Читать книгу Modern Romance December 2016 Books 1-4 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 10

CHAPTER ONE

‘I WANT YOU to do something for me.’

Natalia Di Sione smiled at her grandfather as she adjusted the blanket over his legs and sat down across from him. Even though it was the hottest part of a June day, Giovanni Di Sione still shivered slightly in the wind coming off the Long Island Sound.

‘Anything, Nonno,’ Natalia said, using the name she’d called him since she was a little girl.

Giovanni gave her a whimsical smile as he shook his head. ‘You are so quick to agree, Talia, yet you do not know what I am going to ask.’

‘You know I’d do anything for you.’ Giovanni had raised Talia and her siblings after her parents had died in a car accident when she, as the youngest of seven, had been little more than a baby. He was father, mother and grandfather rolled into one, and since she’d been living on the Di Sione estate with him for the last seven years, he was also the closest thing she had to a confidant and best friend.

She knew some of her older siblings had retained a little distance from their hardworking and sometimes remote grandfather, but in the last seven years Talia had embraced him wholly. He’d offered her refuge when she’d crawled back here, wounded in both body and mind. He’d been her salvation.

‘Anything, Talia?’ Giovanni asked, arching one eyebrow in wry challenge. ‘Even, perhaps, leave the estate?’

She laughed lightly. ‘Surely you wouldn’t ask me to do something as terrible as that.’ She pretended to shudder, although the truth was just the prospect of stepping foot outside the lavish gated estate made her insides clench in fear. She liked her ivory tower, the security of knowing she was protected, behind gates, safe. Because she knew what it was like not to feel safe, to feel as if your very life hung by a single, slender thread, and she refused ever to feel that way again...even if it meant living like a prisoner.

She left the villa at most only a few times a year, usually to visit one of her siblings or attend a private viewing at the occasional art exhibition nearby. She avoided cities and even Long Island’s Gold Coast’s small, well-heeled towns, and restricted travel to short jaunts in a chauffeured car.

When Giovanni suggested Talia get out more, she insisted she preferred a quiet life on the estate, with its sprawling villa, rolling manicured lawns and the winking blue of the Long Island Sound in the distance. Why, she teased her grandfather, did she need to go anywhere else?

Giovanni was kind enough not to push. Yet Talia knew he was concerned about her isolation, even if he never said it. She saw how worry often shadowed his eyes or drew his bushy eyebrows together as he watched her pottering about the villa.

‘You know I do not have long left, Talia,’ Giovanni said now, and she merely nodded, not trusting her voice. A few months ago Giovanni had been given a year to live. Considering he was ninety-eight years old and had already beaten cancer once, nearly twenty years ago, a year was a long time. But it wasn’t long enough for Talia.

She couldn’t imagine the villa without Giovanni, his gentle smiles and wise words, his often silent yet steady presence. The huge, elegant rooms would seem emptier than ever, the estate yawning in all directions, inhabited only by her and its skeleton staff. She hated the thought, and so her mind skittered away from it.

‘So what would you like me to do?’ Talia asked. ‘Paint your portrait?’ For the last few years she had built up a small but thriving career painting portraits. For her twenty-first birthday Giovanni had given her a studio on the grounds of the estate, a small, shingled building with a glorious view of the Sound. Clients came to her studio to sit for their portraits, and she enjoyed the social interaction as well as the creative work, all in the secure environment she craved.

‘A portrait?’ Giovanni chuckled. ‘Who would like to see an old man such as me? No, cara, I’d like something else. I’d like you to find something for me.’ He sat back in his chair, his gnarled hands folded in his lap, and watched her, waiting.

‘Find something?’ Talia leaned forward, surprised and curious, as well as more than a little apprehensive. She recognised that knowing gleam in her grandfather’s eyes, the way he went silent, content to let her be the one to ask. ‘Have you lost something, Nonno?’

‘I have lost many things over the years,’ Giovanni answered. Talia heard a touch of sad whimsy in his voice, saw how his face took on a faraway look. A faint smile curved his mouth, as if he was remembering something sweet or perhaps poignant. Then he turned back to Talia. ‘I want you to find one of them. One of my Lost Mistresses.’

Talia knew about Giovanni’s Lost Mistresses; it was a tale cloaked in mystery that she’d grown up on: a collection of precious objects that Giovanni had carried with him into the new world, when he’d emigrated from Italy as a young man. He’d been forced to sell them off one by one to survive, although he’d loved them all dearly. He’d always refused to say any more than that, claiming an old man must have some secrets. Talia suspected Giovanni had many secrets, and now, with a flicker of curiosity, she wondered if he would tell her at least one of them.

‘One of your Lost Mistresses?’ she repeated. ‘But you’ve never actually said what they are. Which one is it?’

‘A book, a very special book, and one that will be very difficult to find.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘And you think I can find it?’

‘Yes, I do. I trust your intelligence and ingenuity, Talia. Your creativity. It shines from your soul.’

She laughed and shook her head, embarrassed and touched. Her grandfather did not often speak so sentimentally, but she knew that the years weighed on him now and she suspected he felt the need to say things he’d kept hidden for so long.

‘What kind of book?’ she asked.

‘A book of love poems, written by an anonymous poet from the Mediterranean. It is called Il Libro d’Amore.’

‘The Book of Love,’ Talia translated. ‘Are there many copies of it available?’

‘A handful perhaps, but the one I possessed was unlike any other, a first edition with a cover of hand-tooled leather. It is truly unique.’

‘And yet you think I can find it?’ Talia said, doubt creeping into her voice. She’d been envisioning doing a quick Internet search, maybe tracking the book down through a used book dealer. But of course Giovanni could do that himself. He’d bought a tablet years ago, and innovative entrepreneur that he’d always been, he regularly surfed the Internet.

But of course he wanted her to do something far more difficult. Something far more important. And she knew she didn’t want to let him down.

Her grandfather hadn’t asked much of her over the years; he’d graciously given her her own private living quarters on his estate when she’d been just nineteen years old and barely able to cope. He’d never pushed her too hard to get out or to try new things, and he’d made her career as an artist possible without ever having to leave the villa. She owed a lot to her nonno.

‘Yes, I want you to find that particular book,’ he said, smiling sadly. ‘There is an inscription on the inside cover: “Dearest Lucia, For ever in my heart, always. B.A.”’ His voice choked a little and he looked down, blinking rapidly, before he gazed back up at Talia with his usual whimsical smile. ‘That is how you will know it is the right one.’

‘Who is Lucia?’ Talia felt oddly moved by the inscription, as well as her grandfather’s obvious and unusual emotion. ‘And who is B.A.? Were they friends of yours?’

‘You could say that, yes. They were very dear to me, and they loved each other very much.’ Giovanni sat back, adjusting the blanket over his legs, his face pale. Talia had been noticing how easily he tired lately; clearly their conversation had worn him out. ‘But that,’ Giovanni said, a note of finality in his voice, ‘is a story for another time.’

‘But what happened to the book?’ Talia asked. ‘Did you sell it when you reached America?’

‘No, I never took it to America. I left it behind, and that is why it will be difficult to find. But I think you are capable, Talia. Even if finding it may take you on a journey in more ways than one.’

‘A journey...’ Talia pressed her lips together. She was pretty sure that finding this book was her grandfather’s way of getting her off the estate, out into life. She knew he’d been wanting her to spread her wings for some time now, and she’d always resisted, insisted she was happy here on the estate. How could she not be? She had everything she wanted right here. She didn’t need more, didn’t want adventure or excitement. Not as she once had.

Because look where that had got her.

‘Nonno...’ she began, and Giovanni shook a finger at her in gentle admonition.

‘You are not going to refuse an old man a dying wish?’

‘Don’t say that—’

‘Cara, it’s true. And I wish to have this book very much. To turn its fragile pages and read of how love surpasses any glory, any tragedy...’ His voice choked once more and Talia bit her lip as guilt flooded through her.

How on earth could she even consider refusing her grandfather’s request, all out of her own selfish fear? How could she say no to Giovanni, her nonno who had taken care of her since she was a baby? Who had been as both mother and father, and lived with her these last seven years, accepting her limitations, loving her anyway?

‘I’ll try, Nonno,’ she said finally, and Giovanni leaned forward to rest his bony hand on top of hers.

‘I know you will, cara,’ he said, his voice hoarse as he smiled at her. ‘I know you will try your hardest. And you will succeed.’

* * *

‘There is one more woman to see you, Kyrie Mena.’

Angelos Mena looked up from his desk and the stack of CVs he’d scanned and then discarded. None of the young women he’d interviewed that afternoon had been remotely appropriate for the position. In fact, he suspected they’d been more interested in cosying up to him than getting to know his daughter, Sofia, just as the last three nannies had been.

His mouth thinning in disgust, he ran his hand through his hair and then shook his head. ‘One more? But that should be all.’ He tapped the discarded pile of papers on his desk. ‘I have no more CVs.’

His assistant, Eleni, spread her hands in helpless ignorance. ‘She has been waiting here for several hours, saying she needs to see you.’

‘She has tenacity, then, at least.’ He pushed away from the desk. ‘You might as well send her in.’

With a click of heels Eleni left his office and Angelos rose to stand by the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked Athens. Tension knotted the muscles of his shoulders and made his temples throb. He really hadn’t needed the complication of his new nanny delaying her start by six weeks. Finding an acceptable temporary replacement was a challenge he did not relish, especially considering that not one of the dozen women he’d interviewed today had been suitable.

Some had had experience, yes, but when he’d called Sofia in to see if his daughter approved, she’d resisted the women’s cloying attempts at friendship. Even Angelos had been able to see how patently false they were. He’d noticed how several of the women hadn’t wanted to look at Sofia; several others had stared. Both reactions had made his daughter shrink back in shame, and the injustice of it made Angelos seethe with fury. His daughter had nothing to be ashamed about.

Not like he did.

‘Mr Menos?’

Angelos turned around to see a slender young woman standing in the doorway. She looked pale but resolute, her sandy brown hair tousled, the simple pink cotton sundress she wore hopelessly wrinkled. Angelos frowned at the sight of her dishevelment. Clearly she did not dress to impress.

‘And you are?’ he asked, his tone deliberately curt.

‘I’m sorry...um...signomi...but I don’t speak...den...uh...milau...’ She stammered, a flush washing over her face, making her hazel eyes seem luminous in her freckled, heart-shaped face.

‘You don’t speak Greek?’ Angelos finished for her in flawless, clipped English. ‘And yet my daughter’s only language is Greek. How...interesting, Miss...?’ He arched an eyebrow, smiling coldly. He did not have time for another completely unsuitable candidate to witter her way through an interview. Better to have her scurry away now.

‘Miss Natalia Di Sione,’ the woman said. She straightened her spine, fire flashing in those golden-green eyes, surprising Angelos. The woman had spirit. ‘And actually, your daughter does speak a bit of English, if you are referring to the young girl who has been sitting outside the office all afternoon.’

Angelos’s eyebrows snapped together. ‘You have been talking to her?’

‘Yes.’ She eyed him uncertainly, the tip of her tongue coming out to moisten her lips. Angelos acknowledged the tiny gesture with an uncomfortable tightening in his insides that he resolutely ignored. ‘Was I not supposed to?’

‘That is neither here nor there.’ He tapped the pile of CVs on his desk. ‘You have not provided me with a CV, Miss Di Sione.’

‘A CV?’ She looked blank and irritation rose within him. She was clearly unsuitable and hopelessly unprepared. A change from the hard polish of the last few candidates, but irritating nonetheless.

‘I am afraid I do not have time to indulge you, Miss Di Sione,’ he said. ‘You are clearly completely unsuitable for the position.’

‘The position...’ For a moment she looked utterly flummoxed, her forehead crinkling, her mouth pursing. Angelos moved from around his desk and towards the door. As he passed her he caught a whiff of her scent, something clean and simple. Almonds, perhaps. He reached for the door handle. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Di Sione, but I prefer you don’t waste mine.’

‘But I haven’t even talked to you yet,’ she protested, turning around to face him. She tucked her unruly hair behind her ears, drawing his attention to the long, golden-brown strands, her small, perfectly formed ears.

Good grief. He was staring at her ears. What was wrong with him?

His gaze dropped from her ears to the shoulders that she’d thrown back, and now he noticed her slender yet gently curving body. He yanked his gaze back upwards to her face and determinedly kept it there.

‘I’ve learned enough from our brief conversation. You have no CV, you wear a crumpled dress to a job interview—’

‘I just got off a plane,’ she shot back, and her gaze widened. ‘A job interview...’

‘You are here,’ Angelos bit out, sarcasm edging every word, ‘to interview for the temporary position as nanny?’

‘Nanny? To your daughter?’

‘Who else?’ Angelos exploded, and she nodded quickly.

‘Of course, of course. I... I apologise for not having my CV with me.’ The tip of her tongue touched her lips again and Angelos looked away. ‘I only heard about this...position recently. Could you...could you tell me exactly what it entails?’

He frowned, wanting to dismiss her, needing to, because he knew she was completely unsuitable. And yet...something about her clear gaze, the stiffness of her spine, made him hesitate. ‘You would care for my eight-year-old daughter, Sofia. The nanny I hired has had to look after her ill mother, and she cannot start until the end of August. Therefore I require a replacement for the six weeks until then. This was all in the advertisement?’

She nodded slowly, her hazel eyes wide, sweeping him with that unsettlingly clear gaze. ‘Yes, of course. I remember now.’

His breath released in an impatient hiss. ‘Do you have any child-care experience, Miss Di Sione?’

‘Please, call me Talia. And the answer to that is no.’

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘None?’ She shook her head, her wavy hair falling about her face once more. She tucked it behind her ears, smiling at him almost impishly, and Angelos’s simmering temper came to a boil. She had an unfortunate amount of gall to demand an interview with absolutely no experience to recommend her. He shook his head. ‘You are, as I suspected from the moment you entered this office, wasting my time.’

Talia Di Sione blinked, recoiling a little bit at his tone. Angelos felt no sympathy. Why had the woman come here? She had no CV, no experience, no chance whatsoever. Surely she should have realised that.

‘Perhaps you should ask your daughter if I wasted her time,’ she said quietly, and then Angelos stilled.

* * *

Talia watched Angelos Mena’s pupils flare, his mouth tighten. Animosity and impatience rolled off the man in waves, along with something else. Something disturbing...a power like a magnetic force, making her realise how dangerous this man could be. And yet she didn’t feel remotely threatened, despite all the challenges she’d faced today, leaving her emotionally raw and physically exhausted.

Angelos folded his arms, the fabric of his suit stretching across impressive biceps. If he didn’t look so utterly forbidding, Talia would have considered Angelos Mena a handsome man. Actually, she would have considered him a stunning, sexy and potently virile man. His tall, powerful body was encased in that very expensive-looking suit, and the silver and gold links of a designer wristwatch glinted from one powerful wrist. Crisp dark hair cut very short framed a chiselled face with straight slashes of eyebrows and deep brown eyes that had been glowering at her like banked coals for the entirety of this unfortunate interview.

Not that she’d been expecting to be interviewed. She’d been waiting outside Angelos Mena’s office for four hours, hoping for a chance to meet him and ask him about Il Libro d’Amore. It had taken her several weeks of painstaking research to track down the precious book to the man standing in front of her, and she still wasn’t positive he had it in his possession. The Internet had taken her only so far, and when she’d called Mena Consultancy several times she’d been unable to reach the man himself. She’d left a few vague messages with his PA, wanting to explain what she was looking for in an actual conversation, but judging by Angelos Mena’s attitude now, she didn’t think he’d received any of them. Her name clearly hadn’t rung any bells, and it had only taken ten seconds in the man’s presence to realise that a simple conversation probably wouldn’t get her very far.

But was she really going to try to be hired as Angelos Mena’s daughter’s nanny?

‘I’ll go get her,’ he said in a clipped voice, and as he strode out of the room Talia sank into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Her knees were shaking and her head throbbed. Getting this far had taken all of her physical and mental resources. Nine hours in a plane, sweating and shaking the whole time, and then wandering through the crowded streets of Athens, flinching every time someone so much as jostled her shoulder, fighting back the memories she never let herself think about, the ones that could bring bile to her throat and send her heart rate crashing in panic.

It had been utterly exhausting. And yet... Talia rose from the chair and went to the huge window that overlooked the city. In the distance she could see the crumbling ruins of the ancient Acropolis underneath a hard blue sky, and the sight was powerful enough to make her feel a flicker of awe, a lick of excitement. For a second she could remember how it had felt to be eighteen years old and full of hope and vigour, the whole world stretched out in front of her, shimmering with promise, everything an enticing adventure...

‘Miss Di Sione?’

Talia whirled around, flushing guiltily at the look of disapproval on Angelos Mena’s face. Should she not have looked out the window? Goodness but the man was tightly wired.

‘This is Sofia.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Talia stepped towards the slight girl who blinked owlishly from behind her glasses. Her dark, curly hair framed a lovely, heart-shaped face; most of her right cheek was covered in the puckered red flesh of a scar. While waiting outside Talia had noticed how the girl would let her hair fall in front of her face to hide it, and her heart had twisted with sympathy. She knew what it was like to have scars. It just happened that hers were invisible.

‘Hello, Sofia,’ she said now, smiling, and just as before the girl bent her head forward so her hair slid in front of her face. Angelos frowned.

No, actually, he glowered. Talia quelled at the scowl on his face, and she could only wonder what his daughter felt. She’d watched Sofia covertly as she’d waited to see Angelos; she’d seen how the girl’s gaze followed each woman into the office, and then how her shoulders had slumped when each woman had come out again, usually looking annoyed or embarrassed or both. A couple of times Sofia had been ushered in, and Talia had watched how her slight body had trembled and she’d gripped her hands together, her knuckles showing bony and white, as she’d stepped into that inner sanctum.

After about an hour of waiting, Talia had tried to befriend her. She’d shown her the pad of paper and pack of coloured pencils she always kept in her bag, and for fun she’d done a quick sketch of one of the women who had been waiting, exaggerating her face so she was a caricature, but still recognisable. When Sofia had recognised the woman with her beaky nose and protuberant eyes, hands like claws planted on bony hips, she’d let out a little giggle, and then clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and panicked.

Talia had grinned at her, reassuring and conspiratorial, and slowly Sofia had relaxed, dropping her hand and then pushing the pad of paper towards Talia, silently inviting her to draw another sketch. And so she had.

They’d whiled away a pleasant hour with Talia doing sketches of as many of the women as she could remember before she’d handed the pencils to Sofia and encouraged her to draw something.

Sofia had sketched a sunset, a stretch of golden sand and a wash of blue water.

‘Lovely,’ Talia had murmured.

‘Spiti,’ she’d said, and when Talia had looked blank, she’d translated hesitantly, ‘Home.’

‘Sofia?’ Angelos said now, his tone sharpening. He rested a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, gentle yet heavy, and spoke in Greek to her.

Sofia looked up, smiling shyly. ‘Yassou.’

Angelos spoke again in Greek and then glanced pointedly at Talia. ‘I am telling my daughter that you do not know Greek.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Talia replied lightly. ‘She already knows. We’ve been miming for most of the afternoon, but we’ve managed to get along. And Sofia knows more English than you think, Mr Mena.’

‘Kyrie Mena,’ he corrected, and she nodded, only just keeping from rolling her eyes.

‘Kyrie,’ she agreed, and she didn’t need Angelos Mena’s wince to know she’d butchered the pronunciation.

Angelos spoke again in Greek to Sofia, and his daughter said something back in reply. Although Talia didn’t know what either of them was saying, she could feel both Angelos’s disapproval and Sofia’s anxiety. She stood there, trying to smile even as exhaustion crashed over her again.

What was she doing here, really? She’d come all this way to find her grandfather’s precious book, not interview for a nanny position. If she had any sense she’d stop this farce before it went any further, and explain to Angelos Mena the real reason why she’d come.

And then, no doubt, have him boot her out the door, and any chance to recover Giovanni’s book would be gone for ever.

Angelos was talking to Sofia again in Greek and Talia could feel her vision blur as the headache that had been skirting the fringes of her mind threatened to take over. The room felt hot, the air stale, and her legs were starting to tremble again.

‘Do you mind...’ she murmured, and sank into the chair, dropping her head into her hands as she took several deep breaths.

Angelos broke off his conversation with his daughter to enquire sharply, ‘Miss Di Sione? Are you all right?’

Talia took another deep breath as her vision started to swim.

‘Miss Di Sione?’

‘Talia,’ she corrected him. ‘And no, actually, I think I’m going to faint.’