He wasn’t smiling now. ‘Perhaps that’s what I am doing.’
‘No, you aren’t.’ Izzy, who’d had no idea he was this serious, briefly closed her eyes. Gina was all but forgotten by this time. She was no longer making up excuses; this was the unvarnished, unpalatable truth and not even Sam could argue with it. ‘I’ve had my family and it’s too late to start again now. I can never give you what you want, Sam. That’s all there is to it. I’m just too
old
. . .’
‘We don’t have to have children,’ he said, but the words didn’t sound entirely convincing. Izzy, her eyes already watering with the cold, swallowed hard in an effort to dispel the lump in her throat. It was all so terribly sad; here she was, receiving what virtually amounted to a proposal of marriage from the nicest man she had ever known, and there was absolutely no way in the world she could allow him to talk her into saying yes.
‘But you’d always want them,’ she said miserably. ‘And sooner or later you’d resent me for not being able to give you what you wanted. It’s no good, Sam; I can’t make myself younger and I couldn’t bear to be a stop-gap, a temporary diversion until the right woman comes along. You have your life to lead and I have mine, and the next thing I have to do is catch my flight to Rome, before frostbite well and truly sets in. So, if we could just get back to the car . . .’
The scheduled Alitalia flight from Heathrow wasn’t as busy in November as it would have been in season. Izzy, thankful to find she had a double seat to herself and praying she wouldn’t be recognised, shielded her eyes with sunglasses and wept quietly all the way to Rome. She’d done the right thing . . . the
sensible
thing . . . and it hurt like hell. All she could do now was remind herself that any kind of future with Sam would, in the long run, only result in more pain than even this.
Despite making a terrific effort to pull herself together, Rome’s magnificence and beauty were wasted on her today. Even the maniacal manoeuvres executed by her excitable taxi driver as he zig-zagged and hooted his way across the city failed to dispel her gloom. Izzy, whose eyes were still swollen behind her dark glasses, gazed dismally out at the sunny streets, until the taxi eventually pulled up outside the Hotel Aldrovandi Palace where she would be staying for the next few days.
But her schedule was tight, there was work to be done and she had little time to appreciate the style and splendour of the five-star hotel. A note at reception from the concert organisers informed her that at four o’clock someone would be arriving to take her to the hall for sound checks and rehearsals. As soon as she reached her room, which overlooked the Borghese Gardens in all their glory, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower.
When she emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, Tash was waiting for her.
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Izzy flatly. ‘How the hell did you get into my room?’
The seductive smile was so familiar, her departure from his life might never have existed.
‘Sweetheart, in Italy I’m a national hero,’ he drawled. These pretty little chambermaids will do
anything
for me.’
‘I knew an Italian man once,’ she retaliated in withering tones, making quite sure the towel wrapped around her body was firmly secured. ‘He had no taste either.’
He looked reproachful. ‘Izzy. No bitterness, please! I’ve come here to make the peace. I’ve
missed
you.’
She shivered. His words were uncannily similar to Sam’s, when he had turned up on her doorstep just a week earlier. And now here was Tash, as dark and dangerous as a panther in his black sweatshirt and jeans, giving her that look of his and so confident of his own irresistibility that it didn’t even seem to have occurred to him that she might say no.
‘No,’ said Izzy, sparing a glance at her watch. ‘And if you’ll excuse me, I’m in a hurry.’
But all he did was make himself comfortable in one of the plush velvet chairs. ‘Of course you are, angel. I’m here to take you to the hall myself. We have a run-through rehearsal at four-fifteen, after all.’
There was something going on. Warily, Izzy said, ‘We?’
‘Did they forget to tell you?’ He raised his dark eyebrows in mock amazement. ‘My manager organised it a couple of days ago. I’m the surprise guest. Halfway through the set, you launch into “Never, Never” and after the first verse I appear on stage to tumultuous applause and screams of ecstatic delight from several thousand nubile Italian virgins. We sing, we hug, we kiss . . . we hit the front page of the papers . . . sweetheart, that’s show business!’
‘No,’ repeated Izzy, realizing that he had orchestrated the entire thing. ‘I won’t do it. I don’t want you there.’
‘Ah, but the organisers do. And if you refuse now, you’ll have two massive lawsuits to contend with.’ Tash shrugged, then smiled again. ‘Copies of the amended contract were sent to your agent forty-eight hours ago. With his customary inefficiency, no doubt, he forgot to read them. You should get yourself a smart manager, Izzy, if you want to get ahead in this world. If you wanted to, you could even share mine.’
He was loathsome, but he was also right. Izzy, recognising a fait accompli when she heard one, knew that she had no choice but to go along with the revolting, publicity-courting charade. Out of sheer desperation, and to make him realise just how much she despised him, she said quietly, ‘How’s Mirabelle?’
Tash, however, didn’t even flinch.
‘Funny you should say that,’ he replied in cheerful tones. ‘When I saw her yesterday I mentioned the fact that I was flying over here to do a gig with you.’ He paused, then added triumphantly, ‘She said, “Izzy who?” ’
Chapter 53
Sam, unable to quite believe that a day which had begun so dreadfully could get this much worse, was unable to speak. At almost exactly this time last week the room in which he was now trapped had contained an expensive assortment of exercise machines and he had been telling Izzy in no uncertain terms to stop wasting money and get her life into some kind of order.
Today, no exercise equipment remained. Banished to a small box-room on the top floor of the house, it had been replaced by conventional bedroom furniture and an incumbent invalid. Izzy, having taken his advice and refused point-blank even to consider the possibility that they might have a future together, had buggered off to Rome instead in order to further her career.
He, meanwhile, now found himself having to face rather more than just the music.
His sensation of claustrophobia intensified as Gina clutched his hand with thin fingers, forcing him to return his attention to her.
‘. . . and I realise that maybe I’m not being fair to you,’ she continued rapidly, ‘but I’m just not brave enough to go through this by myself. I’m not scared of dying . . . but I
am
scared of dying alone. And that’s why I had to tell you how I feel about you. I love you, Sam. And I need to know how you feel about me, because I don’t think I’m brave enough to get through it on my own. Good friends aren’t enough . . . I need someone who loves me . . . to
be
with me.’ She faltered, her eyes brimming with tears, her grip on his hand tightening with the effort of maintaining control. ‘Otherwise it would be . . . unbearable . . . I don’t honestly know if I could go on . . .’
She was evidently so distraught she hadn’t even recognised that what she was inflicting upon him was emotional blackmail. Much as Izzy had done yesterday, Sam appreciated that he was being given absolutely no choice in the matter. It was a fait accompli from which there was no escape, an offer he simply couldn’t refuse. As far as Gina was concerned, she was being punished for a crime she hadn’t committed and now, without even realizing it, she was punishing him in return. Trapped, he thought bleakly, wasn’t the word for it.
But Gina’s desperation was genuine enough. She needed him, and he couldn’t let her down.
‘I’m here,’ he said, taking her thin, shuddering body into his arms and feeling her hot tears of relief soak through his shirt front. ‘You’re not alone. You’ve got me. You’ll always have me . . .’
‘Oh, Sam,’ wept Gina, clinging to him. ‘I love you. I really do.’
‘Sshh,’ he murmured, rocking her like a baby and forcing himself not to think of Izzy. ‘You mustn’t cry. I love you too.’
Katerina, busy putting the finishing touches to an essay, looked up and grinned as Sam entered the room.
‘I know I’m in love with my word processor,’ she said, leaning back in her chair and offering him a Liquorice Allsort, ‘but you really don’t need to knock before coming in. Our relationship is purely platonic.’
‘Don’t talk to me about relationships.’With a shudder, Sam sent up a prayer of thanks that at least Gina didn’t expect him to perform in that respect. He could go along with the charade just so far, but anything even remotely sexual would be out of the question.
Intrigued, Katerina said, ‘Problems with Vivienne?’
‘Worse.’ For a moment he was tempted to tell her about Izzy and himself, but he knew he couldn’t do that. She would have to know, however, about the farcical situation with Gina.
‘Oh my God,’ said Katerina finally, when he’d finished. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. However are you going to wriggle out of this one?’
He shrugged. ‘No way out.’
She gazed at him, genuinely appalled. Sorry as she felt for Gina, she felt sorrier still for Sam. ‘She’s got you by the short and curlies.’
‘Not quite that.’ He winced at the unfortunate metaphor. ‘But it’s bad enough.’
‘Maybe next week’s brain scan will be OK,’ suggested Katerina, not very hopefully. ‘If she isn’t going to die, you’re off the hook.’
The other alternative - that Gina’s death would be mercifully swift - hung unspoken in the air between them, too callous to even voice aloud.
‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’ Sam glanced at his watch. ‘Hell, I’d better go. I was supposed to be at the club an hour ago.’
Jumping to her feet, Katerina gave him a big hug. ‘Poor old you, what a shitty thing to have happen. And just when you’d got yourself free of Vivienne, too.’ Drawing away, starting to laugh as she realised that yellow fluff from her mohair sweater had moulted all over his dark blue jacket, she said, ‘Look, even my jumper’s hopelessly attracted to you! Has it ever occurred to you, Sam, that maybe you’re just too irresistible for your own good?’
It was a shame, thought Sam wryly, that Izzy should be the only one who didn’t share her views.
‘Thanks,’ he deadpanned, brushing stubborn crocus-yellow mohair from his lapels. ‘That’s comforting to know. At least I’m . . . irresistible.’
‘Oh, except to me,’ Katerina assured him earnestly. ‘I’m totally exempt. I don’t quite know why,’ she added, breaking into a grin, ‘but for some weird reason I see you as more of a father figure than a man!’
Struck by this further irony, Sam allowed himself a crooked smile. ‘Thanks . . .’
The atmosphere inside the concert hall was amazing. Izzy, pausing for breath and gazing out in wonder at the bobbing, seething mass of the audience as seven thousand Italians applauded wildly and screamed for more, realised that here was the antidote she so desperately needed. It was a magical evening and the crowd loved her. It was all she’d ever worked for, all that really mattered. For while eventually . . . hopefully . . . she would be able to forget Sam, the exhilaration of singing here would remain indelibly imprinted on her memory. She was, at long last, a real success and nobody could take that away from her.
The heat, too, was stifling. Shaking damp tendrils of hair away from her face and undoing another button of the peacock-blue-and-gold shirt which clung to her perspiration-drenched body, she turned and nodded to the band behind her. Dry ice was already billowing from the back of the stage, signalling Tash’s impending entrance. In response to her nod, the drummer and sax player moved into the now-famous opening bars of ‘Never, Never’. The audience, recognizing the song at once, sent up a roar of approval that almost shook the hundred-year-old building to its foundations.
Izzy, acknowledging their appreciation with a wave, took a small step backwards and smiled. The clouds of dry ice were close behind her now, sliding noiselessly towards the front of the stage. Above and all around her, spots of lilac-and-blue light darted like moonbeams, illuminating her solitary, unmoving figure. The pure, clear notes of the tenor sax soared and a shiver of pleasure snaked down her spine. Taking a deep, measured breath, Izzy lifted her face to the lights, opened her mouth and began to sing.