‘Isn’t it?’ said Floriana, but her voice was flat as she shut the door and Angie turned round, her eyes narrowing with concern.
‘Floriana, is…is something wrong?’
There was a pause as the girl raked long olive fingers through her fringe, dislodging a diamond pin in the process but ignoring it as the precious clip clattered to the floor. And eventually, like someone who had finally thrown in the towel, she nodded. ‘I can’t marry Aldo,’ she breathed. ‘I just can’t do it!’
Realising that the girl was trembling, Angie walked over to her and put her arm round her shoulders, thinking how bony and birdlike they felt. ‘Listen—every bride gets nerves,’ she soothed, realising that she was echoing what Riccardo had told her. And you didn’t believe him, did you? ‘It’s perfectly natural.’
‘No!’ Distractedly, Floriana moved away. ‘It isn’t that, believe me. People keep telling me it’s nerves, but it’s not. I’ve allowed myself to get into a situation which should never have happened. I feel as if I’ve sleepwalked my way into a nightmare. Angie,
I can’t go through with it
!’
Angie stared at her uncomprehendingly. ‘But why are you telling
me
all this?’
Dark brown eyes were fixed on her unwaveringly. ‘Because you are an outsider.’
Angie flinched.
‘And you must be a sensible woman to have been employed by Riccardo for all these years. You will not tell me what you think I should hear. You will tell me what I must do.’
‘That’s too big a responsibility,’ Angie protested, shaking her head.
‘Please.’
‘What about your brothers?’ questioned Angie. ‘Can’t you confide your fears in them?’
‘In
them
? You have to be joking. They are so keen for this marriage that I suspect they would march me down the aisle!’ said Floriana bitterly. ‘They are nothing but tyrants!’
There was a long pause while Angie considered what to say. But Angie knew she couldn’t look into the frightened eyes of a woman panicking on almost the eve of her wedding, and pretend that everything would be all right in the morning.
‘And does Aldo—the
Duca
—does he know how you feel?’
‘I’ve tried speaking to him but he will not listen,’ whispered Floriana. ‘His mind is set on this wedding. He would never allow it to be cancelled. Every time I say something it is as if I have not spoken at all. For I am his trophy bride—his innocent virgin—or so he thinks.’
Angie’s eyes narrowed with comprehension as she realised what Floriana had just told and its possible implications for the future. Was purity an essential factor in this marriage? Remembering what Riccardo had said about his own desire to marry a virgin, she supposed it was.
‘Are you afraid to go through with the wedding because you think that your sexual experience will disappoint your husband—is that it, Floriana? Because I’m sure if you explained—’
‘No.’ Floriana’s stark word interrupted her. ‘That is not the reason why. The reason is much more simple that that, Angie—you see…’ She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘I simply do not love him—not the way a woman should love the man she is about to marry.’
For a moment Angie said nothing—because what
could
she say? And yet—did the words come as a great surprise to her? No, of course not. You would need to be blind not to have noticed the lack of chemistry between the engaged couple. Gently, she placed her hand on the girl’s arm. ‘Then you must have the courage to tell him that,’ she whispered. ‘You
must
.’
Leaving Floriana sitting on the bed, Angie somehow managed to find her way back to her own bedroom without having to return to the party. Stripping off the red gown, she washed off all her make-up before climbing into bed, bone-tired now, the comfort of the soft bed soothing her troubled senses as she lay there worrying about the outcome of Floriana’s revelation.
Should she tell Riccardo? As she lay there in the darkness Floriana’s disconcerting words came flooding back to her.
‘They are so keen for this marriage that I suspect they would march me down the aisle!’
Would he really go that far? Somehow she doubted it. But would Romano?
Her mind buzzed uncomfortably but the long and emotional day had worn her out and she must have dozed off, because when she awoke it was to the sensation of a warm, naked male getting into bed beside her and then a mouth edging luxuriously over her breast.
‘Riccardo?’ she murmured sleepily.
‘Why, were you expecting someone else?’
‘I…
oh
!’
‘Oh, what,
piccola
?’
‘I must…’ Struggling against the blissful sensation of his tongue trailing a warm, sensual path over her bare skin, Angie’s hands moved up to his shoulders. ‘Riccardo—I must talk to you.’
‘Not now.’
‘But—’
‘I said, not now,’ he growled. ‘I have been wanting to do this all night.’
She told herself that there was no point in bringing up a contentious subject when it was past midnight and nothing could possibly be done. That she would tell him in the morning—in the cold clear light of day. But wasn’t some of her reasoning bound up in the fact that he was now kissing her, and she couldn’t prevent herself from sinking into that kiss? So that he became the central focus of her world and in that moment nothing outside it existed?
Dreamily, Angie tangled her fingers in his hair and kissed him back as he began to make slow, sweet love to her—the feel of his body deep inside hers washing away everything except pleasure itself. Afterwards their lips stayed touching—locked in a lazy kind of kiss—and with a jolt Riccardo remembered back to earlier, when they were dancing. Thinking just how much he wanted to kiss her.
Kiss
her? In the darkness, his eyes snapped open. This was getting dangerous. Crazy.
Beside him, Angie stirred, murmuring her way into sleep, but Riccardo’s eyes stayed open—he knew that he must leave the warm comfort of her bed before he was tempted into staying all night. And it wasn’t just the thought of the servants’ gossip, but his own reluctance to wake up beside her which made him wait until he was certain she was asleep. Then he pushed aside the covers and dressed in the inhospitable darkness.
It was icy-cold as he made his way to his own room, where he slept fitfully, waking to the sound of loud banging, which he thought was all part of the strange, Angie-fuelled dream he’d been having—and it took him a moment to realise that someone was at
his
door and it was morning.
‘What the hell is going on?’
he raged.
Romano appeared in the doorway, still buttoning up his jeans, his face a study in anger as he shot out a few terse Italian sentences at his brother, and minutes later Riccardo was dressed and storming through the castle towards Angie’s room.
She was clearly fresh out of the shower—wrapped in a towel with her hair all wet—and sitting by the window reading a book with that innocent look which belied her bedroom antics. He felt the heavy twist of lust and anger.
‘Riccardo!’ she exclaimed when she saw the look of dark fury on his features. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘You tell me,’ he snapped. ‘Exactly what do you know about my sister’s disappearance?’
‘Her
disappearance
?’ The book slid from her fingers and Angie stood up, her heart pounding so loudly she felt as if it would deafen her. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘That,’ Riccardo said grimly, ‘is what I intend to find out. My brother tells me that you and Floriana were seen leaving the party last night. What the hell did she say to you?’
Angie swallowed. She
should
have told him last night. She should have done. ‘That she couldn’t bear to go through with the wedding. And that…that she didn’t love Aldo.’
‘So she confided in you?’
‘Yes, I suppose she did.’
‘Why you—a stranger?’
She stared at him. How much of the truth could he take? she wondered. ‘Maybe because she felt that nobody else would listen,’ she whispered.
His face remained cold and obdurate. ‘So what did you say?’
The question whipped out like the accusation it was clearly intended to be and Angie realised that Riccardo was not interested in home-truths. It was facts he wanted and facts he could deal with, not emotions. Ignoring the look of disdain which iced from his eyes, she forced herself to concentrate, telling herself that she would not let him intimidate her.
‘I told her that it was better she speak to Aldo. To sort it all out with him. Has she done that?’
‘Has she done that?’ He gave a bitter kind of laugh. ‘No, Angie, she has not done that. What she has done is to have left a note which currently has my mother in hysterics and the castle in chaos. And she’s taken her damned passport and is on her way to England with that dumb bridesmaid of hers unless Romano and I can stop them!’
Angie’s fingers flew to her lips. ‘Oh, my God!’
‘Didn’t you realise that my sister has a history of this kind of behaviour? That there was a man in her past—some
Englishman
she thought she was in love with when she was at school. Who has now reappeared on the scene and made my crazy sister believe that she still loves him?’
‘N-no. I…of course I didn’t.’ Angie met the fury in his black eyes. ‘But that shouldn’t make any difference, Riccardo. It’s still
her
life. She’s old enough to make her own mistakes—if that’s what it is—and it isn’t necessarily a mistake just because
you
don’t happen to agree with it! You can’t force her to behave how you want her to behave!’
‘Didn’t you think—?’ He took a step forward and saw her bite her lip, but he was so angry that he couldn’t think straight. ‘Didn’t you think that it might have been an idea to speak to me about it?’
‘I
was
going to tell you—’
‘But just not last night, hmm?’
‘It was late. You were tired.’
‘And you,
cara
, just couldn’t wait to get me to…’
He said something in Italian which Angie didn’t understand, but she didn’t need to be a linguist to comprehend its crude meaning.
‘All you were thinking about was your own damned pleasure!’ he finished witheringly, and saw her flinch.
‘Actually, I
was
going to tell you—only you slipped from my bed in the night, like a thief!’ she retorted. ‘But now when I stop to think about it—what good could you have done, Riccardo? Because when a girl like Floriana is in some kind of turmoil, why try to involve someone like you—who has the emotional capacity of a gnat?’
His fists clenched. ‘How dare you speak to me in this manner?’ he hissed.
‘And don’t you dare pull rank on me at a time like this!’ she stormed back. ‘Either Floriana is old enough to be married, or she isn’t. And if she is—then she has to learn to stand on her own two feet and not take advice from her two brothers who are treating her like some kind of puppet simply because they like to control the world and the people in it!’
Riccardo’s nostrils flared in aristocratic disdain. ‘That is
enough
,’ he grated. ‘You know nothing of these matters, Angie—you are a member of my staff who is here as my guest.’
‘Not any more, I’m not. I resign as of now!’
His black eyes were cold. ‘You’d better get your stuff packed and I’ll have someone drive you to the airport. The place is in chaos and there’s no point in you staying.’
Angie swallowed down the great lump which had lodged itself in her throat. ‘I’ll have my desk cleared by the time you get back to London.’
At this, he stilled—and pushed his face a little closer to hers, noting with some masochistic kind of satisfaction that her eyes automatically darkened. ‘Spare me the melodrama,
cara
. You will clear your desk when I tell you to,’ he bit out.
‘But you said…’ Her breathing coming in short, painful puffs of air, she stared at him. ‘You said I could leave straight away with six months pay if I came out to Tuscany with you,’ she whispered.
‘Did I? Well, in view of your behaviour—I’ve changed my mind.’ He gave a grim kind of smile. ‘Such a verbal agreement between two lovers simply boils down to your word against mine. Next time I’d get something down in writing, if I were you.’
A
LL
the way during her miserable flight home to London, Angie told herself that she didn’t care. That Riccardo wouldn’t dare blackmail her into staying under what would now be intolerable working conditions. That he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
But it didn’t work out like that.
She spoke to a lawyer—a friend-of-a-friend told her that her boss
was
completely within his rights. For one brief second Angie contemplated opening her mouth to ask whether the fact that they’d been lovers might have any bearing on the case, then quickly shut it again. Because that made her sound at best unprofessional, and at worst…Well, it made her sound completely lacking in morals. As if she were one of those awful women in the workplace who tried to further their career by less than scrupulous means.
But she was worried about Floriana, too—and now wondering whether she’d done the wrong thing. If she’d told Riccardo late that night, then could her disappearance have been prevented?
She was shivering as she caught the Tube into work, full of a cold which seemed to have hit her the moment she’d landed back in England. And full of dread too, because yesterday she had received a matter-of-fact email from Riccardo telling her that he was back from Italy and would be returning to the office this morning, prior to flying out to New York at the end of the week.
Angie bit her lip. With a bit of luck, he might be abroad most of the time she was working out her notice—and with a bit more luck, she might find a decent job to go to in the interim. She’d actually managed to arrange a couple of interviews for the following week.
She was banking on him strolling in at around ten, but fate was clearly conspiring against her because he entered the building at exactly the same time as her and, bizarrely, they met in the middle of the vast marble foyer, staring at one another like two strangers.
‘Hello, Angie,’ he said, in a cool kind of voice.
The last time she’d seen him he had been yelling at her—so was the fact that this was a very public meeting place the reason why at least he
sounded
civil? She matched his tone with a cool, non-committal one of her own. ‘Good—good morning.’
She was forced to share the lift with him and the presence of two women from the accounts department thankfully ruled out any attempt at conversation. But the silence pressed down on her like a lead weight and Angie could feel tiny beads of sweat springing from her forehead as she tried to look somewhere—anywhere—other than at that hard and handsome face, which still had the power to make her heart melt.
Riccardo let his eyes drift over her. She was pale, he thought, and she looked as if she’d lost weight—was that possible in a matter of days? His mouth hardened. So she’d lost weight—why should he care? Hadn’t her stubbornness helped complicate an already complicated family situation?
The lift doors slid open and he stood back to let her pass—aware of the faint, light scent she wore and the gleam of her hair as she moved. He followed her into the office, unable to keep his eyes from the sexy sway of her bottom—even though he had told himself countless times during the last few days that the affair was over, and that he would arrive back in London and wonder what the hell he’d ever seen in her.
So what had gone wrong?
Why did he find himself wanting to pull her into his arms again and seek comfort and passion in those soft, seeking lips of hers? He wasn’t quite sure—and, for a man to whom uncertainty was a stranger, Riccardo felt oddly unnerved by the sensation.
After she’d hung her coat up and blown her nose for what seemed like the hundredth time, Angie looked at him. ‘How’s Floriana?’
There was a pause as he looked at her, seeing the concern in her eyes and the faint tremble of her lips.
‘I should be angry with you,’ he said slowly. ‘For letting precious time elapse after she left the castle.’
Angie seized on the one positive word in his statement. ‘
Should
be?’ she questioned.
He gave a ragged sigh. ‘But I thought about what you’d said—about Floriana needing to make her own mistakes—and realised that Romano and I might have taken our roles as surrogate father just a little too far.’
‘You’ve found her?’ she demanded.
‘Yes. She’s in England.’ His mouth quirked in an odd kind of smile. ‘She is getting married after all.’
‘
Married?
But…but…how?’ Angie frowned at him in confusion. ‘She told me she didn’t love Aldo—and I believed her.’
‘It isn’t Aldo.’
‘What?’
‘She is planning on marrying the Englishman—Max—the one she was involved with all those years ago. It seemed that back then he did what he thought was the decent thing by ending it, having decided they were both too young. But it seemed that the very possibility of her marrying another man was enough to bring him to his knees and back into her life—and for Floriana to realise what it was she really wanted.’
Angie stared at him cautiously. ‘And how have your family taken it?’
Riccardo shrugged. ‘The reaction, as you can imagine—has been mixed.’
All he knew was that his sister was ecstatic, his brother and Aldo were livid and his mother was—oddly—quietly contented. She had pointedly told him and Romano that love was the
only
reason why a couple should marry! Something which had startled Riccardo out of his complacency zone. And here he had been—all these years—labouring under the illusion that, just because his own father had been two decades older, his parents had simply worked hard at a marriage of convenience. It seemed that he had been very wrong indeed.
‘I’m very pleased that it’s all worked out so well for her,’ said Angie.
‘Are you?’
‘Yes. No one should enter a marriage with that degree of dread,’ she said quietly, and then started coughing.
Black eyes narrowed as they scanned her face and he noticed that her nose was red, in contrast to the almost translucent paleness of her skin. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m all right. I’ve just got a…a…ah-ah-
shoo
!’
He frowned. ‘You shouldn’t be at work.’
‘It’s only a cold.’
‘You shouldn’t be at work,’ he repeated obdurately.
Her eyes met his in a mocking challenge. ‘I thought that absenting myself from your office wasn’t an option, Riccardo. I thought I was to work out every second of my notice or risk legal action. I thought—’
‘Angie,’ he cut into her words roughly. ‘I said those things in anger and when I had time to think about them, I realised I shouldn’t have done. In fact, I realised a lot of things, the main one being that I don’t want you to leave.’
Wasn’t it ironic how words you once would have taken to your heart and cherished could no longer have the power to thrill you when they were spoken too late? Life, thought Angie bitterly, was all a question of timing.
‘I was unreasonable,’ he continued, when still she didn’t speak.
From somewhere Angie mustered up a smile. ‘So no change there.’
‘Can we forget it ever happened?’
She looked at him. For a highly intelligent man he could be so dense. Or maybe it was just that innate arrogance of his, which he sensed would always carry him through. He just didn’t realise, did he? ‘We can try,’ she said gamely.
Riccardo slanted her a slow smile. ‘So you’ll stay, after all?’
There was a pause. Once she would have been unable to resist the power of that look. ‘Riccardo, I can’t do that.’
Suddenly, the smile left him. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I can’t; not now. Not now we’ve been lovers—it can never get itself back onto the right kind of boss-secretary footing which we used to enjoy. And you’ll find another secretary.’
He curled the fingers of his hand into a tight ball. ‘I don’t want another secretary.’
‘But you will—and it will all be fine. You just don’t like change, that’s all.’And oddly enough, she felt strong now—despite the slight woolliness in her knees which seemed to go hand in hand with the brass band which was currently playing a muffled symphony inside her head. ‘The row we had was irrelevant, I was planning to leave before we had it and I’d be planning to leave no matter what. I have to—surely you can see that?’
‘But why?’ he demanded.
Tell him, Angie urged herself. Explain the feelings and some of the emotions behind your actions and you won’t be able to see him for dust. ‘Because sooner or later our…
affair
will finish—and it would be intolerable to go on working together after that.’
Riccardo scowled, unused to having this kind of argument put to him, when he was the one usually calling the shots. ‘It isn’t an affair,’ he objected stubbornly. ‘Since neither of us are married.’
But she noticed he hadn’t denied that it would finish. For how could he? ‘Then how would you define it?’
He shrugged. ‘A relationship?’
She heard the doubt in his voice and she might have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. ‘A working relationship, yes—but nothing more than that. Why, we’ve never even been out on a date together!’
‘Are you saying that’s what you want?’ he demanded. ‘To start dating?’
She shook her head in frustration. ‘Not at all,’ she answered.
‘No? Can’t think of anything else you might want?’ he questioned silkily as he pulled her to her feet and into his arms, his lips moving over hers with a hunger he made no attempt to disguise. Through the mists which now seemed to be gathering force inside her head, Angie felt the answering tug of desire, but she pulled away from him while she still had the strength.
‘You’ll catch my cold,’ she objected and then, inexplicably, her teeth started chattering.
Frowning, he put the back of his hand over her forehead. ‘You’re burning up! That is no cold,’ he ground out. ‘That feels more like fever.’ Exclaiming softly in Italian, he sat her back down on the sofa and quickly clicked out a number on his phone before beginning to speak in rapid Italian.
‘Sì, sì—subito.’
And then he picked up Angie’s coat and bag. ‘Come on,
piccola
,’ he said softly. ‘We’re going.’
Blankly, she stared up at him. ‘Where?’
‘I’m taking you home. You need to be in bed.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Please don’t argue with me, Angie. Not this time.’
She allowed him to take her downstairs, vaguely aware of curious faces turned in their direction once they reached the reception area. And dimly, once she’d been clipped into the seat belt in the back of the limousine, it occurred to her that Marco was taking a very odd route to Stanhope.
And it wasn’t until they had pulled up outside a very impressive old building and a doorman had sprung into action—doffing his cap at Riccardo and pressing the lift button—that Angie realised that he wasn’t taking her home at all. At least, not to
her
home.
‘What are you doing?’ she sniffed weakly as he held onto her elbow and the lift zoomed with the speed of a jet towards its lofty destination. ‘I thought you were taking me home.’
‘You think I’d leave you there, in that tiny, miserable little place? All alone,’ he added. ‘With nobody to look after you?’
‘I don’t need anybody to look after me,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Yes, you do.’
She gave up objecting then because Riccardo carried her—
carried her!
—into what was clearly the master bedroom and her head felt all whoozy as he put her down on a huge bed.
Then he undressed her with a detached, almost ruthless efficiency—leaving her wearing just her bra and panties and pulling a sheet over her while he went to phone the doctor.
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ protested Angie, even though she was shivering quite badly now.
The doctor arrived shortly afterwards and put a horrible cold stethoscope against her chest while he took her temperature. ‘Her temperature is sky-high,’ he announced.
She tried to grab the duvet, but Riccardo prised it from her fingers.
‘You have a fever,’ he reprimanded sternly.
‘You must make sure that your girlfriend drinks plenty,’ said the doctor. ‘And takes regular analgesia. It’s a nasty dose of flu which is doing the rounds, but she should be better in a few days.’
Angie wanted to protest that she wasn’t his girlfriend, but now someone had started a steam train chugging inside her head. Weakly, she lifted her head from the pillow. ‘I can’t stay here for ah-ah-
shoo
…’
‘Rest,’ said the doctor severely.
‘Oh, I’ll make sure she rests,’ said Riccardo grimly.
And in truth, it was bliss—almost worth being ill for. Because Angie had never been cosseted like this before. Even when she was younger, it was Sally, her younger sister, who was always fussed over. Sally who had undisputedly been Daddy’s girl and so devastated by his death that she had demanded the focus of attention from their grieving mother. And Angie who had always helped provide comfort for both of them. Reliable Angie who just got on with things and never complained.
For two whole nights and two long days, she drifted in and out of a sweat-filled sleep. Once—very blurrily—to find Riccardo with his sleeves rolled up, sponging down her naked body with tepid water. Feeble hands fluttered up in a half-hearted attempt to cover her modesty, but he removed them from her burning breasts with a grim-looking expression on his face.
He wondered what she would say if she realised that last night she had deliriously been clinging to him and begging him not to leave her. And it had taken every bit of will power he possessed to cover her up with the thin cotton sheet instead of climbing in and taking her shivering body into his arms, as she had been demanding.
But on the third day, Angie awoke to the smell of coffee and the sensation of someone having removed the cotton wool which had been padded inside her head. Blinking furiously, she looked around her in disbelief—her rapidly clearly mind taking in the colossal proportions of the bedroom she was in with something approaching disbelief.
She was in Riccardo’s bedroom! Lying in his bed. Alone.
She looked around. All the furniture was very old and gleamed like silk and on the walls hung exquisite Tuscan landscapes. A vase of pure white roses drifted out a subtle scent and giant windows overlooked the verdant sweep of Green Park. Against her skin, she could feel the buttery caress of some soft material and, lifting up the sheet, she saw that she was wearing some sleek sort of nightgown—its eau-de-nil silk falling demurely to her ankles. Where had
that
come from?