Книга - Angry Desire

Angry Desire
CHARLOTTE LAMB


Sins Wedding nerves… This was supposed to be the happiest day of Gabriella's life - her wedding day. But last night the fear had finally begun to tear her apart and she knew she couldn't go through with the ceremony.She could walk out, vanish. But Stephen would search for her until he found her. And then she would have to face the truth: that she was frightened to make love with her husband-to-be! Love can conquer the deadliest of Sins.









Table of Contents


Cover Page (#u54fdf268-e1f2-5c7f-9e30-9f9b0dbae3cc)

Excerpt (#u2794850d-a39f-5dd3-9f2f-339549d8ed07)

Dear Reader (#u5c95f02f-2e60-52d0-b250-dd9619eb1bf4)

Title Page (#u37920842-1b56-5ff8-93b3-e4b15eae2215)

Chapter One (#u2ee28392-afad-5038-90c3-7f6397fde3b2)

Chapter Two (#uab61ae9c-66f2-55d5-a085-f18b096fae22)

Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




“Tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”


His voice was triumphant, rough with desire.



She trembled, couldn’t answer, feeling the aching need inside her.



Stephen’s gray eyes probed her face, the parted, trembling curve of her pink mouth, still swollen from his kisses, the wide, darkened blue eyes. Slowly he said, “So it isn’t being touched that scares you. You aren’t scared now, are you? What is it, Gabriella?”


Dear Reader,



The Seven Deadly Sins have been defined as Anger, Covetousness, Envy, Greed, Lust, Pride and Sloth.



In this book I deal with the sin of Anger. It is a normal human reaction to get angry when people hurt or offend us, and it helps to get over it if you tell someone they’ve upset you. It clears the air to tell people how you feel; it makes us understand each other better.



But what happens when anger is hidden or repressed because we are taught to feel guilty about expressing our rage? Or told that it was all our own fault and we deserved what happened? People can spend years with a secret burning rage inside them, torn between guilt and resentment. Sooner or later, that rage will either twist a personality and wreck a life, or it will break out in violence.



Charlotte Lamb

This is the sixth story in Charlotte Lamb’s gripping seven-part series, SINS. Watch out next month for the final part—HOT BLOOD (#1852), the sin of Sloth.

SINS

1816—SECRET OBSESSION

1822—DEADLY RIVALS

1828—HAUNTED DREAMS

1834—WILD HUNGER

1840—DARK FEVER




Angry Desire

Charlotte Lamb









www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_8399894e-3f66-5ff9-b285-dbe8d08e5130)


SHE began to run on the morning of her wedding-day—a cool May morning—before the sun was up.

She had been awake all night, moving restlessly around her Islington flat from room to room, unable to sleep. Each time she caught sight of herself in a mirror she saw the panic in her eyes, their blue so dark that it was almost black. She looked strange, unfamiliar, her face white against the fall of her long, straight black hair, her lips bloodless, quivering.

In a corner of her bedroom on a padded hanger hung the long white dress inside a transparent plastic bag.

‘It looks like a butterfly in a cocoon,’ Lara had said when she’d come round to see Gabriella two days ago. Her cousin had given her a thoughtful glance. ‘Is that how you feel, Gabi? As if you’re waiting to break out into a new life? I remember I did. I suppose it’s the biggest change in a woman’s life, getting married. Life is never the same again.’ Then she’d looked more sharply at Gabriella and frowned. ‘Are you OK? You don’t look like a joyful bride somehow—getting cold feet? We all do, you know.’

‘I don’t believe you did!’ Gabriella had been startled; she would never have expected Lara to have any nerves about anything; her cousin was a capable, confident, assertive woman, just as her mother had been. Nobody ever believed that she and Lara were first cousins. They couldn’t have been less alike.

Lara had nodded, looking amused. ‘Don’t sound so surprised. I’m human too, you know! I remember I was so nervous that I couldn’t eat for days beforehand. When I came out of it I was on my honeymoon and starving. I couldn’t stop eating; Bob began to think he’d married a food-junkie.’

Gabriella had laughed, but she didn’t laugh now as she stared at her wedding-dress. She had bought it in a bridal shop in London; it had caught her eye at once because it was so romantic—white satin and lace, Victorian-style, low at the neck, with a tight waist and a full crinoline-like skirt which had palest pink satin rosebuds scattered here and there.

It had needed some alterations—a tuck here and there—and she had had two fittings before it fitted perfectly, yet now she couldn’t remember what she looked like in the dress. She couldn’t think of anything but the fear which had begun to tear at her last night, like a wild animal shut inside her breast.

He had noticed, of course; he noticed everything, his narrowed grey eyes searching her face remorselessly, and she hadn’t been able to hide her fear or her sick recoil. But all he had said was, ‘Get a good night’s sleep, Gabriella. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Just one more day, though, and then we’ll have several weeks of sunshine and peace, just the two of us alone.’

He had bent to kiss her again and she had stiffened involuntarily, hearing the echo of his words like a deadly threat. ‘Just the two of us alone…alone…alone…’

At least his kiss that time had been as light as the touch of a moth’s wing and soon over. She hadn’t met his eyes, or looked at the hard, insistent angles of his face.

Gabriella was only five feet two but he was a big man, well over six feet, and although he dressed expensively, in smooth city suits most of the time, the body beneath was lean and spare, powerfully muscled. He had tremendous energy too. She had always known that he was a dynamic man in business—his whole career bore witness to that—but with her he had been different. She had been deceived by his coldly controlled face, and the tight rein on which he kept himself when he was with her. She had got the impression that he was not sexually demanding, that he was not an emotional or passionate man.

How could she have been so blind?

She turned hurriedly, almost falling over one of the expensive leather cases standing near the door, packed ready for departure. Gabriella stared down at them. Her cases had been packed since yesterday, to be collected on the day itself and put into the car which would take them to the airport.

Everything had been carefully planned far ahead, organised down to the last detail by Stephen’s secretary, a capable middle-aged woman who had worked for him for years.

Gabriella’s passport was in her handbag. Stephen had told her that she needn’t bother to bring any money with her, but that had ruffled her sense of independence. She and Stephen were still arguing about her job—he wanted her to stop work when they were married, but she wanted to retain the freedom of being responsible for herself, having her own life outside her home and marriage.

So she had refused to let him give her money before they were married; it would have made her feel as if she was being bought. In her handbag she had a folder full of American dollars which she had got from her own bank; it hadn’t left her much in her deposit account, but at least it was hers, so she could take it with her now.

She only had to pick up her cases and walk out, she thought. She didn’t have to go through with it. She could just vanish.

Where, though? She had to go somewhere. Her mind worked feverishly. She could take a plane to…No, if she went by air she would have to hire a car and it would be too easy for him to check her name on passenger lists at the airport, and check with car-hire firms.

But would he look for her?

She shivered. He would be so angry. She had seen him lose his temper once when his secretary had had to confess to having mislaid a vital fax. She didn’t want that black rage turned on her, and this was much worse than some office mistake. Stephen was going to lose face in a very public way. He would be humiliated, made to look a fool.

He would probably never want to set eyes on her, or even hear her name again.

She choked back a half-hysterical laugh which was also half a sob. No, not him. That much she did know about him. He would want to find her and…He’ll kill me! she thought, her stomach churning.

Think, think! she told herself, trying to clear her weary brain. She had her car. She could just drive out of London and head somewhere quiet and far away…Cumbria, maybe? Or the far west of Cornwall? Or the Fens? Britain was full of secret, remote places, without railway stations, or hotels, or shopping centres—little villages lost in the countryside, where nothing much ever happened or changed, where few people ever visited.

Oh, but wherever she went in Britain people would read newspapers. She wasn’t famous, but Stephen was wealthy and well-known. Some reporter might pick the story up and sell it. Then there would be pictures of her appearing, she would be recognised, and someone unscrupulous who wanted to earn some easy money might ring the Press and tell them where she was, and they would tell Stephen.

No, she must go abroad, as far away as possible. Foreign newspapers wouldn’t bother with the story. France was closest; she could easily lose herself in a country as large and as underpopulated as France, but she only knew a little French, and her accent was so atrocious that whenever she tried to say anything in shops or markets crowds of locals gathered to hear her and laugh their heads off at the way she mangled their language.

She didn’t have enough money, either, to support herself for very long. She would have to get some sort of work wherever she went, and for that she would have to be able to speak the language. She could get a job in a hotel, maybe, or a restaurant. She was a good cook—she had been well-trained—and they wouldn’t insist on references if she offered to show what she could do. But she wouldn’t get a job if she couldn’t speak the language.

It had to be Italy, then, in spite of the fact that that was where Stephen would expect her to go. Italy, too, was a large country—surely she could hide herself in it somewhere? She would drive down to Dover and buy a ticket for the Channel ferry using cash, making it harder to trace her than if she booked a ticket in advance—she wouldn’t show up on the computers until after she had left. Once in France she would make her way on the autoroute into Italy by the most direct route. If she left now she could be in France before Stephen even knew she had gone.

Her mother had been Italian, and Gabriella had been born there and lived there until she was eleven and her mother had died. She had dual nationality and spoke the language fluently. She would not stand out in Italy; she could easily be taken for a native.

She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere near Brindisi, where her mother had come from—there were only distant relatives living there now, but Stephen knew about them, and would look there first. She would make for the northern part of Italy, as far away from Brindisi as possible.

She hurried into her bathroom and, dragging her nightdress over her head, stepped into the shower. The sting of the water sharpened her mind; a few minutes later she towelled herself dry and began to dress.

First she put on black lace panties and a matching bra, and then old blue jeans and a thin blue cotton sweater. She didn’t want to be noticed; she would pass without comment in her old clothes, and they would be comfortable for travelling.

Her long black hair she put up in a knot at the back of her neck, but she put on no make-up, not even a touch of lipstick. She would wear dark glasses as she drove and keep them on as she crossed the Channel—that would help keep her anonymous.

She mustn’t be recognised anywhere on the way because Stephen was going to be right behind her, and the very thought of him scared her stiff.

Oh, God, why didn’t I face it long ago? she inwardly wailed, shivering.

What would he do to her if he caught up with her? Last night she had seen the real Stephen, the nature he had hidden from her all these months. She wasn’t blinkered any more—she knew she could expect no mercy from him.

She had to let him know in advance, even so; she couldn’t just run away and leave him standing at the altar not knowing what had happened to her. She sat down at a table and scribbled a note to him. There was no time to pick and choose her words, to break it tactfully; she simply told him that she was very sorry, please to forgive her, but she couldn’t go through with it, and was going away.

She began to fold the note, then on an afterthought added a few more lines.

Please let everyone know and make my apologies. Try to understand, Stephen—I’m sorry, I just can’t marry you after all. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t explain.

She signed it with her name in a scrawl then read it and groaned. It was incoherent—he would think she’d been drunk when she wrote it, but it was the best she could do, and there was no time to try again.

She would put it into his mail-box at the apartment block on her way out of town—she knew the porter delivered all mail at eight o’clock, which was around the time the post office delivered it.

The wedding was due to take place at eleven-thirty—Stephen would have time to cancel the service and the reception before people began arriving. At least he would have help—he had a huge secretarial team in his offices; they could make the phone calls for him. Even so, she flinched from the thought of the chaos that was going to follow: the presents that would have to go back, the three-tiered bridal cake that nobody would want now, all the food for the reception.

It was going to be embarrassing and humiliating for Stephen and she felt a weary sense of shame at doing this to him as she stared down at the envelope on which she had written his name and address.

For a second she couldn’t decide what to do, then the panic began to burn in her stomach again and she swung away. She could not go through with it, that was all. Whatever the consequences, she could not marry him.

To calm herself, she concentrated on little details—went through her handbag to check that she had everything she would need, then put on a light summer jacket—black and white striped. Picking up her car keys, she was about to let herself out of the flat when she saw some letters on a table; she had written them yesterday morning, and forgotten to post them. Automatically she picked them up and was about to put them into her bag when her eye fell on the address on the top letter.

At that second, inspiration hit her. Paolo! In his letter he had said that he was staying at a villa on Lake Como; he would be there all summer, until September; he was painting a series of frescos on the walls of a small private theatre in the villa, which was owned by a world-famous opera director who liked to try out future productions in his own theatre.

It was like a signpost blazing her path. That’s it, I’ll go to the Italian Lakes, she thought. They’re hundreds of miles north of Brindisi. Stephen isn’t likely to think of looking there—why should he? I’ve never told him how important Paolo is to me.

Dropping the envelopes into her handbag, she let herself out of the little flat on the ground floor of an old Victorian house. Her car was parked in what had once been the front garden; now, covered in asphalt, it served as a car park for the tenants of the flats into which the house had been divided.

It was five-thirty in the morning; London was grey and dim, with few cars around, and even fewer people. The street-lights glowed yellow as she headed south towards the river. She pulled up beside a red postbox which she saw on a corner, and posted all the letters except the one to Paolo. There was so little traffic that it only took her ten minutes after that to reach the apartment block facing Hyde Park with views of the cool green shade under the trees.

It had been one of Stephen’s most prestigious projects, built five years ago right in the heart of London’s most expensive and fashionable area, with marvellous views. Even a small flat there cost the earth.

Stephen had moved into the penthouse apartment as soon as the building had been completed; he had always meant to live there, he had told her. He had worked on the specifications of the penthouse with the architect with his own tastes in mind, and had chosen the décor, creating a perfect home for himself.

Beyond his long, beautifully furnished lounge lay a broad terrace garden; it even had small trees growing in pots, and shrubs and flowers which breathed fragrance at night. She had loved walking out there at night, watching London far below, the sound of it muted, unreal.

Being so close to the park was wonderful too, almost giving one the feeling of being in the country. On hot days you could get cool in the shade of the trees, have a picnic, or row on the Serpentine. Stephen rode in Hyde Park at weekends, on a big black Arab horse which he kept in stables near by, and in the early mornings he jogged in a tracksuit to keep fit, following the twisting paths under the trees for half an hour.

It was lighter when she parked outside the apartment block, knowing that there were unlikely to be police around at that hour. It was the work of a minute to run across the pavement and drop her letter into the chrome letter-box on the front of the locked bullet-proof glass doors of the block.

The porter seated behind his desk looked up, recognised her, looked startled, but immediately gave a polite smile, and stretched his hand out ready to press the button that would open the doors electronically, if she wished, but she shook her head and turned away.

Behind her she sensed him walking towards the doors to collect the letter she had delivered.

Please don’t take it up at once! she thought, her heart going like a steam-hammer.

He wouldn’t, though, surely? Not at this hour! He would keep it and take it up with the rest of Stephen’s mail.

Although it was cool she was sweating as she got back into her car. She slammed the door, put on her seatbelt, and then risked a glance upwards to the soaring top of the forty-storey block, to where the penthouse rose against the early morning sky.

She had expected the high, wide windows to be dark too, but they blazed with light. Shock hit her. Stephen must be awake. Couldn’t he sleep either? It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be nervous too; might have doubts or uncertainties.

A shadow moved at one of the windows and her throat closed in fear. Was that him? Or was she imagining it? It was so far up that she couldn’t be sure. Was he looking out? Looking down? What if he saw her? What if he had spotted the car? Was he watching her, wondering what she was doing out there, and if she was coming up? Would he come down to find out if she had left a message?

Her hands shaking, she started her engine and stepped on the accelerator, shooting away as if the devil himself were after her.

She drove far too fast in sheer panic but there were no police cars around to notice her. She shot through comparatively empty streets down to the softly moving Thames with its glittering reflections of light from the embankment and the high-rise office blocks on each bank. A few moments later she was across Westminster Bridge, and driving into the southern suburbs, unnaturally quiet at this hour, the normally crowded roads almost empty, just the odd car passing her, and a bus lumbering into the city with a few sleepy passengers, workmen on their way home after a night shift.

I won’t ring Paolo from England, I’ll make for Lake Como, she thought. I’ll book into a hotel, and only then get in touch; that will be safest.

She had written to tell him that she was getting married and to invite him to the wedding but he had written back to say he was sorry but he couldn’t make it. He had hoped that she would be happy, and he had sent her an exquisite piece of Venetian glass—a candelabra, frosty and twisting, a centrepiece for a dinner-table, he’d said. She had only received it yesterday and she hadn’t yet told Stephen about it.

She didn’t remember mentioning Paolo to him at all, but his name had been on the list of wedding invitations under his home address in Rome. Stephen probably wouldn’t have noticed it, except to assume that he was one of her Italian relatives, and in a sense that was close in the truth. Paolo meant more to her than any of them ever had, anyway.



She arrived at Dover with half an hour to wait before she could board the ferry, and she had had time to think while she drove. So when she bought her ticket she managed to get some loose change, went to a phone box in the ferry terminal, and rang Lara.

The ringing went on for a long time before a sleepy voice finally came on the line, growling, ‘Who…?’

‘Lara, it’s me, Gabriella,’ she began, and Lara gave an outraged squawk.

‘You’re kidding! Gabi, what the hell do you mean by ringing me at…? Where’s that damned clock…? Good grief, it’s only seven-thirty! Do you know what time I went to bed? Five minutes ago! Tommy’s new tooth decided to come through last night; he cried and yelled until he was tomato-red and I was as limp as lettuce. He only went to sleep as it began to get light, the little monster. So, whatever the crisis, you’ll have to cope with it without me. I need some sleep before I even think about getting ready.’

Before she could hang up Gabriella said huskily, ‘I’m not getting married today, Lara.’

A silence. ‘What?’

Gabriella talked fast to stop her from interrupting. ‘I’m going away. I’ve written to Stephen. I’m sorry, I can’t explain—I have to go, but will you tell the others? Say I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, but I just can’t go through with it.’

She ran out of words then and hung up, but not before hearing her cousin burst out, ‘Where are you going? What…?’

Gabriella stared at her face reflected in the perspex hood over the phone. With her black hair pulled back off her forehead and no make-up on her face, she looked even younger, her eyes a turmoil of feelings that she had kept shut down for years and was still terrified of confronting.

I must cut my hair! she thought. It is far too long. I’ll have it cut short as soon as I get to France.

She bought a cup of hot black coffee from a stall and drank it in her car, staring at the waiting lines of cars ahead of her. They finally began to move and she followed them up into the ferry, parked as commanded by the seaman in charge and went up into the ship.

She couldn’t have eaten to save her life. She sat out on deck and watched the green hills of England fade into the distance as they sailed. It was a very short trip—just an hour and a half.

She drove off in Calais and followed the road system circling the old town—it was amazing how quickly one got out of Calais and got on to the motorway to Paris.

By half-past eleven—the hour when she would have been walking up the aisle towards Stephen—she was well on her way towards Paris. After checking the map, she had decided that she could not face driving across the mountains, through Switzerland, via the Simplon Pass, which would probably be a hair-raising experience for an inexperienced driver. Instead she headed for the Autoroute du Sud for Menton and the Italian border. It was a long way round, but the terrain would be easier to handle.

She could not make the trip in one day—it was around seven hundred miles. She drove until she was dropping with exhaustion and then looked for a motorway hotel for the night. By then she was well past Lyon.

She ate a light meal in the hotel restaurant—melon followed by a goat’s cheese salad—then went to bed. The room was sparsely furnished with a bed, one uncomfortable chair, and a rail for clothes, and there was a tiny shower-room with a lavatory. At least that was clean and very modern. It cost her very little, and she could have slept on the floor, she was so weary.

Even so, she woke up several times with bad dreams, trembling and sweating, remembering only Stephen’s face, haunted by it.

The last time she woke it was half-past five so she showered, got dressed and went to have breakfast. It was better than the evening meal. The coffee was strong, there was orange juice and compotes of real fruit, the rolls were freshly cooked, and there were croissants and little pots of jam.

Gabriella drank juice and several cups of coffee, but only one croissant. Then she checked out, paid her bill by credit card, because it would take some time for the details to reach England, and then set off again, into a blue and gold morning, heading south. The further she went, the warmer the weather became. The landscape changed all the time, from the deciduous trees and green fields of mid-France to the cypress, olives and herb-scented maquis of Provence.

The motorway curved round from Provence towards the Côte d’Azur; the sky was a deep glowing blue, and now and then she saw the sea on her right, even deeper blue and glittering with sunlight. She drove through the low green foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes, saw the red roofs and white walls of villas lining the slopes of the hills and tumbling down towards the sea.

It looked so lovely that she was tempted to stay there a night or two. By then she was tired again, and in a mood to weep like a child, but she forced herself to push on and in the late afternoon she crossed the border into Italy at Menton, and turned up north again, away from the sea and the Italian Riviera, towards Milan and the Italian Lakes. She was turning back on herself, but the road was half-empty and she made good speed—it was still faster than trying to use a more direct route.

Driving became more difficult after she left the motorway and found herself on the narrow, twisting, traffic-laden roads running around the glimmering waters of Como, set like a blue mirror between jagged mountains.

She was almost hallucinating by then, driving like an automaton, barely aware of her surroundings and beginning to be afraid that she would crash. She must stop, must find a hotel, she thought stupidly, trying to stay awake.

She didn’t know the area at all and had no idea which hotel to check into, but when she found herself driving past a hotel entrance she simply spun the wheel and turned in through the old black wrought-iron gates, followed by the angry horn blasts of other drivers who had been startled by her sudden move.

It was obviously an old grand hotel, now a little shabby but still glittering with chandeliers and marble floors, set in well-kept gardens, looking out across Lake Como which she could see through the trees running down the sides of the hotel.

There were other cars parked echelon-style on the gravelled drive; she pulled in beside one of them. Before getting out her case she walked unsteadily into the hotel reception area feeling almost drunk with tiredness.

The reception clerk behind the polished mahogany counter looked up politely and shot an assessing glance over her jeans and old jacket, his face cooling.

‘Sì, signorina?’ He had apparently even noticed the lack of a wedding-ring on her hand.

Gabriella found herself beginning to answer in easy Italian. She hadn’t forgotten her mother’s tongue, then! She explained that she was travelling and needed a room for a night or two, that her car was parked outside, with her luggage inside it.

The clerk looked sceptical but offered her a printed brochure which gave the prices of the rooms, perhaps expecting her to be taken aback by the high cost of staying there, and Gabriella gave it a cursory glance, nodding, not really caring how much it cost. She had to get some sleep and she wasn’t short of cash, thank heavens.

‘Do you have a room facing the lake?’

‘A single room?’

‘Please.’

‘How will you be paying, signorina?’ the clerk warily enquired.

‘Cash, in advance,’ Gabriella said, getting out a wallet and laying down the price of the room for that night.

The clerk considered the money. ‘You do not have a credit card?’

‘Certainly,’ she said, showing it to him. He picked it up and checked the details on it. ‘But I wish to pay cash for tonight. If I decide to stay longer, and you have a room available, I may use my credit card for any larger amounts. Is that a problem?’

He looked puzzled but shook his head, gave her back her credit card and the usual card every guest had to fill in, asked to see her passport and looked even more startled as she gave him the Italian one.

‘You are Italian?’ That told her that her accent wasn’t quite as good as she had thought it was.

Quietly she explained, ‘I was born here, but I live in Britain. My father was British, my mother Italian, so I have dual nationality.’

He handed her back the passport, a smile finally crossing his face. ‘Then I do not need to keep this.’ He picked up her money and handed her a key. ‘I hope you have a very pleasant stay with us, signorina. Would you like help with your luggage?’

‘Please,’ she said, handing him the key of her car. ‘Just the smaller tan leather case, please.’

She went to the room and immediately plunged her sweating face into cool, clear water. What she wanted was a bath, but that could wait until her luggage arrived and she could unpack clean clothes to change into.

The porter brought her case; she tipped him generously, got a broad grin and asked him to book her in for dinner for the evening.

When she was alone again she stripped and had a long, relaxing bath, put on a white cambric dress, the bodice stiff with broderie anglaise, and lay down on the bed, her muscles weak and her ears singing with hypertension.

She couldn’t remember ever having been this tired before! She wanted to go to sleep, but first she had to ring Paolo.

It was surely many months since she had last spoken to him. They were neither of them great letter writers, and anyway theirs was a very intermittent friendship; it was often several years before they got in touch, but the minute they did it was as if they had never been apart.

She had always been able to tell Paolo everything. At least she would be able to talk to him about what was tearing her apart, be open about why she could not go through with her marriage, knowing that he would understand. He was the one person in the world whom she had ever told about the past.

Paolo had lived next door to her when she was a child. He was four years older than she and had been a short, dark, silent boy, always painting and drawing and making clay figures. They had been thrown together because their mothers had been friends and neither of them had found it easy to get on with their own classmates.

Gabriella, shy and nervous, had found Paolo’s silences reassuring; he was sensitive and intelligent, and very different from the other boys in his class at school. They had mostly been bigger, cheerfully down-to-earth, and had made fun of his passion for art, despised him because he didn’t love football and fighting, and bullied him a little too. Paolo had kept away from them whenever he could; he had already had a sure sense of what he wanted and had known that it would take him away from Brindisi.

When Gabriella’s mother died, her grieving father had taken his daughter back to England so that he could be near his only living relative, his mother. Jack Drayton was himself a man in poor health; he had only survived his wife by three years and had usually been too ill to see much of his only child.

Gabriella had been sent away to boarding-school, although she’d spent her summers with her father’s brother Ben and his family. They had given her a couple of very happy years until it had all crashed down again. Sometimes she’d thought that every time she began to be really happy fate intervened—something always happened to wreck it.

Her uncle Ben had died suddenly the summer that she was fourteen. Afterwards his wife had sold their home, taken her children and gone back to Scotland, to the village where she had been born. After that, Gabriella had stayed with her grandmother, her father’s mother, in the summer.

During all those years, Gabriella had written to Paolo and got back scratchy little notes from him, but she hadn’t actually seen him again until he had come to England on holiday five years ago. She had still been at school, and was spending the holidays with her grandmother in Maidenhead on the River Thames—and she had been thrilled to see Paolo again.

He had stayed in London for a fortnight. Gabriella had shown him around, taken him to Windsor and Hampton Court, Kew Gardens and as far afield as Stratford-on-Avon, so that he could visit the theatre and see Shakespeare’s birthplace and Anne Hathaway’s cottage.

Paolo had just left art school in Milan and was going to be taking up a career in TV, set-designing. At twenty-one, he had been far more sophisticated and worldly-wise than the seventeen-year-old Gabriella, yet somehow they had picked up their brother-sister relationship where it had left off six years earlier without any difficulty.

When he’d gone back to Milan he’d rarely written. Neither had, but she’d known that when she saw him again they would still talk the same language—indeed, understand each other without words.

Smiling, she picked up the phone and dialled his number. The ringing went on for quite a while before his voice came on the line.

‘Sì?’ He sounded impatient; perhaps he was very busy.

‘Paolo?’ she whispered uncertainly, and heard his intake of breath.

‘Where are you?’

His swift reply told her a lot. ‘You know?’

Paolo didn’t bother to ask what she meant. His voice dry, he said, ‘He rang me last night. Even over the phone he was quite frightening. I don’t know what he does to you, but he turned my blood to ice. I got the distinct impression that if he found out I’d lied to him he would tear my head off my body and then dance on the rest of me.’

She half laughed, half sobbed. ‘How did he get your number?’

‘I think he was trying everyone you ever mentioned to him. No stone unturned, Gabi.’

She had known what he would do. Wearily she said, ‘I barely mentioned you to him.’

‘Mia cara, I was on your guest list!’

‘Yes, you were, but how did he find you so quickly? I gave him your address in Rome.’

‘Unfortunately, he—or one of his staff—knew I worked for TV in Rome, and tried them. Of course, they knew where to find me; I’d left my summer address with them.’

She sighed, closing her eyes. ‘Thank God I didn’t ring you before I left—at least you really weren’t lying when you told him you didn’t know where I was. Do you think he believed you?’

‘I think he must have realised that I was surprised. Yes, I think he believed I didn’t know where you were, but I may have spoilt the effect later—I lost my temper, I’m afraid.’

Anxiously she asked, ‘What did you say to him?’

‘I told him I wouldn’t tell him even if I did know where you were, but I hadn’t heard a word from you so I didn’t have to lie and I said that if you did get in touch I certainly wouldn’t tell him so he could shove off.’ Paolo sounded triumphant. ‘He didn’t like that, I’m glad to say. I did not take to him, mia cara—in fact, I disliked him intensely from the first word he uttered, and, whatever happened, I’m on your side.

‘Come here if you want to; I’ll give you sanctuary. You’ll be quite safe here—the grounds are patrolled by mad packs of hounds at night and the gates and walls are electrified—he won’t get in.’

Her pale mouth curved into a smile. ‘You’re a darling, Paolo. Listen, your phone might be bugged by now—he’s quite capable of it and he can afford to hire detectives who’ll do that. I’ll write. I’m OK, don’t worry. Bye.’

She hung up and lay staring at the ceiling. She would go down and get a postcard of the hotel; she had seen some on the reception desk. She would write a few apparently innocent words on it. ‘Having a lovely time, wish you were here!’ She would sign it, not with her name but with the word cara. It should reach him tomorrow. Paolo was quick-witted; he would understand at once and come to the hotel to find her.

She only hoped that Stephen had believed him and was looking for her somewhere else.




CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_da987ef6-66d4-5665-98b2-690b6b2ed9cc)


GABRIELLA woke next morning to the sound of a church bell chiming seven. An echo came from across the lake—or was that another church telling the hour? For a moment she lay there, dazedly remembering the incoherent dreams she had been haunted by all night—Stephen’s hard, dark face, his mouth, the heat of his body moving against hers, his hands…

Perspiration broke out on her forehead. With a low groan she sat up in bed and looked around the room. The walls were whitewashed. Last night they had looked rather stark, but this morning they were coloured pinky gold by the sun. She had not closed her shutters last night and had left the window slightly ajar; a gentle breeze was now ruffling the floor-length white gauze curtains.

Gabriella slid out of bed in her thin silky nightdress and walked over to the window, pushed it right open and went out on to her balcony, to be struck dumb by the beauty of the view.

She stood there, staring, blue eyes wide; she hadn’t expected anything like this. Her gaze moved over the ring of mountains, their indented line blue-hazed, majestic, stretching away out of sight, the morning light moving on their peaks where here and there snow still covered the upper slopes, a cloudless sky floating above them and below, on the surface of the lake, their shimmering reflections, white, gold and soft rose.

Como was not a huge lake; it had a domestic intimacy, and she could see the other side of it clearly enough to make out houses, red-roofed and white-walled, gardens with cypress and fir trees, and, on the winding roads along the lakeside, cars moving.

The hotel gardens ran right down to the lake to where she saw a wooden jetty, with a few people waiting on it—men reading newspapers, schoolchildren, women with shopping baskets chatting to one another. On the lake a small ferry boat was chugging towards them at a sedate speed. She watched it dock, nudging the old tyres tied along the jetty. A sailor tied up and the passengers boarded, greeting the jerseyed sailors on board like old friends—which they probably were.

The boat cast off again, crossing the lake again. Gabriella watched it leave. She could see why people who lived here would use the ferry if they wanted to cross the lake. Driving around those narrow, twisting little roads would be hair-raising even in daylight. That’s what I’ll do, she thought; I’ll leave my car at the hotel and explore the lake on the ferry.

She heard cheerful, murmuring voices outside in the corridor, then the whirr of the lift descending—other people going to breakfast, obviously—which reminded her that she had ordered a breakfasttray in her room for eight o’clock. Taking a last look at the view, she turned reluctantly away into her bedroom.

She showered, slid into a towelling robe hanging on the door and sat on the bed to blow-dry her long, silky hair; it took quite a time, so in the end she left it loose, to finish drying naturally, and dressed in a dark blue linen shift dress, leaving her slender legs bare but sliding her feet into white sandals with a tiny heel, a few fine straps of leather criss-crossing the foot, buckled at the ankle.

A few moments later the room-service waiter tapped on her door. He was a young boy in a spotless white uniform, as slender as a girl and doeeyed. He gave her an appreciative look, young though he was—he was, after all, an Italian and enjoyed the sight of a pretty woman. ‘Your breakfast, signorina,’ he said smiling as she admitted him.

‘Grazie,’ she said, leading the way out on to the balcony. In Italian she told him to put the tray down on the small white table.

‘A lovely morning for you,’ he said, as if he had produced that too. His dark eyes admiringly flicked over her from her black hair to her long legs. Clearly he was in no hurry to leave. ‘Is this your first visit to Como?’

‘Yes, and I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. Where does the ferry go?’ she asked, pointing to the jetty where a new string of passengers was boarding a different boat.

‘That one?’ He gave it an indifferent glance. ‘That sails between Menaggio, Bellagio and Varenna.’

‘Do all the ferries have the same route?’

‘Oh, no—some go right the way to Como itself, at the far end of one arm of the lake…’

‘One arm?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘The lake is a Y-shape, signorina.’ He pulled a pencil from his pocket and drew a rough outline on a notepad he also carried. ‘Like that. Como is at the end of this upper arm and Lecco is almost at the end of the other arm. The lake divides at Bellagio, then you come down here to Novate.’

‘What a strange shape for a lake! So which town is this?’

He gave her a startled look, his great dark eyes incredulous. ‘This is Menaggio, signorina! You didn’t know that?’

She grinned at him. ‘I drove in here on impulse last night; I was so tired that I didn’t even notice the name of the hotel, let alone the place.’

The boy was in no hurry to leave. ‘Where do you come from? I don’t recognise your accent. You sound southern—are you from Naples?’

She laughed. ‘Close—I was brought up in Brindisi.’

Another waiter appeared below, on the terrace steps, and whistled piercingly. The boy looked down, startled, was given a peremptory gesture and an angry glare, and hurriedly turned away.

‘I must go…Excuse me, signorina.’

He vanished and, smiling wryly to herself, Gabriella sat down and considered her breakfasttray—a glass of orange juice embedded in a bowl of crushed ice, a silver coffee-pot, rolls, a couple of little cakes, butter, a pot of jam, a bowl of fresh black cherries and some frosted green grapes.

She didn’t touch the cakes, but she ate a roll and some of the cherries, drank all the juice and a couple of cups of coffee while she gazed down at the lake, watching the changing reflections until a passing boat sent wide ripples to break them up. People on the jetty were talking to each other cheerfully, their voices drifting to her on the warm air. She thought that it must be nice to live in a small place where you knew everyone; big cities like London could be lonely places.

The telephone made her jump. She turned her head to stare at it in terror.

Who could be ringing her? Nobody knew she was there. Her heart began to beat agonisingly; her skin tightened and turned icy cold. She was trembling as she got up, knocking over the chair she had been sitting on.

The phone still went on ringing; maybe it was the hotel reception desk asking if she was staying another night. Slowly, reluctantly, she crossed the room and stretched out a shaky hand.

‘Hello?’ Her voice was low, husky.

‘Signorina Brooks?’ an Italian voice asked.

‘Yes.’ She was waiting on tenterhooks.

‘A Signor Giovio to see you, signorina.’

She let out a quivering breath, closing her eyes in sick relief. It was only Paolo; he had got her card already and understood its message. She had known he would—he was much too quick not to have got it at first glance. ‘Oh…my cousin, yes; tell him I’ll be down in a moment.’

She brought her tray into her bedroom, then closed the balcony doors and almost flew downstairs. Paolo was waiting for her in the lounge which led out on to the garden terrace.

The room was enormous, with high ceilings from which glittered chandeliers and marble floors across which deep white sofas were scattered. One end was entirely made up of windows, stretching from ceiling to floor, draped in the same white gauze curtains as those which hung in her room; through them you could see the hotel gardens leading down to the lake and they allowed the sun to flood the great room with light.

Paolo stood by them, gazing out. She stopped to stare at him while he was unaware of her. He hadn’t changed much since they’d last met although he was clearly a few years older. He was still a slight figure, his face in profile bony and memorable—not handsome but striking, his sallow skin deeply tanned and his hair jet-black, softly waving down to his shoulders. He was wearing a lightweight pale blue suit; elegantly casual, it looked expensive. Did he buy designer clothes now?

As if becoming aware of her presence he turned, their eyes met and a smile lit his thin face. ‘So, there you are!’ he said in Italian, holding out both hands, and she ran to take them.

‘I knew you’d understand the card.’

‘Of course,’ he dismissed, shrugging. His slanting eyes skimmed her face. ‘You don’t look as terrible as you sounded last night. Sleep well?’

She nodded but perhaps the memory of her bad dreams showed in her face, because Paolo frowned.

Some other guests wandered into the room, giving them curious looks. Gabriella opened the tall glass door into the garden.

‘Let’s walk by the lake. I’m dying to get a closer look at it. Isn’t it breathtaking? How long have you been here?’

‘A couple of weeks.’ Paolo fell into step beside her as she began to descend the stone steps towards the lakeside. ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’

She stopped on the jetty and leaned on the wooden rail, staring out towards another town on the far side of the lake. ‘Where’s that?’ she asked, pointing.

‘Varenna,’ Paolo said in a dry tone, knowing that she was delaying any more intimate talk.

‘Is it worth visiting?’

‘It’s small but pretty; there are some nice gardens to see. Are we going to talk about the scenery or are you going to tell me why you ran away?’

She went on staring across the lake and didn’t answer.

Paolo drew a folded newspaper from under his arm and offered it to her. Frowning, Gabriella took it, looked at the front page and with a leap of the nerves saw that it was an English paper.

‘Page five,’ he said.

Hands trembling she turned the pages and saw her own face, grey and blurred, in a photo which she didn’t remember being taken—she and Stephen arriving at a theatre for a very starry first night. Feverishly she skimmed the story; it was short on facts but those it had were mostly about Stephen and it pretended sympathy for him at being left at the altar.

Somehow the reporter made her sound like a bimbo—a gold-digger who had probably run off with an even richer man, although none was actually suggested. The story did, however, claim that she had not sent back her engagement ring, which was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, and added that she had got other valuable jewellery out of Stephen, all of which she had also kept.

She crushed the paper in her hands and looked at Paolo, stricken. ‘You bought this here?’

He nodded. ‘There’s a good newsagent who sells a few foreign newspapers. This was the only popular English paper on sale this morning but he said he’d had half a dozen copies of this one. If you look at the date you’ll see that it was out in England yesterday.’

Pale, she said, ‘So others may have read the story.’

Paolo nodded grimly and took the screwed-up paper, smoothing it out again to study Stephen’s face in the grey photo. ‘Is it a good likeness?’

She glanced at the hard face, the fleshless cheekbones, the cool grey eyes, that insistent jawline. A little shiver ran through her.

‘Yes.’

Paolo screwed the newspaper up again and tossed it into a nearby refuse bin.

‘What did he do to you?’

She gave a choky little sigh. ‘Nothing—nothing at all. Poor man, he must be utterly bewildered—that’s why I couldn’t tell him face to face.’

‘That would have been an idea,’ Paolo said without inflexion.

She flinched as if from an accusation, guilt in her eyes, and shot him a distraught look. ‘I know—I know I should have, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t talk to him. He would never have understood unless I told him…and I couldn’t talk about it, Paolo; I still can’t talk about it.’

‘Ah,’ he said on an indrawn breath. ‘So. That is what it is all about.’

She turned to look at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. ‘Oh, you’re so quick; you always know what I’m talking about. That’s why I came here to find you—at least you’ll understand. I can talk to you without having to dot every I and cross every T.’

He touched her cheek with one fingertip. ‘I had a suspicion that this might be behind it, but it’s years ago—you should have had therapy, you know, talked it out with a professional.’

‘I couldn’t.’ Her pink mouth was stubborn, unhappy. The breeze blew her black hair across her cheek and she brushed it away angrily.

‘That’s just why you ought to try!’

‘Anyway, nothing really happened. I’m not the victim of some horrible crime.’

‘Crimes of the heart can be as disastrous.’

Another sigh shook her. ‘Yes. Don’t let’s talk about it.’

He grimaced. ‘OK. Tell me how you met this guy Stephen Durrant, then—tell me about him. He didn’t make a great impression on me on the phone.’

She turned and walked further along the lake, under a line of magnolia trees in bloom, their flowers perched like great white birds on the glossy green leaves.

‘Stephen heads a big property company…DLKC Properties. I don’t expect you’ll have heard of them.’

‘I have,’ Paolo said, shooting a narrowed glance at her. ‘So he’s behind them, is he? I thought they were an international consortium.’

‘They are, but Stephen is the main shareholder.’

‘He must be very rich, then. They weathered the storm when property took a nosedive a few years back. A lot of other companies were wiped out but DLKC survived intact.

‘A friend of mine bought a flat in a block they built in Tenerife—it was brilliantly designed, and a nice place to live, I thought. The landscaping was excellent—well laid out gardens, a nice-sized pool…’ He stopped and grinned down at her. ‘Sorry; you know how obsessed I am with design.’

‘I remember,’ she said, smiling back. ‘And you know I love my work too. I’m always sorry for people who don’t enjoy their job.’

‘Does Stephen Durrant enjoy his?’

She couldn’t put Paolo off the scent. She looked at him wryly.

‘Stephen lives for his work; he rarely has time for anything else.’

‘Including you?’

She looked away, across the lake. ‘He made time for me. When he remembered.’

‘Ah,’ Paolo said again. ‘Did that make you angry?’

‘Angry?’ She was taken aback by the question. ‘Why should it?’

But hadn’t she resented the fact that Stephen had so little time and saw her so rarely? At the same time, though, she had been relieved, because she was afraid of him getting too close, becoming too important to her. Afraid of him, of herself.

Why are you such a coward? she thought wildly. Why are you so scared of everything?

‘He has a reputation as a bit of a hard man, doesn’t he?’ murmured Paolo, watching her troubled face.

She turned away, picked a leaf from a bush and crumpled it in her cold hands, inhaling the aromatic scent of the oils released.

‘Well, he’s very successful. I suppose most successful people are pretty tough.’

Paolo nodded thoughtfully. ‘Is he a self-made man? He sounds like one.’

‘He built his business up himself, but he inherited a small building firm from an uncle when he was twenty.’

‘How old is he now?’

‘Thirty-six.’

‘Did the age-gap bother you?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been interested in anyone my own age; I prefer older men.’ She stopped dead, catching Paolo’s eyes, and flushed scarlet, then went dead white. Hurriedly she walked on and he caught up with her.

After a moment or two he said, ‘But you’re scared of Stephen, aren’t you?’

‘If you knew him, you’d be scared of him.’

‘Then why in God’s name did you agree to marry him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she wailed, her face working in anguish.

‘Surely to God you knew how you felt about him, Gabriella?’ Paolo sounded impatient, angry with her, and that made her feel worse. She was terrified of angry scenes, of someone looking at her accusingly, blaming her. Tears stung her eyes.

‘I felt…safe…with him…’ she whispered, and Paolo was silent for a moment.

‘What changed?’

She didn’t answer, looking away.

Paolo said, ‘I take it that he is in love with you?’

Her long black hair blew across her face again, in blinding strands, and she didn’t push it away this time. Her eyes hidden, she whispered, ‘I don’t know.’

Paolo’s voice hardened. ‘Oh, come on, mia cara, you must know how he feels about you!’

She knew Stephen wanted her physically—that fact had been blazingly obvious when he had lost control and started making love to her with that terrifying heat. She shivered. He had never been like that before. Why that night?

But she knew why; she had known at the time although in her sheer blind panic she hadn’t allowed herself to think about her own guilt. Now she did, and Paolo frowned as he watched her changing, disturbed face.

‘Don’t look like that. It can’t be that bad!’

Can’t it? she thought, staring across at the sunlit, white-capped mountains and remembering her mood that last evening. She had been edgy, shy, uneasy, but she had tried to hide it because she and Stephen had been the guests of honour at a pre-wedding party given for them by Stephen’s elder sister, Beatrice, in her beautiful Regent’s Park home. In her late forties, she was the wife of a senior civil servant in the Foreign Office. Gabriella had only met her half a dozen times but she liked her, in spite of her formidable manner, which Beatrice had in common with her brother.

Beatrice didn’t resemble Stephen physically—she was small and fair and blue-eyed. Stephen said that she took after their mother. His younger sister, Anne, had married a Spaniard and lived in Barcelona—she had been at the party too, but Gabriella hadn’t seen much of her. There had been so many people there and she had known only a handful of them—mostly friends of Stephen’s whom she had met before.

She had never met his nephew Hugo before; she wished to God that she hadn’t met him that night.

‘Talk to me,’ Paolo said and she started, looking round at him, her face chalky white and her eyes lost and childlike. He drew a sharp breath. ‘For heaven’s sake! What on earth happened to put that look in your eyes?’

She swayed and he put an arm round her, glancing behind them. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, leading her towards a wooden bench at the edge of the hotel gardens. Her legs were trembling so much that she was glad to sit down. She leaned back, closing her eyes.

After a minute she said huskily, ‘I realise it sounds stupid, but then I have been stupid with Stephen. I don’t really know him. I should never have got engaged, and honestly, Paolo, I don’t know how he really feels about me; I can’t remember him ever saying he was in love with me.’

Paolo looked incredulously at her. ‘Not even when he proposed?’

She shook her head.

From the beginning she had been very ambivalent about Stephen, about their relationship—not sure where it was going or if she should be seeing him at all. When she was with him she was never bored, though; time flashed past, although she could never remember afterwards anything that he had said or anything much that had happened. Looking back on all those evenings with him, she could only remember his face, his grey eyes, his deep voice murmuring.

If he went abroad, and she didn’t see him for a week or so, she thought about him all the time. She didn’t understand him, yet she couldn’t forget him, and although she kept telling herself that she would stop seeing him she never did. When he rang to invite her out she always accepted if she was free, and Stephen knew which nights she worked so he usually made sure to ask her out on her free evenings.

On his thirty-sixth birthday he had taken her to dinner at a very exclusive Mayfair restaurant, whose chef was something of a hero of hers. The food had been marvellous, and she had drunk more wine than usual and felt as if she was floating. Stephen had watched her across the table, his eyes half veiled by heavy lids, and she had been hypnotised by that deep stare, gazing back in sleepy languor while they sipped superb coffee.

‘You look lovely in that dress; you should wear white more often,’ he’d said.

The compliment had made her flush, and she’d lowered her eyes.

Stephen had stretched a commanding hand across the table and taken her hand, moving his thumb softly up and down against her wrist.

‘Gabriella, turning thirty-six has made me stop and think about the way my life is going. I’ve been too busy building up my business to have time to think of marriage, but since I met you I’ve realised how much has been missing from my life for years. Living alone isn’t natural for human beings—we need each other too much—but I was always so busy that I never had time to see just how lonely I was.’

She had stared, struck dumb. What was he saying? Was he going to ask her to live with him, share his bed, to move into that huge penthouse apartment of his? He couldn’t be asking her to marry him!

She had never quite known why he kept seeing her, or what he wanted—and she had been so shy with him that she hadn’t dared ask. She had hoped, stupidly, that their relationship would go on in that undemanding, tranquil way.

The moment that he had proposed had been the end of her illusions, although it hadn’t dawned on her at once that everything had changed that night. She had been too bewildered.

‘I’ll be forty in a few years, and the clock is ticking faster. I want a family while I’m young enough to enjoy them,’ he had gone on quietly. ‘How do you feel about having children? I’ve noticed you with your cousin’s baby; you seem to love looking after him—do you want some of your own?’

Her eyes had glowed. She adored Tommy, her cousin Lara’s baby, and she had given Stephen an instinctive, unthinking reply. ‘I love children, especially when they’re babies; I love to hold them, all milky and smelling of talcum. I envy Lara having Tommy. She says she doesn’t want any more—it’s too much like work—but I’d like at least four. I was an only child and I was always lonely. I told myself then that I’d make sure that I had more than one child.’

Now she thought, Why did I say all that? I knew what he might be going to say—why didn’t I lie, tell him that I didn’t want children and he should ask someone else? Why did I babble on like that, misleading him, giving him the wrong impression?

Did I secretly want to marry him? Or was it the same old weakness that has always haunted my life—the inability to recognise danger, to avert catastrophe?

He had picked up her hands and held them loosely, watching the way that her face lit up as she talked about babies, and, when she had finally run out of words and stopped breathlessly, he said, ‘Then will you marry me, Gabriella?’

She looked now at Paolo and gave a long sigh. ‘I thought he was marrying me because he wanted a family.’ That was the truth, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

Paolo’s brows shot up. ‘Then you realised that you would be sleeping with him?’

She blushed. ‘Yes, but…’ Knowing something with your conscious mind was one thing; realising it at the very deepest level was another. It all depended on how you perceived a situation. Stephen had asked her if she wanted children and she did; she loved the idea of having a baby of her own, and finally belonging to a real family again. That had been one aspect of his proposal and their engagement—she had closed her eyes to another aspect of it.

That was why when Stephen had lost control and all that passion had flared out of him she had gone into blinding panic.

If he had acted that way on the night that he had proposed she would have run like hell. But he had been so different then; he had told her softly, ‘I’ll make you happy, Gabriella!’ and she had been lulled into false optimism by that gentleness, the apparent lack of passion. She had drifted into engagement without realising what dangerous waters lay ahead, had let him put his ring on her finger, had let him arrange the wedding, had sat and nodded when he’d made suggestions, had allowed his personal assistant to organise it all, even the invitations to her few friends and family.

The closest of her family were all dead, of course. She only had distant relatives, and her bridesmaids were to have been one of Stephen’s nieces and two of her old college friends—and Lara, who was to have been matron of honour in warm peach silk. The rest on the enormous wedding guest list were Stephen’s friends and colleagues—some of them wealthy and influential. What would they all be thinking? What would Stephen have told them? Perhaps they would jump to the conclusion that she had run off with another man.

‘He suspects you’ve run off with another man,’ Paolo said, as if picking up on her thoughts—as he’d sometimes done in the past, she remembered. They had some sort of mental link; it had always been there, even when they were children. Thoughts flashed from one to the other like electric sparks.

She looked up at him anxiously. ‘Did he say so?’

‘I picked it up from his voice. Mia cara, that is a very jealous man, jealous as hell—I could smell the fire and brimstone down the telephone line!’

She flinched. Yes, Stephen probably did suspect that she had run off with someone. When someone fled from marriage to one man, it was usually to go to another. But jealous? Stephen? Was he? That would be yet another shock discovery, if it was true. I hardly know him at all, she thought; he’s as much a mystery to me as he was the day I met him.

‘He’ll want explanations, answers,’ Paolo warned her. ‘And you had better have them ready. I have a shrewd idea that he will keep looking for you no matter how long it takes, Gabriella.’

She got up and began to hurry back towards the hotel as if running away again—and that might have been the best plan. Now that Stephen had found Paolo he might hire a private detective to check to see if she was in Como. But there were other places she might go, and he had no idea how close she and Paolo were. Surely he would hunt elsewhere first?





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