by Lynne Graham
‘Are you coming back to bed?’ Gianni enquired with studied casualness from the doorway.
As Milly turned, her eyes lit on him like burning blue stars. She grabbed up a plate and hurled it with all her might. Looking genuinely startled, Gianni ducked. The plate smashed bare inches from him. She sent a second plate flying with similar accuracy. ‘If I wanted to hit you, I could,’ she told him furiously. ‘So get out of here before I forget that violence is not an answer!’
Gianni straightened with admirable cool. ‘OK…if it’s that important, I’ll eat it,’ he breathed grittily.
Milly studied him with huge blue eyes and slowly shook her golden head. ‘Why are you so stupid?’ she whispered helplessly.
‘Why are you?’ Gianni responded, ice-cold.
Milly spun away, denying the cruel message in his diamond-hard eyes. He could make passionate love to her over and over again but he wouldn’t allow her to harbour the smallest illusion about the precise nature of their relationship out of bed. Sentimental touches of the ‘cute’ and ‘domesticated’ variety were out of line. When he had said he wanted everything the way it had once been between them, he had really been lying in his beautiful white teeth. All he really wanted was all the sex he could handle.
‘If I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry, but we need to start out straight,’ Gianni murmured flatly.
He’d done it deliberately. She knew he had rejected her stupid edible offering deliberately. But she also knew she didn’t want to force a major confrontation before they got married. Was that proof of her intelligence or proof of her cowardice?
Feeling wretched, she cleaned up the broken plates and then went back upstairs to the bedroom. A small jeweller’s box with a very impressive logo awaited her on her pillow. She lifted the tiny box and set it unopened on the cabinet.
Sliding into bed, she was careful not to even glance at Gianni, and she turned her back on him. She had let him see how much he had hurt her and that stung her pride.
‘It’s a ring,’ Gianni advanced, without any expression at all.
Grudging curiosity stirred Milly, because he had never given her a ring before. Reclaiming the box, she flipped it open on a spectacular ruby surrounded by diamonds.
She threaded the ring onto her right hand and said, with all the enthusiasm of a woman confronting a huge pile of dirty washing, ‘Fantastic. Thanks.’
‘You’re wearing it on the wrong finger,’ Gianni informed her drily.
Milly frowned. ‘Sorry?’
‘It’s an engagement ring,’ Gianni extended in a charged undertone.
Milly flipped right over to look at him, blue eyes rounded with incredulity. ‘An engagement ring?’
‘Why not? We’re getting married.’ His bold profile rigid, Gianni doused the lights.
End of discussion. In the darkness, Milly fingered her engagement ring with rather more interest than she had been prepared to show a minute earlier. A romantic gesture? She reddened. Hardly. A conventional one? Gianni had yet to mention when they would marry. Milly tensed at that belated realisation. Was it possible that this was going to be a very long engagement? The sort of engagement that went on year after endless year until it became a positive joke to all onlookers?
‘Hi…’ Her expressive face pale and stiff, Milly slid behind the table in the dining room. An unfamiliar maid had wakened her.
‘I’d have let you sleep, but I know you want to be back for Connor.’ With a slow-burning smile that reminded Milly of how very lacking in restraint she had been around dawn, Gianni poured her a cup of coffee. ‘You still look pretty tired.’
Milly reddened like an awkward teenager. While she had still been deliciously drowsy and defenceless Gianni had invaded her side of the bed, ruthlessly set on conquest. And even with all her experience of Gianni’s incredible expertise she had been quite unprepared either for that level of slow, exquisite seduction or the intensity of his determination to give her the ultimate in pleasure. The intimate ache of her body had powered that smile he now felt able to bestow upon her.
She looked so miserable, Gianni reflected in frustration. He focused on her hand, where it rested on the table only about nine inches from his own. But Gianni was still challenged. Breathing in deep, he reached out suddenly to cover her tense fingers with his hand.
Milly froze in complete disconcertion. Gianni was not given to demonstrative gestures beyond the bedroom door. She stared at him. His ridiculously lush black lashes semi-veiled his eyes, but his tension was pronounced.
‘Last night, nothing went according to plan,’ Gianni advanced, with the taut stiffness of a male who never normally allowed himself to explain anything he did. ‘We had a reservation at Castel’s. We were supposed to dine out. But coming back here, seeing you here again…’
As his hesitation threatened to stretch into a stark silence, Milly instinctively closed her other hand round his as well, literally holding him prisoner. ‘Yes?’ she encouraged in a breathless whisper.
‘It was like we’d never been apart,’ Gianni completed flatly.
‘I thought that was what you wanted,’ Milly muttered unevenly.
Gianni’s strong jawline clenched. ‘I did…I do…but for a while last night I didn’t…’
Milly waited with bated breath, but the silence lingered. She was stunned by the extraordinary fact that Gianni had made the effort to explain that his passion had been entirely spontaneous and that he had originally planned a very different evening. Dinner and dancing at the most exclusive nightclub in Paris put the presentation of an engagement ring into a new light.
But his second admission had shaken her most of all. That had been Gianni telling her in as few words as possible that last night their unresolved past had returned to haunt him and caused his change of mood. It was such a gigantic step forward in communication that Milly’s eyes glowed as if he had lit a neon light inside her. ‘Gianni, I’m so pleased you told me this. I know how difficult—’
‘And now that we’ve got that out of the way, cara mia,’ Gianni interposed at speed, his lean, dark features lightening with barely concealed relief, ‘We should talk about the wedding arrangements. I’ve applied for a special licence. We can get married this week.’
As a distraction, that change of subject worked. Having been on the very brink of an emotional speech, Milly was stopped dead in her tracks. ‘This week?’
‘Why not?’ Gianni elevated a winged ebony brow. ‘We have no good reason to wait.’
‘I guess not…’ Her attention welded to his spectacular dark eyes, Milly’s response was rather weak. She had been so totally wrong in her suspicions. Gianni hadn’t been using an engagement ring as a delaying tactic. If anything, he was prepared to rush her to the altar.
‘Connor needs me around,’ Gianni pointed out.
Her dreamy smile faded. ‘Yes, of course he does.’
Louise Barclay watched Milly twirl in her wedding dress. Reminiscent of a romantic Edwardian tea gown, it was an incredibly elegant confection of silk adorned with exquisite handmade lace which enhanced her slender figure.
‘You really, really love this guy, don’t you?’ Louise breathed with a slightly dazed expression on her freckled face.
Milly fell still in apparent dismay at that charge. ‘How do you know that?’
Louise assumed a mock air of deep concentration. ‘Oh, it might be the way Gianni’s name enters just about every sentence. Then again, it might be the totally off-this-planet look you have when you say his name—’
‘Louise!’ Milly groaned.
‘Or it could even be the fact that you’ve phoned him four times in the last two hours. I’ve heard of bridal nerves, but the last two times you called he was downstairs under this very same roof,’ Louise pointed out gently.
Milly went pink. ‘Phone calls are like a jokey thing between us.’
‘Hey, I’m not criticising. Obviously he’s crazy about you too.’
Eyes clouding, Milly turned away. She
hadn’t actually seen Gianni for four days. Business had kept him abroad. But, since her return from Paris, Gianni had made regular calls, and on the phone he was Gianni as she remembered him. Tender, teasing and warm. That was why the phone had become her lifeline.
Louise sighed. ‘Why didn’t Gianni just organise a media man-hunt when you went missing three years ago?’
Milly stiffened. ‘Strictly speaking, I wasn’t missing. I left Paris because we’d split up. We had some major problems.’
Her friend grinned. ‘But nothing the two of you couldn’t surmount within a week of finding each other again!’
But Milly knew better. The Stefano episode would never be forgotten. She was certain that her supposed betrayal had come back to haunt Gianni that night in Paris, and it would keep on coming back until she dealt with it. But how was she to clear her own name?
What, after all, had changed? It would still be her word against Stefano’s. Stefano would never tell the truth; he had too much to lose. But for all that, Milly mused, Stefano would surely be very shocked to learn that she was back in Gianni’s life in the infinitely more secure role of his wife.
Her portable phone buzzed. She snatched it up. ‘Gianni…?’
‘I’m now on my way to the church. We haven’t yet met any roadblocks or fallen trees—’
‘Don’t be snide.’
‘Of course, some gorgeous flame from my past could still throw herself across the church steps and prevent me from reaching the altar—’
‘That’s not funny!’ Milly cut in hotly.
‘Milly…proceed to the bedroom door. That’s the large wooden oblong with the handle. Open the door, walk down the stairs and get into the transport waiting,’ Gianni instructed with gentle satire. ‘If you keep me hanging around at that church, I’ll—’
‘You’ll what?’ Milly whispered in breathless interruption as she moved towards the door.
‘You’ll find out tonight,’ he promised, in a roughened sexy undertone that made her heartbeat accelerate at the most astonishing rate.
‘I’m going to be awfully late, Gianni…’
‘I won’t wait.’
‘You will,’ she muttered, smiling, and finished the call.
On her way down the stairs, she was amazed by the number of staff bustling in and out of the ballroom, and she was about to ask what was happening when Robin Jennings strolled out of the drawing room to extend his arm to her with a broad grin.
‘Gianni wanted me to surprise you.’
Milly gave the older man a delighted smile and a welcoming hug. ‘I’m so glad you’re here to share this day with me.’
After that first surprise, the surprises simply got larger. The church car park and the road outside were packed with luxury cars. As Robin helped her out of the limo Gianni’s security men surged forward to shield her from a pack of eager photographers and journalists shouting questions.
‘What’s going on?’ Milly voiced her bewilderment in the church porch.
‘Gianni did mention that he wanted to show you off to the whole world,’ Robin Jennings confided then. ‘Only I didn’t realise he meant it so literally.’
There wasn’t even standing room left in the church.
Gianni watched Milly walk down the aisle with glittering dark eyes of appreciation.
The simple ceremony filled her with emotion and optimism. Some day soon, she swore, she would be able to tell Gianni how much she loved him without him acting as if it was verbal abuse of the most offensive kind.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were inviting all these people?’ Milly squealed, the minute she got him on his own in the limo. ‘We’ll be in all the newspapers tomorrow, and you know how you hate that sort of stuff! Everything that’s happened to me will come out as well.’
Gianni’s dark, deep flashing eyes shimmered with amusement. ‘In the words of one of my PR team…“just like a fairytale”. Less than cool, but romantic. You’re a living cross between the Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. I’m still working on being a prince.’
‘Did you really say you wanted to show me off to the whole world?’
Slight colour burnished his stunning cheekbones. ‘I don’t remember.’
Plunged into a reception for five hundred guests back at Heywood House, Milly found her wedding day an increasingly breathless whirl.
Around three that afternoon she slid away to speak privately to Davina Jennings. After the older woman had listened to Connor’s excited chatter and cuddled him, she explained that Edward had now become a junior partner in Jennings Engineering.
‘He’s bearing up very well to having lost you, I have to admit,’ Davina confided ruefully. ‘With hindsight, I can see that Edward was rather more interested in the partnership than he was in you. You made the right decision.’
Davina pressed a very familiar item of jewellery into Milly’s hand. ‘The bracelet. You left it behind in your room.’
‘But I can’t keep it. It belonged to your grandmother,’ Milly protested.
‘You’re always going to be part of our family, Milly,’ the older woman told her gently. ‘But now that you’ve got your memory back, I’d love to know how you acquired the bracelet in the first place.’
‘A couple of days before the accident, I bought it off a market stall.’ Milly had turned the silver bracelet over and noticed the word ‘Faith’ inscribed on the back. It hadn’t occurred to her that it might be a name. She had seen it in the light of a message to have faith, keep faith no matter how difficult things might seem. She had clasped it round her wrist like a talisman the same day she’d boarded the train to Cornwall.
‘The bracelet belongs with you now. At least you liked it enough to buy it,’ Davina remarked wryly. ‘Enough of that. Have the police been in touch with you about the accident?’
‘Gianni suggested that I get in touch with them, so I made a fresh statement the day before yesterday,’ Milly admitted with a rueful twist of her lips. ‘I’m afraid that even with my memory back I still didn’t have any useful facts to offer them.’
‘That can’t be helped. By the way, Gianni mentioned the enquiries he’s having made on our behalf. If our long-lost daughter can be traced, I’ve no doubt he’s the man to do it. Yet that awful day he made us tell you the truth I didn’t trust him an inch.’ The older woman grimaced. ‘I should’ve recognised that, having found you, he was simply terrified of losing you again!’
Milly laughed at that idea. ‘Gianni has nerves of steel!’
‘Not where you’re concerned,’ the older woman replied with quiet conviction.
After a light supper was served at seven, Connor fell asleep on Milly’s lap. Gianni lifted his slumbering son gently from her. ‘It’s time he went to bed.’
Barbara Withers was dancing, and very much preoccupied with her partner. Gianni was ready to intervene, but Milly scolded him with reproachful eyes and gave him a little lecture on the need to consider the feelings and the needs of his employees.
‘How many employees have you had?’ Gianni enquired as he carried Connor upstairs.
‘None…but I know what’s right,’ Milly retorted, not one whit deflated. ‘And sometimes you’re just a bit too bossy and demanding.’
Gianni met her look of fearless challenge and threw back his head to laugh. ‘Dio mio…how I have missed you in my life!’
At that admission, her breath caught in her throat. “Sometimes I wonder if I lost my memory because I couldn’t handle remembering the pain,’ she confided shakily.
The sudden silence that fell seemed to hang on a knife-edge. Aware that she had breached forbidden barriers, Milly scooped Connor out of Gianni’s arms and got on with putting him to bed. By the time she had finished their exhausted toddler was no longer fast asleep.
‘Play cars?’ he mumbled drowsily to Gianni.
Hoping to distract their son until he went off again, Milly picked up a toy car and ran it along the top of his duvet. ‘I can give you ten minutes.’
‘Boys play cars,’ Connor muttered dismissively.
‘I wonder where he picks up these sexist ideas,’ Gianni remarked, with sudden vibrant amusement.
‘It’s the Sicilian blood, Gianni. It’s in his genes,’ Milly teased, highly relieved that the awkward moment had been successfully bridged.
But it wasn’t to be the last awkward moment. A pretty brunette teenager hurried up to speak to Gianni when they returned to the ballroom. ‘Why’s Stefano not here?’ she asked baldly.
Gianni’s long fingers tensed on Milly’s spine. ‘He’s not well.’
‘Gosh, is it serious?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Gianni countered.
‘Poor Stefano,’ the girl groaned sympathetically. ‘He never seems to have much luck these days, and yet he used to be so much fun.’
‘Maybe he just grew up,’ Gianni suggested flatly.
He whirled Milly fluidly away onto the dance floor. It was some minutes before she could breath normally again, and even longer before she felt the worst of the tension ease in Gianni’s big powerful frame. Had he invited Stefano to their wedding? Or had she just heard a social excuse to cover the absence of his one and only brother?
‘I wanted this to be a wonderful day,’ Gianni breathed harshly.
‘It has been,’ Milly argued. ‘Don’t you ever dare think otherwise! I’ve met hundreds of people, who have all been incredibly nice to me. I’ve got to be the centre of attention without anybody thinking I was a show-off! And for the first time in our entire relationship you have switched off your mobile phone!’
His dark, deep flashing eyes roamed over her animated face with an intensity that made her heart sing. Easing her closer, he complained about the frustrating difference in their heights and then, with a growl of very male impatience, he just lifted her high off her startled feet. He kissed her with such desperately hungry need she was trembling when he finally lowered her back to solid earth again.