by Lynne Graham
He had roared up on a monster motorbike, sheathed in black jeans with a hole in one knee and a white T-shirt. Tousled, curly ebony hair had been blown back from his lean, vibrantly handsome features and an entire room of adolescent girls had gone weak at the knees with a collective gasp. What was more, his own sex had clustered round him with equal enthusiasm. Alessio had been hugely popular, the indisputable leader of the pack.
Even then he’d had an undeniable golden aura. One had had the feeling that even on a rainy day the sun would still shine exclusively around Alessio. He’d had the immense and boundless self-assurance of a being who had always led a charmed life. The angels had not been having forty winks when Alessio was born. Alessio had been young, beautiful, academically brilliant and rich. And Daisy’s greatest attraction could only have been that she was different from the girls he was used to dating. The new face, the foreigner, who had to work to get a taste of the sun, had stood out from the familiar crowd.
But she hadn’t known who he was then. His name had meant nothing to her. And even after being slapped Alessio had still trailed her all the way back to the Morgan villa on his motorbike when she had walked out on the party. Since losing face in public was every teenager’s worst nightmare, she had been upset. The more she had told him to grow up and get lost, the more he had laughed. She had been convinced that he was sending her up for her shocked response to that proposition of his, embarrassingly aware that she had overreacted and that a smart verbal rejoinder would have been infinitely more adult.
‘Anyone will give me a reference. I’m a really wonderful guy when you get to know me,’ he told her, with a shimmering, teasing smile that made her vulnerable heart sing. ‘And I’m delighted you’re not the sort of girl who gives her all on a first date. Not that I would have said no, you understand… but the occasional negative response is probably better for my character.’
‘You really like yourself, don’t you?’ she snapped.
‘At least I don’t lurk behind the furniture, scared to speak to people, and react like a startled rabbit when they speak to me,’ he retorted, quick as a flash.
And she fled indoors, slunk up to her bedroom and cried herself to sleep. But Alessio showed up again early the next morning. Liz brought him into the kitchen where Daisy was clearing up the breakfast dishes. The whole time Alessio was with her the older woman hovered, staring at Alessio as if she couldn’t quite believe he was real.
‘I’ll pick you up at seven…OK?’ he said levelly, quite unconcerned by his audience. ‘We’ll go for a meal somewhere.’
‘OK…’
‘Smile,’ he said, cheerfully ruffling the hair of the two-year-old girl clinging to his leg. ‘She can smile at me…why can’t you?’
‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
His mouth quirked. ‘You’re not supposed to admit things like that.’
Liz cornered her the instant he departed. ‘Daisy, if I acted a little weird, put it down to me being shocked at the sight of a Leopardi entering my humble home.’
‘Why?’ Daisy frowned.
‘We’ve been coming here every summer for ten years and I still can’t get as much as nod of acknowledgement from the Leopardis! His parents are mega-rich—as well as their villa here they’ve got a huge mansion in Rome, where they live most of the time—and they are very exclusive in their friendships,’ she explained uncomfortably. ‘And Alessio has a reputation with girls that would turn any mother’s hair white overnight. But he usually sticks with his own set. Please don’t take this the wrong way, Daisy…but do you really think you can handle a young man like that? He’s seen a lot more of life than you have.’
But Daisy didn’t listen. Alessio did not seem remotely snobbish. And Alessio’s unknown parents interested her not at all.
He rolled up in a low-slung scarlet sports car to take her out that evening. Daisy was impressed to death but Liz grabbed her husband in horror as she peered out from behind the curtains. ‘I don’t believe it! They’ve bought a teenager a Ferrari! Are the Leopardis out of their minds?’
All the trappings of fantasy were there—the gorgeous guy who had miraculously picked her out of a wealth of beautiful, far more sophisticated girls, the fabulous car. That night they dined in a ritzy restaurant in Florence. Daisy was overpowered by her surroundings until Alessio reached across the table and twined her tense fingers soothingly in his, and then she quite happily surrendered to being overpowered by him instead.
On the drive back, he stopped the car, drew her confidently into his arms and kissed her. About ten seconds into that wildly exciting experience, he started teaching her how to kiss, laughing when she got embarrassed, laughing even harder when she tried to excuse her inexpert technique by pleading cultural differences. But surprisingly he didn’t attempt to do anything more than kiss her. He was so different away from his friends. Romantic, tender, unexpectedly serious.
‘Do you know I still haven’t asked you what you’re studying at college?’ Alessio remarked carelessly at one point.
‘History and English. I want to be an infant teacher,’ she said shyly, and if he hadn’t kissed her again she might have told him that she was already worrying that in a year’s time she mightn’t get good enough grades to make it onto the particular teacher-training course which her aunt had advised her to set her sights on.
‘You wouldn’t believe how relieved I am to hear that you’re studying for your degree,’ Alessio confided lazily. ‘I was afraid you might still be at school.’
And she realised then that there had been a misunderstanding. She attended a sixth-form college for sixteen-to eighteen-year-olds, not a college of further education which would equip her with a degree. ‘Would it have made a difference…if I had been?’ she prompted uneasily.
‘Of course it would have made a difference.’ Alessio frowned down at her in surprise. ‘I don’t date schoolgirls. It may be only a matter of a couple of years but there’s a huge gap in experience and maturity. You can’t have an equal relationship on those terms. It would make me feel as if I had too much of an advantage and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.’
And Daisy felt even less comfortable listening to him. She realised that Alessio would never have asked her out had he known what age she was. And that if she told him he had been given the wrong information he wouldn’t want to see her again. So how could she admit to being only seventeen?
Choosing not to tell him the truth didn’t feel like lying that night. It felt like a harmless pretence. She had not thought through what she was doing in allowing Alessio to believe that she was older than she was. It did not once cross her dizzy brain that there would come a time of reckoning and exposure… and that Alessio would be understandably outraged by her deception. By the end of that evening, she was walking on air and fathoms deep in love…
Daisy emerged from that unsettling recollection to find herself still taking up space in the Raschids’ spacious hall. The sound of voices alerted her to the fact that she was about to have company again. She stood up just as the Raschids and Alessio appeared at the head of the staircase. Her uneasy eyes slid over him and lowered, but not before she’d seen his frown of surprise.
‘I assumed you would have returned to the agency,’ he admitted on the pavement outside.
‘My boss definitely wouldn’t have liked that. Have you any queries?’ Daisy prompted stiffly, ignoring the chauffeur, who had the door of the limousine open in readiness.
‘Yes… were you sitting in that hall the entire time I was looking round the house?’
‘No, I was swinging off the chandelier for light amusement! What do you think I was doing?’
‘If I had known you were waiting, I wouldn’t have spent so much time with the Raschids. Did you even get a cup of coffee?’
Daisy’s head was pounding. She was at the end of her rope. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you care?’ she derided. ‘One minute you’re calling me a—Alessio!’ she gasped incredulously as he dropped two determined han
ds to her tiny waist, swept her very efficiently off her feet and deposited her at supersonic speed in the limousine. ‘Why the heck did you do that?’ she demanded breathlessly as he swung in beside her.
‘If we’re about to have another argument, I prefer to stage it in privacy,’ Alessio imparted drily. In the time he had been away from her, he had reinstated the kind of steely control that mocked her own turbulent confusion.
‘Look, I don’t want another argument. I only want to go home.’
‘I’ll take you there.’
Daisy froze. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Then I’ll drop you back at the agency. It’s on my route.’
‘You’re being all polite now,’ she muttered, and it infuriated her that she sounded childish.
‘We both overreacted earlier.’ Shrewd, dauntingly dispassionate eyes rested on her hot cheeks. ‘I’m prepared to admit that I threw the first stone. Calling you a greedy bitch for accepting a settlement on our divorce was inexcusable. You were entitled to that settlement. Unfortunately, after a very few minutes in your company, I regressed to being nineteen again. But I can’t see why it has to continue like that. Thirteen years is a very long time.’
So why all of a sudden did it feel like the fast blink of an eyelid to her? Yet she had only to look at Alessio to know how much time had passed. He no longer smouldered like a volatile volcano. Alessio now had the ability to turn freezingly cool and civil. She moistened her dry lips. ‘If you’re interested in the house, you won’t have to deal with me again. I was standing in for someone else today.’
‘And you’re not a great saleswoman around me.’
‘I don’t even know what kind of property you’re looking for.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
‘Not much point in asking now.’ Daisy sat on the edge of the seat in the corner furthest away from him.
An uncomfortable silence followed.
‘I wasn’t lying when I said that I still find you attractive,’ Alessio breathed grimly.
Daisy tensed, her head high, her neck aching with the stress of the position.
‘Nor was I trying to put you down,’ Alessio drawled with an audible edge of distaste. ‘But some lustful urges are better suppressed.’
A lustful urge? In her mind’s eye, she pictured a sleek wolf circling a dumb sheep. And with shrinking reluctance she recalled her own response to Alessio’s sexual taunting in the car earlier. Thinking about that response devastated her. For a few terrifying seconds Alessio had somehow made her want him again. And, worst of all, Alessio knew what he had achieved. He had resurrected an intense sexual awareness that was stronger than anything she had ever expected to feel again and she hated him for doing that—hated him for forcing her to accept that he could still have that power over her.
But then mightn’t her own wanton excitement have been an echo from the past? she reasoned frantically with herself. But yes, Alessio was right on one count—you never forgot your first love, most especially not when the relationship had ended in raw pain and disillusionment.
‘I think it’s wise that we don’t see each other again,’ Alessio said quietly. ‘I have to admit that I was curious but my curiosity is now satisfied.’
A painful tide of heat climbed slowly up Daisy’s slender throat. Dear heaven, he was actually warning her off! Concerned lest that confession of animal lust should have roused fresh expectations in her greedy, gold-digging little heart, he was smoothly striving to kill off any ambitious ideas she might be developing. So cold, so controlled, so unapologetically superior… Her teeth gritted. How could Alessio talk to her like this? Did he think he was irresistible? Did he fondly imagine that she was likely to chase after him and make a nuisance of herself?
‘I wasn’t even curious to begin with,’ she lied.
‘Naturally I was curious. The last time I saw you before today you were five months pregnant and still my wife.’
Her facial muscles locked hard. ‘You didn’t want a wife.’
‘No, I have to confess that I didn’t. I doubt if you will find many teenage boys who do want to get married,’ Alessio responded grimly. ‘I was no more prepared for that commitment than you were… but I did attempt to deal with the situation—’
‘Yes, you were a real hero, weren’t you?’ Daisy broke in with a curling lip. ‘You did the honourable thing. You married me! Your mamma wept and your papà overflowed with sympathy. Naturally no decent Italian girl would ever have got herself in such a condition!’
‘They were upset!’ Alessio growled.
‘Do you think I wasn’t upset? What do you think it was like for me, being treated like some brassy little slut who had set out to trap you?’ Daisy condemned painfully. ‘I wasn’t allowed out the door in case someone saw me! I used to have nightmares about giving birth and then being buried alive in the garden!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Alessio gritted fiercely.
‘You mean your mother didn’t share that little fantasy with you? She was hoping like hell that I would have the baby and then magically disappear, leaving the baby behind! She was always telling me that I was too young to cope with a child and how much she loved children…’ Daisy shuddered. ‘Talk about feeling threatened! Life with the Leopardis… it was like a Hammer horror movie!’
Scorching eyes landed on her in near-physical assault. ‘You are making me very angry.’
Daisy shrugged and compressed her generous mouth. ‘That’s how I remember you—angry. No such thing as forgiveness from a Leopardi.’
‘In the circumstances, I think I behaved reasonably well.’
Daisy treated him to a glance of naked contempt. ‘By making the immense sacrifice of marrying me? Don’t kid yourself, Alessio. You’d have done me a bigger favour had you dumped me and run the minute I told you I might be pregnant!’
‘What the hell do you have to be so bitter about?’ Alessio ground out, raking her with fiercely intent eyes. You walked out on me! And anyone listening to you would think it only happened last week!’
Daisy tried and failed to swallow. For an instant her confusion and dismay were openly etched on her fragile features and then she turned her head away and saw the familiar frontage of the estate agency with a sense of incredible relief. ‘Being civilised isn’t easy, is it?’ she conceded tightly.
‘I did love you,’ Alessio murmured, his intonation harsh.
As the passenger door beside her swung open, Daisy spun back to him, violet eyes bright with incredulous scorn. ‘Do you think I either want or need your lies now?’
‘Don’t let me keep you,’ Alessio drawled with heavy irony, shooting her a chilling look of antipathy.
The agency was closed. Of course it was. It was after one. Daisy kept on walking, tight and sick inside. This was the very worst day of her life, absolutely the very worst… seeing Alessio again, all those tearing, miserable memories fighting their way up to the surface of her mind and driving her crazy. Mere minutes away from him, she found that she couldn’t believe some of the things she had said to him. No wonder he had asked her why she was so hostile! Thirteen years on and still ranting as if the divorce had only become final yesterday!
Not that Alessio had reacted much better at first. But Alessio had got a grip on himself fast. Alessio had stayed in control. Scarcely a surprise, she allowed grudgingly. Alessio had prided himself on never losing control of his temper. For the entire three and a half months of their marriage he had therefore smouldered in a silence that was infinitely more accusing and threatening and debilitating than any mere loss of temper. He had held in all his emotions with rigid, terrifying discipline at a time when Daisy had been desperate for any shred of comfort, any hint of understanding, any crumb of forgiveness. And maybe that was why in the end she had grown to hate her memory of him…
He had reduced her to the level of a tearful, pathetic supplicant, utterly destroying her pride and self-esteem. She had never had a great deal of confidence, but by the time Alessio had finis
hed with her she had had none at all. And yet before their marriage, before everything had gone wrong, Alessio had done wonders for her confidence. He had built her up, told her off for undervaluing herself, frowned every time she cracked a joke at her own expense. He had kept on telling her how beautiful she was, how special, how happy she made him feel. Was it surprising that she had fallen so deeply in love with him? Or that when cruel reality had come in the door and plunged them into a shotgun marriage their whole relationship had fallen apart?
A fantastic boyfriend, a lousy husband. He had married her purely for the sake of the baby she’d been carrying. But the minute the wedding had taken place the baby had become a taboo subject. He had never mentioned her condition if he could avoid it. It had been as if he was trying to pretend she wasn’t pregnant. And then one night, when the curve of her stomach had become too pronounced for him to ignore, he had abruptly turned away from her, and for those final, wretched weeks he had moved into another bedroom. The ultimate rejection…he had severed even the tenuous bond of sex.
Within days, Bianca, his twin, had been smirking at her like the wicked witch. ‘Fat is a total turn-off for Alessio. Only four months along and already you look like a dumpy little barrel on short legs. He wouldn’t be seen dead with you in public. Now he doesn’t want to sleep with you either. Can you blame him?’
No blow had been too low for Bianca. Daisy shivered in remembrance. That spiteful tongue had been a constant thorn in her flesh. Brother and sister had been very close. She had often pictured Alessio confiding in Bianca and had cringed at the suspicion that nothing that happened in their marriage was private. She had imagined Alessio describing her as a dumpy little barrel and had wept anguished tears in her lonely bed. Strange that it had occurred to none of them that the sudden increase in her girth was not solely the result of comfort eating but a sign that she was carrying two babies and not one…
Janet’s house was only round the corner from her flat. Daisy headed for her aunt like a homing pigeon, praying that Tara was still at her friend’s house, wondering if some sixth sense this morning had prompted her to give in to her daughter’s pleas for a little more freedom.