Читать книгу Italian Maverick's Collection - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 76
ОглавлениеAFTERWARDS ELLIE ALWAYS remembered the day when things really started to happen, when the sky glowed, the universe trembled to its foundations and nothing was ever the same again.
It began gloomily, a cold February morning with the traffic in a jam, delaying her as she drove to work. Drumming her fingers against the steering wheel, she drew in sharp breaths of exasperation.
The world would call her a successful woman, a highly qualified lawyer employed by one of London’s most notable legal practices. To be late for work should have been beneath her. But it was happening.
When she finally arrived, Rita, her young secretary, greeted her with agitation.
‘The boss has been asking about you every minute.’
The boss was Alex Dallon, founder and head of Dallon Ltd. He was an efficient, demanding man, and it was no small achievement that Ellie had earned his favour.
‘Is he annoyed because I’m late?’ Ellie asked.
‘A bit. Signor Fellani called to say he was coming in this morning and Mr Dallon doesn’t have time to see him.’
‘I wasn’t aware that Signor Fellani had an appointment.’
‘No, but you know him. He just announces he’s coming.’
‘And we all have to jump to it,’ Ellie groaned.
‘I wouldn’t mind jumping for him,’ Rita declared longingly. ‘He’s gorgeous!’
‘That’s not the point,’ Ellie told her, severely but kindly. ‘Looks aren’t everything.’
‘His are,’ Rita sighed.
‘No man’s are,’ Ellie said firmly.
Rita’s response was a cynical look that Ellie understood. She knew exactly how she appeared to her secretary. Rita was a pretty, vivacious young woman with an eager interest in finding ‘the one’. Ellie was a successful, efficient woman in her late thirties, with no husband or lover. Rita would clearly see that as a fate to avoid. To her, a man as attractive as Leonizio Fellani was not merely a client, but a dream to sigh over.
Ellie could understand how naïve Rita could fall for him. He was a man nobody could overlook, in his early thirties, with black hair and dark eyes that drew instant attention. He had a tall, athletic build and moved with a masculine grace that drew many eyes towards him. His face, she conceded, was handsome, although too often marred by tension.
Just once she had seen him smile, and there had been a glimpse of the kinder man he might have been. But it was over in a moment as the unyielding side of his nature took over again.
She herself ignored male attractions. There had been moments in her past when she had weakened, which was how she thought of it. But things hadn’t worked out and she’d gathered her defences again.
Her appearance disappointed her. Her face was pleasant but not strikingly pretty. She possessed only one outstanding feature. Her hair. If she wore it long it could appear lush and wildly wavy. But she chose to scrape it back, tying the length into a bun at the back.
Businesslike, she often thought, regarding herself sadly in the mirror. Nobody is going to sigh over those looks.
She tended to judge herself severely. Many women would have envied her slender figure, but she considered herself too thin and overly angular. It was her nature to be realistic about her own lack of conventional attractions. Unlike Rita, she would never sigh over a handsome man like Signor Fellani.
He was an important client, wealthy, Italian, strong-minded. Curiosity had inspired Ellie to look up his name and she’d discovered that Leonizio meant ‘lion-like’. It suited his commanding ways, she reckoned.
He had made a fortune manufacturing shoes. His luxurious, elegant products sold all over the world, especially in the UK. Just across the road from Ellie’s office was a large store that sold them in great numbers.
His base was in Rome, but he employed this London firm to handle the divorce from his English wife. Alex Dallon liked Ellie to deal with this client often because her grandmother had been Italian and she had a basic knowledge of the language. Not that she ever needed to use it. Signor Fellani’s command of English was like everything else about him: precise and efficient.
‘Has there been any more mail from his wife’s lawyers?’ Ellie asked. ‘The last I heard was that she was refusing to budge about custody of their baby.’
‘But since she’s left him and the child hasn’t been born yet, she’s bound to get custody,’ Rita pointed out.
‘I’m not looking forward to telling him that. Anything significant in the mail?’
‘Not that I’ve seen so far, but I haven’t opened them all yet. I’ll check.’
She vanished and Ellie went to her desk. Taking out the Fellani file, she glanced quickly through the papers, reminding herself of the details.
Three years earlier, Signor Fellani had made a whirlwind marriage with Harriet Barker, an Englishwoman he’d met while she was on holiday in his native city, Rome. But after the initial excitement died the marriage had suffered. When Harriet finally discovered that she was pregnant she had left him, coming back to England.
He’d followed her, insisting that she return to him, and, when she refused, he’d demanded joint custody of the unborn child. This she also refused.
Harriet must be a woman of great courage, Ellie thought. Leonizio was an autocrat, a man who demanded obedience and knew how to get it. In their few meetings he had treated her with cool courtesy, but she had always sensed an underlying steeliness. To the wife who was defying him he might be terrifying, but perhaps that was why she was so determined to escape him.
Rita appeared in the doorway, holding out a letter.
‘He’s going to create merry hell when he reads this,’ she said.
Ellie read it with mounting dismay. It was from Harriet’s lawyers.
Your client must understand that he has no rights over this child, because it is not his. His wife left him because she had found another partner and become pregnant. Now a DNA test has proved that the child she is carrying is not her husband’s.
She is anxious to conclude the divorce as soon as possible so that she can marry the child’s father before the birth.
Please persuade Signor Fellani to see sense.
A copy of the paperwork for the DNA test was enclosed. There was no doubt that the baby had been fathered by the other man.
‘Oh, heavens!’ she sighed. ‘What a dreadful thing to have to tell him.’
‘Especially today,’ Rita said.
‘Why, what’s different about today?’
‘It’s Valentine’s Day. The day for lovers, when they celebrate the joy of their love.’
‘Oh, no!’ Ellie groaned. ‘I’d forgotten the date. You’re right. But he’s Italian. Perhaps they don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day in Italy. I hope not because that would really rub it in.’
A noise from outside made her glance through the window. She saw a taxi draw up, and Signor Fellani get out. She went to wait for him in her office, longing for this soon to be over.
A few moments later he appeared at her door, his face stern and purposeful.
‘I’m sorry to spring this meeting on you without warning,’ he said, ‘but something has happened that changes everything.’
Did that mean he already knew?
‘I went to see Harriet yesterday evening,’ he continued. ‘I believed we could talk things over properly; find a way to make a future together for the sake of our child. But she wasn’t there. She’s gone, and not left an address. Why? Why pick this moment to run away from me?’
So he didn’t know, Ellie realised, her heart sinking. The next few minutes were going to be terrible.
‘She obviously doesn’t feel able to talk,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you should just accept that it’s over.’
‘Over between her and me, but not between me and my child,’ he retorted swiftly.
She hesitated, dismayed at the disaster that was heading their way. Sensing her unease, he spoke more quietly.
‘You probably think I’m being unreasonable about this; pursuing a woman who doesn’t want me. Why don’t I just let her go? But it’s not that simple. I can let her go, but not the baby. There’s a connection there that nothing can break, and if she thinks she’s going to make me a stranger to my own child, she’s wrong. I’ll never let that happen.’
Ellie wanted to cry out, to make him stop at all costs. Never before had this hard man revealed his feelings so frankly, and her heart ached at the thought of how she was about to hurt him.
‘I need you to find her,’ he said. ‘Her lawyers won’t tell me where she is but you can get it out of them.’
‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t help,’ she said heavily.
‘Of course it would help. They tell you, you tell me, and I go to see her and make her stop this nonsense.’
‘No!’ Ellie clenched her fists. ‘It isn’t nonsense. I’m sorry, I hate to tell you this, but I have to.’
‘Tell me what?’
She took a deep breath and forced herself to say, ‘The baby isn’t yours.’
Silence. She wondered if he’d actually heard her.
‘What did you say?’ he asked at last.
‘She’s carrying another man’s child. I only found out myself just now. It’s all in this letter.’
She handed him the letter from his wife’s lawyer, and tried to read his expression as he read it. But his face was blank. At last he gave a snort.
‘So this is her latest trick. Does she think to fool me?’
‘It’s not a trick. She had a DNA test done and that proves it.’
‘A DNA test? But surely they can’t be done before the child is born? It’s too dangerous.’
‘That was true once. But recently new techniques have been developed, and it can be done safely while a baby is still in the womb.’
‘But they’d have needed to compare the child’s DNA with mine. I haven’t given a sample so they can’t have.’
‘They got a sample from the other man in her life and compared it with that,’ Ellie said. ‘The result was positive. I’m afraid there’s no doubt he’s the father. You’ll find it here.’
He took the paper she held out. Ellie tensed, waiting for the storm to break. This man couldn’t tolerate being defied, and the discovery of his soon-to-be ex-wife’s treachery would provoke an explosion of temper.
But nothing happened. A terrible stillness had descended on him as he stared at the message that meant devastation to all his hopes. The colour drained from his face, leaving it with a greyish pallor that might have belonged to a dead man.
At last he spoke in a toneless voice. ‘Can I believe the test?’
‘I know the lab that did it,’ she said. ‘They are completely reliable. I’m afraid it’s true.’
Suddenly he turned away and slammed his fist down on the desk.
‘Fool!’ he raged. ‘Fool!’
Her temper rose. ‘So you think I’m a fool for telling you what you don’t want to know?’
‘Not you,’ he snapped. ‘Me! To be taken in by that woman and her cheap tricks—I must be the biggest fool in creation.’
Her anger faded. His self-blame took her by surprise.
His back was still turned to her, but the angle of the window caught his face. It was only a faint reflection, but she managed to see that he had closed his eyes.
He was more easily hurt than she’d suspected. And his way of coping was to retreat deep inside himself.
But perhaps a little sympathy could still reach him. Gently she touched his arm.
‘I know this is hard for you,’ she began.
‘Nothing I can’t cope with,’ he said firmly, drawing away from her. ‘It’s time I was going. You know where I’m staying?’
‘Yes.’ She named the hotel.
‘Send my bill there and I’ll go as soon as it’s paid. Sorry to have troubled you.’
He gave her a brief nod and departed, leaving her feeling snubbed. One brief expression of sympathy had been enough to make him flee her. But then, she reflected, he hadn’t become a successful businessman by allowing people to get close. For his wife he’d made an exception, and it had been a shattering mistake.
Ellie got back to work, setting out his bill then working out a response to the lawyer’s letter. It took her a few minutes to write a conventional reply, but when she read it through she couldn’t be satisfied. Something told her that Signor Fellani would dislike the restrained wording.
Yet is there any way to phrase this that wouldn’t annoy him? she wondered. He seems to spend his whole life on the verge of a furious temper. Still, I suppose I can hardly blame him now.
She rephrased the letter and considered it critically.
I should have done this while he was here, she mused. Then I could have got his agreement to it. Perhaps I’d better go and see him now, and get this settled.
She went to find Rita.
‘I have to leave. I need to talk to Signor Fellani again. My goodness! Look at the weather.’
‘Snowing fit to bust,’ Rita agreed, glancing out of the window. ‘I don’t envy you driving in that.’
‘Nor do I. But it has to be done.’
She hurried outside to where her car was parked, and turned onto the route that led to the hotel. It was about a mile away, and the last hundred yards took her along the River Thames. Driving slowly because of the snow, she glanced at the pavement, and tensed at what she saw.
He was there by the wall, staring out over the river. A pause in the traffic gave her time to study him as he stood, wrapped in some private world, oblivious to his surroundings, unaware of the snow engulfing him.
She found a space to park, then hurried across the road to Leonizio.
‘Signore!’ she called. ‘I was on my way to your hotel. It’s lucky I happened to notice you here.’
He regarded her, and she had a strange sensation that he didn’t recognise her through the snow.
‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Your lawyer. We have business to discuss. My car’s waiting over there.’
‘Then we’d better go before you catch your death of cold.’
‘Or you catch yours,’ she retorted. ‘You’re soaking.’
‘Don’t bother about me. Let’s go.’
She led him across the road to where two cars were parked, one shabby, one new and clearly expensive. He headed for the shabby one.
‘Not that one,’ Ellie called, opening the door of the luxury vehicle. ‘Over here.’
‘This?’ he demanded in disbelief. ‘This is yours?’
Obviously he felt that the decrepit little wreck was more her style, she thought, trying not to be offended.
‘I like to own a nice car,’ she said coolly. ‘Get in.’
He did so, and sat in silence while she took the wheel and drove to the hotel. As she pulled into the car park he said, ‘You’re shivering. You got wet.’
‘I’ll be all right when I get home. But first I must come in and show you the letter I wrote to your wife’s lawyer.’
The Handrin Hotel was famed for its luxury, and as she entered it she could understand why. The man who could afford to stay here was hugely successful.
They took the elevator up to his opulent suite on the top floor. Now she could see him more clearly and was even more dismayed by his condition.
‘I’m not the only one who’s wet,’ she said. ‘You were standing too long in that snow. Your hair’s soaking. Better dry it at once, and change your clothes.’
‘Giving me orders?’ he asked wryly.
‘Protecting your interests, which is what I’m employed to do. Now get going.’
He vanished, reappearing ten minutes later in dry clothes. He handed her a towel and with relief she undid her hair, letting it fall about her shoulders so that she could dry it. When he joined her on the sofa she handed him the bill, and the letter she planned to write to his wife’s lawyer.
‘I suppose I’ll have to agree to it,’ he said at last. ‘It doesn’t say what I really think, but it might be better not to say that too frankly.’
‘You’d really like to commit murder, wouldn’t you?’ she said.
He regarded her with wry appreciation.
‘A woman who understands me. You’re perfectly right, but don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid. You won’t have to defend me in court.’
His grin contained a rare glimpse of real humour which she gladly returned, enjoying the sensation of suddenly connecting with him in both thoughts and feelings.
‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I’d be up to that task.’
‘Oh, I think you’d be up to anything you set your mind to. Can I offer you a drink?’
Ellie knew she should refuse; she should get this meeting over and done with as quickly as possible. But she still had to get his agreement to send the letter. And she was freezing. A hot drink would be very welcome.
‘I’d love a cup of tea, please.’
He called Room Service and placed an order. While they waited she watched while he read through the papers again.
‘How do you feel about the answer I planned to send to your wife’s lawyer?’ she said.
‘It’s a damned sight too polite. But you haven’t sent it yet?’
‘No. I thought we should talk first.’
‘And what are you going to advise me to do?’
‘Go ahead with the divorce as quickly as possible.’
‘So that she can marry the father and make the child legitimate? Her lawyer said that in his letter, didn’t he? And he told you to persuade me to ‘see sense’.
‘I wish he hadn’t said that—’
‘But that’s how lawyers think,’ he said bitterly. ‘Let my treacherous wife have her way, no matter what it does to me. That’s seeing sense, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t be unfair. I don’t see everything like that.’
‘I think you do. After all, you’re a lawyer.’
‘Yours, not hers. If things were different we could try to make her see sense, but she’s pregnant by another man and there’s nothing to be done about it. The best advice I can offer you is to put her into the past and move on with your life.’
Before he could answer, the doorbell rang and he went to collect the delivery of tea and cakes. He laid the tray on a table near the sofa, sat down beside her and poured tea for her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I needed this.’
She sipped the hot tea, feeling better at once.
‘How come you were standing by the river?’ she asked. ‘Did the taxi drop you there?’
‘I didn’t take a taxi. I walked all the way. And don’t say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘In this weather? Are you mad? That’s what you’re thinking. It’s written all over your face.’
‘Then I don’t need to say it. But you’ve had a terrible shock. You were bound to go a bit crazy.’
‘Like I said before, I was a fool.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ she said gently. ‘You loved her—’
‘Which makes me an even bigger fool,’ he growled.
‘Perhaps. But it’s easy to believe someone if your heart longs to trust them.’
He looked at her with sudden curiosity. ‘You talk as though you really know.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve had my share of relationship traumas.’
‘Tell me,’ he said quietly.
Her disastrous emotional life wasn’t something she usually talked about, but with this man everything was different. The blow that had struck him down meant that he would understand her as nobody else understood. It was strange to realise that, but everything in the world was becoming different.
‘Romance hasn’t been a large part of my life,’ she said.
‘I guess your career comes first. Your car tells me that.’
It was true. The purchase of the glamorous vehicle had been one of her most delightful experiences.
‘But there has been something, hasn’t there?’ he said. ‘The path I’m treading is one you’ve travelled yourself.’
‘Yes. There was a time when I thought things were going to be different. I allowed myself to have feelings for him and I thought he—well, it just didn’t work out.’
‘Didn’t he love you?’
‘I thought so. We seemed good together, but then he met this other woman—she was a great beauty. Long blonde hair, voluptuous figure—I didn’t stand a chance.’
‘And that was all he cared about? Looks?’
‘So it seemed. Isn’t that what all men care about?’
‘Some. Not all.’ He gave a brief cynical laugh. ‘Some of us can see beyond looks to the person beneath: cold and self-centred or warm and kindly. Didn’t this man see your warmer side? I can see it.’
‘He didn’t think it mattered, unless he could make use of it.’
She made a wry face. ‘You said I’d travelled this road before you, and you were right. I don’t normally talk about it, but at least now you know that this isn’t just a lawyer “seeing sense”. I really do have some idea of what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to be lied to, and to wonder afterwards how I could have been so naïve as not to see through it. But if you don’t want to see through it—’ She sighed.
‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘If you don’t want to face the truth, there’s a great temptation to ignore it. You have to beware of that in business, and I suppose it’s true of life as well.’
It was the last thing she had expected him to admit, but something about him had changed. He was speaking with a self-awareness that made him seem more pleasant. It was almost like talking to a different man, a kindly one who felt for her own pain as well as his own.
‘I know this is all very hard for you,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll get through it.’ But suddenly his voice changed, became weary. ‘Oh, hell, who am I kidding? Can I call this managing? What she’s done has destroyed the world. I wanted to be a father, to have someone who was really mine. My parents died when I was a child. I was adopted by an uncle and aunt who treated me properly but—well, we were never really close. I believed my wife and I were close, but that proved to be an illusion.
‘Now I realise she was already sleeping with another man, but I never thought of it. Then, suddenly she was gone, demanding a divorce on the grounds that we were incompatible. I found out afterwards that she’d set spies on me to see if I had other women. But I hadn’t. I’d been boringly faithful, which must really have disappointed her.’
‘It certainly weakened her case,’ Ellie agreed.
He gave a grunt of mirthless laughter.
‘And she dumps this news on me on Valentine’s Day. She could hardly have timed it more cynically.’
‘Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day in Italy?’
‘A little. Not as much as you do in England, but enough to make me see the irony. The great day for lovers, except that it’s smothered in snow, both physically and—well, there’s more than one kind of snow.’
‘Yes, it couldn’t have worked out worse, could it?’ she said sadly. ‘I don’t suppose she thought of that—’
‘Of course not. She never thinks of anything except what suits her. But her pregnancy made it all different. The world changed. For the first time ever there was somebody who would be mine, connected to me in a way that nothing and nobody could deny. I told her that I couldn’t let her go. She made a dash for it and came to England because she must have thought divorce would be easier, since we married over here.
‘I followed her, determined to keep her, and if not her then at least my child. But now I learn that the baby’s not even mine—’
‘And I’m afraid it isn’t,’ Ellie murmured.
A tremor went through him. ‘Then I have nothing.’
The way he said ‘nothing’ made her want to reach out to him.
‘You think that now,’ she said gently, ‘but you’ll come through it. There’s always something else in life.’
‘Only if you want something else. What I want is my child. Mine and only mine.’
He spoke like a man used to bending the world to his will. But there was a blank despair in his face, as though even he knew that he couldn’t control this situation.
She guessed that such helplessness was alien to him, and he was finding it frustrating. He was used to giving orders, demanding total subservience, which was why this left him at a loss. Ironically, the strength he was used to wielding had undermined him now. She felt a surge of pity for him.
‘There are other things to care about,’ she urged. ‘You’ll find them.’
But he shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said softly. ‘Nothing.’
She gingerly placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘What will you do now?’ she asked.
He sighed.
‘Accept reality in a way I’ve never had to before.’ He frowned. ‘I’m good at arranging things the way I want, or at least persuading myself that I’ve done so.’ He made a wry face. ‘Meet the biggest self-deceiver in the world.’
‘No, you’re strong. And you’ll be strong now.’
‘Why are you so sure? You don’t know me.’
‘Do you know yourself?’
‘I guess not,’ he sighed. ‘Oh, heavens!’
He dropped his head into his hands. Touched, Ellie drew him closer, enfolding him in both arms, her instinct to offer comfort to him overwhelming. He raised his head so that their eyes met, hers gentle and tender, his full of confusion and despair.
‘That must be how it seems now,’ she said gently. ‘But your life isn’t over. You’ll meet someone who’ll love you and give you a child. And the two of you will be united in that child for ever.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ he whispered.
‘When the time comes it will be easy,’ she promised.
‘For other men perhaps. Not for me. I said I didn’t know myself, but I do know a few things. I know I can come across as overbearing, so that even if I like a woman she recoils from me.’
His words caused a pain in her heart. Driven by an impulse she barely understood, she took his face in her hands.
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said softly. ‘Life is treating you cruelly, not the other way around.’
‘How do I stand up to life and fight it back? And if I win, how will I know?’
‘You might never know. Sometimes the fight goes on for ever. But you don’t give in. There’s always something to fight for.’
A new look came into his eyes and he leaned forward until his mouth almost met hers.
‘Yes, there’s always something to fight for,’ he whispered.
The soft touch of his lips sent a tremor through her, then another, with such power and intensity that she had no choice but to return the caress. And then again, responding helplessly to the sweet excitement of the feeling.
‘Ellie,’ he murmured.
‘Yes—yes—’
She could not have explained what she was saying ‘yes’ to. She only knew that the desire to continue doing this had taken possession of her.
She felt his arms going around her tentatively, as though leaving the next move up to her. She returned the embrace, moving her mouth softly against his.
‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘Yes.’
Then his arms became stronger, his embrace more desperate, and she felt herself drawn into a new world.
