared of him. Scared of Gianni for the first time in her life. Before, she had only feared his hold on her emotions. Now she feared a whole lot of other things as well. His innate ruthlessness, his enormous wealth, the dangerous power and influence he had at his fingertips.
She was shaking, and she hated that he should see that. But she didn’t need a crystal ball to guess the sort of weapons which might be used against her in any custody battle. A woman capable of spending three years living another woman’s life might well fail to impress a judge as a stable mother figure. In fact, her recent past would put her at a distinct disadvantage, Milly reflected bitterly.
‘But I wouldn’t do that, to you or Connor. I think you’re a great mother. I have no intention of trying to take him away from you. OK?’ Gianni breathed tautly.
Her arms protectively wrapped around herself and her back turned to him, Milly continued to stare blindly out of the window. His words meant nothing to her. She knew she would never forget the way Gianni had just turned on her. His façade of civilised cool and control had dropped to let her see the cold menace that still lay beneath. Why was she so shocked? Hadn’t she always known that Gianni was totally incapable of forgiving her for what he believed she had done?
‘I suppose I should’ve expected you to come out with that sort of stuff today,’ Gianni continued flatly. ‘But you have to accept that I’ve put all that behind me.’
Her supposed betrayal. Like a gun he concealed behind his back, always primed to shoot.
‘To the extent…’ Unusually, Gianni hesitated. ‘You’ve really messed this moment up, Milly.’
‘What moment?’ she muttered in confusion.
‘I was about to ask you to marry me. Accidenti, I am asking you to marry me!’ Gianni rephrased, with more than a suggestion of gritted teeth.
Milly went from shock into bigger, deeper shock. She had to consciously will her feet to turn around so that she could look at him again. She had to look at him to believe the evidence of her own ears.
A dark line of colour accentuating his stunning cheekbones, Gianni subjected her to a grim, glittering appraisal. ‘In spite of everything you’ve done, I’m willing to give you another chance and make you my wife.’
‘Wife…’ Milly could hardly get her tongue round that astounding word. ‘But you hate me…’
Gianni raised two lean brown hands and spread them at truly impressive speed to indicate his distaste for that subject. ‘I don’t want to get into emotions here. They’re quite irrelevant.’
‘Irrelevant…’ Milly stared at him with huge wondering eyes.
‘All that really matters is that you’re the mother of my son. Connor deserves a proper family life and he’s not going to get that if I’m just the guy who flies in to visit every week,’ Gianni pointed out levelly. ‘I want to be a real father. I don’t want him turning round and asking me as a teenager why I never thought enough of him to marry his mother and be a genuine part of his life.’
Milly nodded in slow motion.
‘Then there’s us,’ Gianni added in an obvious afterthought. ‘Let’s be frank, cara. You wouldn’t kick me out of bed.’
Hot, humiliated colour drenching her former pallor, Milly discovered that she wanted to kick him to kingdom come.
‘I don’t see any reason why things shouldn’t go right back to the way they were,’ Gianni told her with complete conviction. ‘I still find it a real challenge to keep my hands off you.”
‘That’s a…a compliment?’ Milly prompted unevenly.
Gianni slanted an ebony brow. ‘I’m asking you to marry me. I can understand that you’re pretty surprised by this development, but you should be really pleased.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Gianni repeated with unconcealed incredulity. ‘It’s what you always secretly wanted. Do you think I didn’t realise that?’
Kicking him to kingdom come wouldn’t be enough. It would be too quick, too clean. Milly wanted him stretched on a rack and tortured. How could a male so very clever make a marriage proposal sound so deeply offensive? It had to be deliberate. He had decided he had to marry her for Connor’s sake, but he was making it brutally clear that his sole use for her would be sexual. Connor deserved a relationship; she didn’t.
Gianni surveyed Milly’s frozen little face with mounting tension. He could feel his temper rising again, no matter how hard he tried to ram it down. Wasn’t she capable of a logical reaction? First she had wrecked everything by actually daring to refer to that disgusting episode with Stefano. Next she had told stupid lies. And now she was reacting to his extraordinarily generous proposal as if he had insulted her beyond belief!
Here he was, striving in the only way he could to make amends for his own errors of judgement over the past few days! He was giving her what she must always have wanted when she least deserved it, but not one ounce of appreciation was he receiving for his impressive ability to rise above her unforgivable act of betrayal three years ago! And, finally, he had been honest with her, Gianni reflected with smouldering resentment. Right from the instant he had first met her, she had stressed how important it was that he should always be honest with her. So he had been honest. Only somehow honesty wasn’t working like any magic charm!
‘You said that to all intents and purposes this is my home,’ Milly reminded him tightly.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Gianni demanded with stark impatience, brilliant eyes glittering like ice shards.
‘If this is my home, I can ask you to get out of it,’ Milly informed him, her breath catching audibly in her throat. ‘So I’m asking…’
Gianni frowned at her. ‘Run that by me again.’
Milly thrust up her chin. ‘In fact, I’m not asking. I’m telling you to get out!’
Wrathful incredulity emanated from Gianni in powerful waves. His eyes flashed shimmering gold. ‘How dare you talk to me like that?’
Milly’s temper rose hot enough to equal his own. She took a step forward. ‘You’re complaining about how I’m talking to you? You dragged me back into bed at the hotel just so that you could satisfy yourself that you could still pull me like a Christmas cracker!’
‘Dio…how can you be so vulgar?’ Gianni shot at her thunderously.
‘Vulgar? Me?’ Milly gasped in disbelief. ‘Would you listen to yourself? You’re the cockroach who had to boast about the fact that I didn’t have the wit to kick you out of bed! Well, now that I’ve got my memory back, I know I’d sooner be dead than let you touch me again!’
‘Is that a fact?’ Before she could even guess his intention, Gianni reached out and simply lifted her up into his powerful arms as if she were a doll.
‘Put me down this minute!’ Milly shrieked at him furiously.
His mouth slammed down on hers like a silencer. Rage hurtled up inside her, only to be
transformed into a blaze of white-hot hunger so intense it literally hurt. It physically hurt to want, to need, to crave to such an extent, for nothing he could do could ever be enough. She always wanted more. The drugging heat of his mouth, the provocative stab of his tongue driving her wild only made her ache unbearably for the fulfilment that he alone could give. Heartbeat pounding, pulses racing, she dug her fingers into his luxuriant hair and kissed him back so frantically she couldn’t even stop to breathe.
Gianni dragged his mouth off hers. He was breathing heavily, but his dark golden eyes shimmered with unashamed satisfaction. ‘Somehow I don’t think death before dishonour is likely to figure in this reconciliation, cara mia.’
The raging fire within Milly shrank to a tiny mortified flicker and was doused entirely by an all-consuming ache of regret. Her cheeks a hectic pink, she removed her fingers shakily from his hair, tormented by her own weakness.
Gianni lowered her to the carpet again with exaggerated care.
Immediately she spun away in a jerky movement. ‘Go, Gianni,’ she urged in desperation.
‘Call me when you’ve thought things over,’ he murmured silkily, all cool now restored.
Milly listened to the quiet thud of the door closing on his exit and slumped, bitterly ashamed of her own behaviour. He had levelled the score. He had had the last word. Although, as usual, language hadn’t played much part in her defeat. But it hadn’t always been like that between them, she reminded herself fiercely. Once she had been strong enough to hang onto her pride and independence and protect herself from a male determined not to commit himself…
Five years ago, on the very first day they met and admitted to diametrically opposed expectations, Gianni had accurately forecast that one of them was set to crash into a solid brick wall.