Hot Nights with...the Italian
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Besides, he thought ruefully, his own personal life was hardly such a blazing success that he could afford to be critical of anyone else’s. And maybe it was really his bitter sense of grievance over being cornered into marriage that had brought about the coldness that had grown up between his father and himself.
But he could not allow any lingering animosity, he told himself as he stepped out of the shower and began to dry himself. He had to put the past behind him, where it belonged. Tonight had indeed been a warning—in a number of ways. It was indeed more than time he abandoned his bachelor lifestyle and applied himself to becoming a husband and, in due course, a father.
If, of course, he could obtain the co-operation of his bride—something he’d signally failed to do so far, he thought, staring broodingly in the mirror as he raked his damp hair back from his face with his fingers.
If he was honest, he could admit that he was a man who’d never had to try too hard with women. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but, nevertheless, it remained an indisputable fact. And it remained a terrible irony that his wife was the only one who’d greeted his attempts to woo her with indifference at best and hostility at worst.
He’d become aware that he might have a fight on his hands when he’d paid his first visit to her cousin’s house in London, ostensibly to invite Marisa to Tuscany for a party his father was planning to celebrate her nineteenth birthday.
Julia Gratton had received him alone, her hard eyes travelling over him in an assessment that had managed to be critical and salacious at the same time, he’d thought with distaste.
‘So, you’ve come courting at last, signore.’ Her laugh was like the yap of a small, unfriendly dog. ‘I’d begun to think it would never happen. I sent Marisa up to change,’ she added abruptly. ‘She’ll be down presently. In the meantime, let me offer you some coffee.’
He was glad that she’d told him what was being served in those wide, shallow porcelain cups, because there was no other clue in the thin, tasteless fluid that he forced himself to swallow.
So when the drawing room door opened he was glad to put it aside and get to his feet. Where he paused, motionless, the formal smile freezing on his lips as he saw her.
He could tell by the look of displeasure that flitted across Mrs Gratton’s thin face that Marisa had not changed her clothes, as instructed, but he was not, he thought, repining.
She was still shy, looking down at the carpet rather than at him, her long curling lashes brushing her cheeks, but everything else about her was different. Gloriously so. And he allowed the connoisseur in him to enjoy the moment. She was slim now, he realised, instead of gawky, and her face was fuller so that her features no longer seemed too large for its pallor.
Her breasts were not large but, outlined by her thin tee shirt, they were exquisitely shaped. Her waist was a handspan, her hips a gentle curve. And those endless legs—Santa Madonna—even encased as they were in tight denim jeans he could imagine how they would feel clasped around him, naked, as she explored under his tuition the pleasures of sex.
Hurriedly he dragged his mind back to the social niceties. Took a step forward, attempting a friendly smile. ‘Buongiorno, Maria Lisa.’ He deliberately used the version of her name he’d teased her with in childhood. ‘Come stai?’
She looked back at him then, and for the briefest instant he seemed to see in those long-lashed grey-green eyes such a glint of withering scorn that it stopped him dead. Then, next moment, she was responding quietly and politely to his greeting, even allowing him to take her hand, and he told himself that it must have been his imagination.
Because that was what his ego wanted him to think, he told himself bitterly. That it was an honour for this girl to have been chosen as a Santangeli bride, and if he had no objections, especially now that he had seen her again, it must follow that she could have none either.
Prompted sharply by her cousin, she accepted the party invitation, and agreed expressionlessly to his suggestion that he should return the next day to discuss the arrangements.
And although she knew—had obviously been told—that the real reason for his visit was to request her formally to become his wife, she gave no sign of either pleasure or dismay at the prospect.
And that in itself should have warned him, he thought in self-condemnation. Instead he’d attributed her lack of reaction to nervousness at the prospect of marriage.
In the past, his sexual partners had certainly not been chosen for their inexperience, but innocence was an essential quality for the girl who would one day bear the Santangeli heir. He had told himself the least he could do was offer her some reassurance about how their relationship would be conducted in its early days—and nights.
Therefore, he’d resolved to promise her that their honeymoon would be an opportunity for them to become properly reacquainted, even be friends, and that he would be prepared to wait patiently until she felt ready to take him as her husband in any true sense.
And he’d meant every word of it, he thought, remembering how she’d listened in silence, her head half-turned from him, her creamy skin tinged with colour as he spoke.
All the same, he knew he’d been hoping for some reaction—some slight encouragement for him to take her in his arms and kiss her gently to mark their engagement.
But there’d been nothing, then or later. She’d never signalled in any way that she wanted him to touch her, and by offering forbearance he’d fallen, he realised, annoyed, into a trap of his own making.
Because as time had passed, and their wedding day had approached, he’d found himself as awkward as a boy in her cool, unrevealing company, unable to make even the slightest approach to her—something which had never happened to him before.
But what he had not bargained for was losing his temper. And it was the guilt of that which still haunted him.
He sighed abruptly as he knotted a dry towel round his hips. Well, there was no point in torturing himself afresh over that. He ought to go to bed, he thought, and try to catch some sleep for what little remained of the night. But he knew he was far too restless to relax, and that the time could be used to better effect in planning the coming campaign.
He walked purposefully out of the bathroom, ignoring the invitation of the turned-down bed in the room beyond, and proceeded instead down the hallway to the salotto.
It was an impressive room, its size accentuated by the pale walls and a signal lack of clutter. He’d furnished it in light colours too, with deep, lavishly cushioned sofas in cream leather, and occasional tables in muted, ashy shades.
The only apparently discordant note in all this pastel restraint was the massive desk, which he loved because it had once belonged to his grandfather, and which now occupied a whole corner of the room in all its mahogany magnificence.
In banking circles he knew that he was viewed as a moderniser, a man with his sights firmly set on the future, alert to any changes in the market. But anyone seeing that desk, he’d always thought dryly, would have guessed immediately that underlying this was a strong respect for tradition and an awareness of what he owed to the past.
He went straight to the desk, extracted a file from one of its brass-handled drawers and, after pouring himself a generous Scotch, stretched out on one of the sofas and began to glance through the folder’s contents. An update had been received the previous day, but he’d not had a chance to read it before, and now seemed an appropriate time.
He took a contemplative mouthful of whisky as his eyes scanned swiftly down the printed sheet, then sat up abruptly with a gasp, nearly choking as his drink went down the wrong way and he found himself in imminent danger of spilling the rest everywhere.
He recovered instantly, eyes watering, then set down the crystal tumbler carefully out of harm’s way before, his face thunderous, he re-read the unwelcome information that the private surveillance company engaged for the protection of his absentee wife had provided.
‘We must advise you,’ it stated, ‘that since our last report Signora Santangeli, using her maiden name, has obtained paid employment as a receptionist in a private art gallery in Carstairs Place, apparently taking the place of a young woman on maternity leave. In the past fortnight she has lunched twice in the company of the gallery’s owner, Mr Corin Langford. She no longer wears her wedding ring. Photographic evidence can be provided if required.’
Renzo screwed the report into a ball and threw it across the room, cursing long and fluently.
He flung himself off the sofa and began to pace restlessly up and down. He did not need any photographs, he thought savagely. Too many of his own affairs had begun over leisurely lunches, so he knew all about satisfying one appetite while creating another—was totally familiar with the sharing of food and wine, eyes meeting across the table, fingers touching, then entwining.
What he did not—could not—recognise was the mental image of the girl on the other side of the table. Marisa smiling back, talking and laughing, the initial shyness in her eyes dancing into confidence and maybe even into desire.
The way she had never once behaved with him. Nor looked at him—or smiled.
Not, of course, that he was jealous, he hastened to remind himself.
Just—angrier than he’d ever been before. Everything that had happened between them in the past paled into insignificance under this—this insult to his manhood. To his status as her husband.
Well, if his reluctant bride thought she could place the horns on him, she was much mistaken, he vowed in grim silence. Tomorrow he would go to fetch her home, and once he had her back she would not get away from him again. Because he would make very sure that from then on she would think of no one—want no one—but him. That she would be his completely.
And, he told himself harshly, he would enjoy every minute of it.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MARISA? My God, it is you. I can hardly believe it.’
The slender girl who’d been gazing abstractedly into a shop window swung round, her lips parting in astonishment as she recognised the tall, fair-haired young man standing behind her.
She said uncertainly, ‘Alan—what are you doing here?’
‘That should be my question. Why aren’t you sipping cappuccino on the Via Veneto?’
The million-dollar question …
‘Well, that can pall after a while,’ she said lightly. ‘And I began to fancy a cup of English tea instead.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘And what does Lorenzo the Magnificent have to say about that?’
The note of bitterness in his voice was not lost on her. She said quickly, ‘Alan—don’t …’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He looked past her to the display of upmarket baby clothes she’d been contemplating and his mouth tightened. ‘I gather congratulations must be in order?’
‘God, no.’ Marisa spoke more forcefully than she’d intended, and flushed when she saw his surprise. ‘I—I mean not for me. A girl I was at school with, Dinah Newman, is expecting her first, and I want to buy her something special.’
‘Well, you seem to have come to the right place,’ Alan said, inspecting a couple of the price tickets with raised brows. ‘You need to be the wife of a millionaire banker to shop here.’ He smiled at her. ‘She must be quite a friend.’
‘Let’s just say that I owe her,’ Marisa said quietly.
I owe her for the fact that she recommended me to Corin Langford, so that I’m now gainfully employed instead of totally dependent on Renzo Santangeli. And for not asking too many awkward questions when I suddenly turned up in London alone.
‘Do you have to do your buying right now?’ Alan asked. ‘I just can’t believe I’ve run into you like this. I was wondering if we could have lunch together.’
She could hardly tell him that her lunch hour was coming to an end and it was time she went back to her desk at the Estrello Gallery. She had already instinctively slid her betrayingly ringless left hand into the pocket of her jacket.
Meeting Alan again was a surprise for her too, she thought, but tricky when she had so many things to conceal.
‘Sorry.’ Her smile was swift and genuinely apologetic. ‘I have to be somewhere in about five minutes.
‘At your husband’s beck and call, no doubt.’
She hesitated. ‘Actually, Renzo’s—away at the moment.’
‘Leaving you alone so soon?’
Marisa shrugged. ‘Well, we’re hardly joined at the hip.’ She tried to sound jokey.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I can imagine.’ He paused. ‘So, what do grass widows do? Count the hours until the errant husband returns?’
‘Far from it,’ she said crisply. ‘They get on with their own lives. Go places and see people.’
‘If that’s true,’ he said slowly, ‘maybe you’d consider seeing me one more time.’ His voice deepened urgently. ‘Marisa—if lunch is impossible meet me for dinner instead—will you? Eight o’clock at Chez Dominique? For old times’ sake?’
She wanted to tell him that the old times were over. That they’d died the day he had allowed himself to be shunted out of her life and off to Hong Kong, because he hadn’t been prepared to fight for her against a man who was powerful enough to kill his career with a word.
Not that she could altogether blame him, she reminded herself. Their romance had been at far too early a stage to command the kind of loyalty and commitment that she’d needed. It had only amounted to a few kisses, for heaven’s sake. And it was one of those kisses that had brought their relationship to a premature end—when Alan had been caught saying goodnight to her by Cousin Julia.
That tense, shocking night when she’d finally discovered what the future really had in store for her.
If Alan had really been my lover, she thought, I wouldn’t have been a virgin bride, and therefore there’d have been no marriage to Renzo. But I—I didn’t realise that until it was too late. Alan had already left, and, anyway, did I ever truly care enough for him to give myself in that way?
She concealed a shiver as unwanted memories stirred. Lingered disturbingly. ‘Alan—about tonight—I don’t know … And I really must go now.’
‘I’ll book the table,’ he said. ‘And wait. Everything else is up to you.’
She gave him an uncertain smile. ‘Well, whatever happens, it’s been good to see you again.’ And hurried away.
She was back at the gallery right on time, but Corin was hovering anxiously nevertheless, the coming session with his lawyers clearly at the forefront of his mind.
‘He’s going through a difficult divorce,’ Dinah had warned her. ‘The major problem being that he’s still in love with his wife, whereas her only interest is establishing how many of his assets she can take into her new relationship. So he occasionally needs a shoulder to cry on.’ She’d paused delicately. ‘Think you can manage that?’
‘Of course,’ Marisa had returned robustly. She might even be able to pick up a few pointers for her own divorce when it became legally viable, she’d thought wryly. Except she wanted nothing from her brief, ill-starred marriage except her freedom. A view that she hoped Lorenzo Santangeli would share.
‘I’d better be off,’ Corin said, then paused at the doorway. ‘If Mrs Brooke rings about that watercolour …’
‘The price remains exactly the same.’ Marisa smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry—I won’t let her argue me down. Now go, or you’ll be late.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and sighed heavily. ‘I suppose so.’
She watched him standing on the kerb, raking a worried hand through his hair as he hailed a cab. And he had every reason to appear harassed, she mused. The former Mrs Langford had not only demanded the marital home, but was also claiming a major share in the gallery too, on the grounds that her father had contributed much of the initial financial backing.
‘My father and hers were friends,’ Dinah had confided. ‘And Dad says he’d be spinning in his grave if he knew what Janine was up to. If she gets her hands on the Estrello it will be closed, and Corin will be out by the end of the year.’
‘But it’s very successful,’ Marisa pointed out, startled. ‘He’s a terrific businessman, and his clients obviously trust him.’
Dinah snorted. ‘You think she cares about that? No way. All she can see is a valuable piece of real estate. As soon as her father died she was badgering Corin to sell, and when he wouldn’t she decided to end the marriage—as soon as she found someone to take his place.’ She added, ‘He doesn’t deserve it, of course. But—as the saying goes—nice guys finish last.’
Yes, Marisa had thought bitterly, and bastards like Lorenzo Santangeli spend their lives in pole position. There’s no justice.
Feeling suddenly restive, she walked over to her desk and sat down, reaching determinedly for the small pile of paperwork that Corin had left for her. It might not be much, she thought wryly, but at least it would stop her mind straying down forbidden pathways.
The afternoon wasn’t particularly busy, but it was profitable, as people came in to buy rather than simply browse. A young couple seeking a wedding present for friends bought a pair of modern miniatures, Mrs Brooke reluctantly agreed to buy the watercolour at full price, and an elderly man eventually decided to acquire a Lake District landscape for his wife’s birthday.
‘We went there on our honeymoon,’ he confided to Marisa as she dealt with his credit card payment. ‘However, I admit I was torn between that and the wonderful view of the Italian coastline by the same artist.’ He sighed reminiscently. ‘We’ve spent several holidays around Amalfi, and it would have brought back a lot of happy memories.’ He paused. ‘Do you know the area at all?’
For a moment Marisa’s fingers froze, and she nearly bodged the transaction. But she forced herself to concentrate, smiling stiltedly as she handed him his card and receipt. ‘I have been there, yes. Just once. It—it’s incredibly beautiful.’
And I wish you had bought that painting instead, because then I would never—ever—have to look at it again.
She arranged a date and time for delivery of his purchase, and saw him to the door.
Back at her desk, entering the final details of the deal into the computer, she found herself stealing covert looks over her shoulder to the place on the wall where the Amalfi scene was still hanging.
It was as if, she thought, the artist had also visited the Casa Adriana and sat in its lush, overgrown garden on the stone bench in the shade of the lemon tree. As if he too had looked over the crumbling wall to where the rugged cliff tumbled headlong down to the exquisite azure ripple of the Gulf of Salerno far below.
From the moment she’d seen the painting she’d felt the breath catch painfully in her throat. Because it was altogether too potent a reminder of her hiding place—her sanctuary—during those seemingly endless, agonising weeks that had been her honeymoon. The place that, once found, she’d retreated to each morning, knowing that no one would be looking for her, or indeed would find her, and where she’d discovered that solitude did not have to mean loneliness as she shakily counted down the days that would decide her immediate fate.
The place that she’d left each evening as sunset approached, forcing her to return once more to the cold, taut silence of the Villa Santa Caterina and the reluctant company of the man she’d married, to dine with him in the warm darkness at a candlelit table on a flower-hung terrace, where every waft of scented air had seemed, in unconscious irony, to breathe a soft but powerful sexuality.
And where, when the meal had finally ended, she would wish him a quiet goodnight, formally returned, and go off to lie alone in the wide bed with its snowy sheets, praying that her bedroom door would not open because, in spite of everything, boredom or impatience might drive him to seek her out again.
But thankfully it had never happened, and now they were apart without even the most fleeting of contact between them any longer. Presumably, she thought, biting her lip, Renzo had taken the hint, and all that remained now was for him to take the necessary steps to bring their so-called marriage to an end.
I should never have agreed to it in the first place, she told herself bitterly. I must have been mad. But whatever I thought of Cousin Julia I couldn’t deliberately see her made homeless, especially with a sick husband on her hands.
She’d been embarrassed when Julia had walked into the drawing room that night and found her in Alan’s arms, but embarrassment had soon turned to outrage when her cousin, with a smile as bleak as Antarctica, had insisted that he leave and, in spite of her protests, ushered Alan out of the drawing room and to the front door.
‘How dared you do that?’ Marisa had challenged, her voice shaking when Julia returned alone. ‘I’m not a child any more, and I’m entitled to see anyone I wish.’
Julia had shaken her head. ‘I’m afraid not, my dear—precisely because you’re not a child any more.’ She’d paused, her lips stretching into a thin smile. ‘You see, your future husband doesn’t want any other man poaching on his preserves—something that was made more than clear when I originally agreed to be your guardian. So we’ll pretend this evening never happened—shall we? I promise you it will be much the best thing for both of us.’
There had been, Marisa remembered painfully, a long silence. Then her own voice saying, ‘The best thing? What on earth are you talking about? I—I don’t have any future husband. It’s nonsense.’
‘Oh, don’t be naive,’ her cousin tossed back at her contemptuously. ‘You know as well as I do that you’re expected to marry Lorenzo Santangeli. It was all arranged years ago.’
Marisa felt suddenly numb. ‘Marry—Renzo? But that was never serious,’ she managed through dry lips. ‘It—it was just one of those silly things that people say.’
‘On the contrary, my dear, it’s about as serious as it can get.’ Julia sat down. ‘The glamorous Signor Santangeli has merely been waiting for you to reach an appropriate age before making you his bride.’
Marisa’s throat tightened. She said curtly, ‘Now, that I don’t believe.’
‘It is probably an exaggeration,’ Julia agreed. ‘I doubt if he’s given you a thought from one year’s end to another. But he’s remembered you now, or had his memory jogged for him, so he’s paying us a visit in a week or two in order to stake his claim.’ She gave a mocking whistle. ‘Rich, good-looking, and a tiger in the sack, by all accounts. Congratulations, my pet. You’ve won the jackpot.’
‘I’ve won nothing.’ Marisa’s heart was hammering painfully. ‘Because it’s not going to happen. My God, I don’t even like him.’
‘Well, he’s hardly cherishing a hidden passion for you either,’ Julia Gratton said crushingly. ‘It’s an arranged marriage, you silly little bitch, not a love match. The Santangeli family need a young, healthy girl to provide them with the next generation, and you’re their choice.’
‘Then they’ll have to look elsewhere.’ Marisa’s voice trembled. ‘Because I’m not for sale.’
‘My dear child,’ Julia drawled. ‘You were bought and paid for years ago.’ She gestured around her. ‘How do you imagine we can afford to live in this house, rather than the one-bedroom nightmare Harry and I were renting when your parents died? Where did your school fees come from? And who’s been keeping the roof over our heads and feeding us all, as well as providing the money for your clothes, holidays and various amusements?’
‘I thought—you …’
‘Don’t be a fool. Harry edits academic books. He’s hardly coining it in. And now that he has multiple sclerosis he won’t be able to work at all for much longer.’
Marisa flung back her head. She said hoarsely, ‘I’ll get a job. Pay them back every penny.’