Читать книгу Modern Romance November 2016 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Cathy Williams - Страница 23

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BEHIND THE FLASHING blue and gold illuminations of the Eiffel Tower, the Parisian sky was dark and starless and the streets were quiet. Far below the windows of his offices, the river Seine looked cold and uninviting and Dante was lost in thought when he heard the door open behind him and someone walk in. He swivelled round in his chair to see his assistant standing there, a pointed expression on his face.

‘Yes, what is it, René?’ he questioned impatiently.

‘You are due at a drinks party at the Ritz...’ René looked down at his watch. ‘Ten minutes ago actually.’

Dante scowled. ‘Ring them. Tell them that I’ve been held up and unlikely to make it in time.’

‘I could do that, of course,’ said René carefully. ‘But it is the birthday party of the countess—and you know how much she wants you there.’

Dante leaned back. Yes, he knew. The whole world always wanted him, women especially. Except for one woman. His mouth hardened as he stared into space.

One woman. One infernal, infuriating woman who had made it clear that wanting him was the last thing on her particular wish list.

‘Is there...is there something wrong, boss?’

Dante glanced across the room, tempted to confide in his loyal assistant—not something he ever did usually. But then, he didn’t usually feel as if a heavy weight was pressing down hard on his heart, did he? Or his life seem as if there was something fundamental missing which made him feel only half complete. He shut his eyes. Had he imagined that the heartless way that the beautiful blonde had rejected him would have been enough to make him see sense? And that it would somehow be easy to forget her? Because if that was the case then it seemed that yet again he had been wrong, and he didn’t like being wrong.

He thought about the contradiction she’d been. The tender and passionate woman in his arms who had rapturously embraced the joys of sex. He remembered her childlike delight when he’d taken her to Shelter Island for breakfast. The way she’d charmed his grandfather and made his tomboy sister look like a million dollars. He thought about the crazy hope she’d awoken in his heart, along with the realisation that, suddenly, all the things he’d never dared dream of felt as if they could be possible with her. He remembered the trembling expression on her face when he’d asked her to marry him. The way she’d tried to blink back the sudden tears of joy as she looked at him.

And then?

Then...nothing. In a voice which was deathly quiet and a face devoid of emotion, she had told him she couldn’t marry him. She’d told him she didn’t love him when those words belied her every action. It didn’t make sense. He shook his head. None of it made sense. If she hadn’t been so innocent, he might have suspected the presence of another man. Though maybe that wasn’t such a crazy idea? She’d grabbed at the diamond ring quickly enough, hadn’t she? So maybe she wasn’t quite as naive as she seemed.

He watched as the lights on the tower turned to red, and then to gold. Perhaps he had been nothing but her stud—an alpha male chosen as the ideal candidate for her sexual initiation. Maybe the fact that he was a foreigner had allowed her to shed all her inhibitions—he knew some women were like that—when all along she’d intended to marry an English aristocrat of the same class as herself.

Once again, an unwanted streak of jealousy flooded through his veins like dark poison and he opened his eyes to find René looking at him with that same expression of concern. He thought about his assistant’s question and he realised that yes, something was very wrong and it was more to do with his own behaviour. Because since when had he taken to asking himself questions, without bothering to seek out the answers?

‘I need some information about a woman.’

‘Same woman as before?’ asked René innocently. ‘It wouldn’t happen to be a Miss Willow Hamilton, would it?’

‘As quickly as possible,’ said Dante impatiently.

‘Bien sûr.’ René’s lips twitched. ‘This is getting to be a bit of a habit if you don’t mind my saying so, boss.’

‘Well, I do mind.’ Dante glowered as he stood up and pulled off his tie. ‘I don’t pay you to give your opinion when it isn’t wanted. Have the car brought round and I will call at the countess’s party for a while. And will you please wipe that smug expression from your face, because it is starting to infuriate me.’

Dante was driven to the first arrondissement, to the glittering cocktail party being held in one of the famous hotel’s penthouse suites, but his heart wasn’t in it—nor in any of the stellar guests who were present. The countess was delectable, but she left him cold—as did the other women who smiled at him with open invitation in their eyes. He endured it for a while, then slipped away—and when he arrived at work early the following morning, it was to find René already in the office, with a look of triumph on his face.

‘I have the information you require,’ he said.

‘Go on.’

‘She is living in London...’

‘I already know that,’ interrupted Dante impatiently.

‘And she will be attending a fundraiser for the Leukaemia Society being held at the Granchester Hotel in London this Saturday.’ René paused, his dark eyes hooded. ‘You might also be interested to know that she has put her diamond engagement ring up for the charity auction.’

And for the first time in his life, Dante was speechless.

* * *

Willow looked up from behind the podium and for a moment there was complete silence in the large ballroom, before she spoke again. ‘And that is why I consider it such an honour to be your new patron.’

An expectant hush fell over the assembled throng and she drew in a deep breath, knowing that she had to get this right. ‘I wanted to give fellow sufferers hope, as well as supporting the fantastic new research which is taking place all over the world. I’m prepared to step out of the shadows and talk openly about what happened to me, instead of hiding it away. Because I’m better. And because, every day, there are more and more people like me, getting better. And I...’

Her words tailed off because, for a moment there, a trick of the light made her think she saw Dante standing at the back of the ballroom. She blinked, slightly impatient with herself. Was she now beginning to conjure him up from nowhere, so that he was about to become a constant presence in her daytime as well as her night-time thoughts?

‘I...’ She couldn’t remember what she had been saying and someone held a glass of water towards her, but she shook her head. She stared to where the man stood, her eyes drinking him in—registering every pore of his sensual face. It was him. Very definitely him. Because nobody in the world looked quite like Dante Di Sione. Tall and broad and strong and magnificent and somehow managing to dominate the entire room.

And she couldn’t allow herself to go to pieces at this point. Too many people were relying on her.

She fumbled around for the words which had been on the tip of her tongue and somehow managed to produce them. ‘I just want to say that I think you are all wonderful, and I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the silent auction has raised almost half a million pounds.’ She swallowed, and then smiled—a big smile which just grew and grew. ‘So thank you again from the bottom of my heart—for allowing me to give something back.’

The sound of clapping began and swelled, echoing loudly throughout the vast room as Willow stepped carefully down from the stage, her narrow silver dress not the easiest of garments to move around in. Now what did she do? She risked a glance to where Dante had stood, but he was no longer there and she felt her heart plummet. Of course he wasn’t there! She had dreamt him up. It had been a fantasy—nothing more. Why would he be here when he’d flown straight back to Paris and they hadn’t spoken since he had boarded his jet in New York, all those weeks ago?

‘Willow.’

The sound of his voice was unmistakable and her knees buckled, but even though his hand was instantly on her elbow and his strength seemed to flow straight into her, she shook herself free. Because she had to learn to live without him. She had to.

‘Dante,’ she said, but her voice sounded faint. ‘What are you doing here?’

His eyes were curious, but his tone was dry. ‘No ideas?’

She licked her lips. ‘You were in London?’

‘And happened to be passing? Yeah, you could say that.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘Is there anywhere quieter we can go to talk?’

She knew she should tell him that no, there wasn’t. She knew she ought to fetch her wrap and go outside to find a cab. Go home and forget she’d ever seen him. Her gaze travelled over his face and stayed fixed on the features she’d missed so much. His blue eyes. His sensual lips. The faint darkness which always lingered around his jaw. ‘There’s the hotel’s Garden Room,’ she croaked.

In silence they walked to the plant-filled bar, with its white baby grand piano tucked away in the corner. Dante immediately managed to commandeer a quiet table at the back of the room but Willow knew instantly that she’d made a mistake in her choice of venue. A big mistake. Because the air was filled with the scent of jasmine and gardenia—heady scent which seemed unbearably romantic, as did the soft music which the pianist was playing. And the flickering candlelight didn’t help. Maybe she could concentrate on her drink. Order some complicated cocktail with a cherry and an umbrella and give it her full attention.

But Dante waved the hovering waiter away and she guessed it was an indication of his charisma that he should be allowed to occupy the best table in the place without even ordering a drink.

She waited to hear what he would say and she tried to second-guess him, desperately trying to work out the right answers to whatever he was going to say. Trouble was, he asked the last question she wanted to hear. The one question she didn’t want to answer. She’d lied about this once before, but she had been stronger then. She’d been so certain it had been the right thing to do and she hadn’t been starved of his presence for almost five weeks, so that she could barely stop herself from reaching out to touch him.

‘Do you love me, Willow?’

She looked into his eyes—which were the colour of midnight in this candlelit room—and she opened her mouth to tell him no. But a rush of stupid tears filled her own eyes and prevented her from saying anything, and mutely, she found herself shaking her head.

‘Do you?’ he said again. ‘Just tell me, Willow. Say it out loud. That’s all I’m asking. Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll walk out of here and you’ll never see me again.’

She tried. For almost a minute she tried. Tried to force the words out of her mouth in the same way that you sometimes had to prise a stubborn Brazil nut from its shell. But the words wouldn’t come. They just wouldn’t come. At least, not the words she knew she should say. The other ones—the eager, greedy ones—they suddenly came pouring from her lips as if she had no control over them.

‘Yes,’ she burst out. ‘Yes, I love you. Of course I do. I didn’t want to. I still don’t want to. And I’m sorry. I don’t want to mess you around and I certainly don’t want to send out mixed messages. So it’s probably better if you forget everything I’ve just said. Because...because it can’t lead anywhere, Dante—it just can’t.’

His eyes narrowed, like someone who had just been presented with a locked room and was working out how best to open it without a key. ‘Do you want to tell me why?’

‘Because I can’t give you what you want,’ she whispered. ‘You told me you wanted marriage. And babies. Your grandfather told me that he longed for nothing more than to see the next generation of Di Siones.’

‘And?’

‘And I can’t promise you that. I had...’ She swallowed and licked her lips. ‘I had treatment for my illness before I started my periods and they said it’s possible—even likely—that I may not be able to have children.’

‘But you didn’t ever find out for sure?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I know it’s stupid, but I preferred to live in a state of not knowing. I guess I was too scared to confront it and I didn’t want yet another negative thing to define me. It seemed much easier to just bury my head in the sand.’ She shrugged and bit her lip. ‘But I suppose that’s difficult for you to understand.’

She didn’t know what she had expected but it hadn’t been for Dante to pick up her hand—her left hand—and to turn it over and study her palm as if he was able to read her future, before lifting his solemn gaze to hers.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not difficult at all, because all of us are sometimes guilty of not facing a truth which is too hard to take. I did it with my own brother—refused to accept that my reluctance to share him was what lay at the root of our rift. But listen to me very carefully, Willow—because you’re not thinking logically.’

Her blurry gaze fixed on his stern features. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There is always the chance that you or I can’t have a baby. That applies to every couple in the world until they try themselves. Unless you’re advocating putting all prospective brides and grooms through some kind of fertility test before they’re allowed to marry?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think even royal families adopt that strategy any more.’

‘Dante...’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You’ve had your say and now I’m having mine. Understand?’

Pressing her lips in on themselves, she nodded.

‘I love you,’ he said simply. ‘And the past few weeks have made me realise how much. Time spent away from you has only increased the certainty that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and only you.’ He placed a warning finger over her lips as they began to open. ‘With or without children of our own. Because children aren’t a deal-breaker. You not loving me would be the only deal-breaker. That’s the only thing which would stop me from wanting to marry you, and I’m afraid you’ve just signed your own fate by telling me that you do love me.’

Dazed, she stared at him. ‘Am I allowed to say anything yet?’

‘Only if you’re prepared to see sense and accept my proposal—unless you want me to go down on one knee in this very public place and ask you all over again, despite the fact that you’ve already auctioned off the first ring I gave you?’

‘No! No, please don’t do that. Don’t you dare do that.’

‘So you will marry me?’

‘It seems I have no choice!’

She was laughing but somehow she seemed to be crying at the same time and Dante was standing up and pulling her into his arms and wiping her tears away with his fingers, before kissing her in a way that made the last of her reservations melt away.

And when the picture of that ecstatic kiss made its way into the gossip columns of next day’s newspapers—with the headline Society Girl to Wed Notorious Playboy—Willow didn’t care. Because now she realised what mattered—the only thing which mattered. She was going to focus on what was truly important, and that was yet another thing Dante had taught her.

He’d taught her that love made you strong enough to overcome anything.

So she threw the newspaper down onto the carpet and turned to look at him, running her fingers over his olive skin and thinking how magnificent he looked in her bed.

Sleepily, he opened his eyes and gave a huge yawn as he glanced down at the bare hand which was currently inching its way up his thigh. ‘I guess we’d better go out and buy you another ring. Would you like that?’

‘I’d like that very much.’

‘But not a diamond.’ He smiled. ‘A rare grey pearl, I think.’

‘Mmm... That sounds perfect.’ She moved over him, skin against skin, mouth against mouth—and ripples of desire shivered over her as she felt his hardness pressing against her. ‘Just not now,’ she whispered indistinctly. ‘The ring can wait. But this can’t.’