Читать книгу Hot Nights with...the Italian - Сара Крейвен, Lucy Gordon - Страница 7

‘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.’

‘Doing what?’ Julia demanded derisively. ‘Apart from this part-time course in fine arts you’re following at the moment, you’re trained for nothing except the career that’s already mapped out for you—as the wife of a multimillionaire and the mother of his children. It’s payback time, and you’re the only currency they’ll accept.’

‘I don’t believe it. I won’t.’ Marisa’s voice was urgent. ‘Renzo can’t have agreed to this. He—he doesn’t want me either. I—I know that.’

Julia’s laugh was cynical. ‘He’s a man, my dear, and you’re an attractive, nubile girl. He won’t find his role as bridegroom too arduous, believe me. He’ll fulfil his obligations to his family, and enjoy them too.’

Marisa said slowly, ‘That’s—obscene.’

‘It’s the way of the world, my child.’ Julia shrugged. ‘And life with the future Marchese Santangeli will have other compensations, you know. Once you’ve given Lorenzo his heir and a spare, I don’t imagine you’ll see too much of him. He’ll continue to amuse himself as he does now, but with rather more discretion, and you’ll be left to your own devices.’

Marisa stared at her. She said huskily, ‘You mean he’s involved with someone? He—has a girlfriend?’

‘Oh, she’s rather more than that,’ Julia said negligently. ‘A beautiful Venetian, I understand, called Lucia Gallo, who works in television. They’ve been quite inseparable for several months.’

‘I see.’ Instinct told Marisa that her cousin was enjoying this, so she did her best to sound casual. ‘Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t he marry her instead?’

‘Because she’s a divorcee, and unsuitable in all kinds of ways.’ She paused. ‘I thought I’d already indicated that Santangeli brides are expected to come to their marriages as virgins.’

Marisa said coolly, ‘But presumably the same rule doesn’t apply to the men?’

Julia laughed. ‘Hardly. And you’ll be glad of that when the time comes, believe me.’ Her tone changed, becoming a touch more conciliatory. ‘Think about it, Marisa. This marriage won’t be all bad news. You’ve always said you wanted to travel. Well, you’ll be able to—and first-class all the way. Or, with Florence on your doorstep, you could always plunge back into the art world. Create your own life.’

‘And that is supposed to make it all worthwhile?’ Marisa queried incredulously. ‘I allow myself to be—used—in return for a couple of visits to the Accademia? I won’t do it.’

‘I think you will,’ her cousin said with grim emphasis. ‘We’re Santangeli pensioners, my pet, all of us. Yourself included. We owe our lifestyle to their goodwill. And once you’re married to Lorenzo, that happy state of affairs will continue for Harry and myself. Because they’ve agreed that we can move out of London to a bungalow, specially adapted for a wheelchair, and employ full-time care when the need arises.’ For a moment her voice wavered. ‘Something we could never afford to do under normal circumstances.’

She rallied, her tone harsh again. ‘But if you try and back out now, the whole thing will crash and burn. We’ll lose this house—everything. And I won’t see Harry’s precarious future in jeopardy because a spoiled little brat who’s spent the past few years grabbing everything going with both hands, has suddenly decided the price is too high for her delicate sensibilities. Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, sweetie, so make the best of it.

‘And remember, a lot of girls would kill to be in your shoes. So, if nothing else, learn to be civil to him in the daytime, cooperate at night, and don’t ask awkward questions when he’s away. Even you should be able to manage that.’

Except I didn’t, Marisa thought wearily, shivering as she remembered the note of pure vitriol in her cousin’s voice. I failed on every single count.

She sighed. She’d fought—of course she had—using every conceivable argument against the unwanted marriage. She’d also spent the next few days trying to contact Alan, who had been strangely unavailable.

And when at last she had managed to speak to him on the phone, over a week later, she’d learned that he’d been offered a transfer, with promotion, to Hong Kong, and would be leaving almost at once.

‘It’s a great opportunity,’ he told her, his voice uncomfortable. ‘And totally unexpected. I could have waited years for something like this.’

‘I see.’ Her mind was whirling, but she kept her tone light. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t consider taking me with you?’

There was a silence, then he said jerkily, ‘Marisa—you know that isn’t going to happen. Neither of us are free agents in this. I know that strings were pulled to get me this job because you’re soon moving to a different league.’ He paused. ‘I don’t think I’m really meant to be talking to you now.’

‘No,’ she said, past the shocked tightness in her throat. ‘Probably not. And I—I quite understand. Well—good luck.’

After that it had been difficult to go on fighting, once her stunned mind had registered that she had no one to turn to, nowhere to go, and, as Julia had reminded her, barely enough academic qualifications to earn her a living wage.

But in the end she’d wearily capitulated because of Harry, the quiet, kind man who’d made Julia’s reluctant guardianship of her so much more bearable, and who was going to need the Santangeli generosity so badly, and so soon.

But if Renzo Santangeli believed she was going to fall gratefully at his feet, he could think again, she had told herself with icy bitterness.

It was a stance she’d maintained throughout what she supposed had passed for his courtship of her. Admittedly, with the result a foregone conclusion, he hadn’t had to try too hard, and she’d been glad of it, reflecting defiantly that the less she saw of him the better. But the fact remained that her avowed resolve had not actually been tested.

The only time she’d really been alone with him before the wedding, she thought, staring at the screensaver on her computer, was when he’d made that strange, almost diffident proposal of marriage, explaining that he wanted to make their difficult situation as easy as possible for her, and that he would force no physical intimacies on her until she’d become accustomed to her new circumstances and was ready to be his wife in every sense of the word.

And as far as their engagement went, he’d kept his word. She hadn’t been subjected to any unwelcome advances from him.

No doubt he’d secretly believed he wouldn’t have to wait too long, she decided, her mouth tightening. He’d been sure curiosity alone would undermine her determination to keep him at arm’s length, or further.

Well, he’d learned better during the misery of their honeymoon, and their parting at the end of it had come as a relief to them both. And, although he’d made various dutiful attempts to maintain minimal contact with her once she’d moved back to London, he clearly hadn’t seen any necessity to try and heal the rift between them in person. Not that she’d have allowed that, anyway, she assured herself hastily.

So, now he seemed to have tacitly accepted that, apart from the inevitable legal formalities, their brief, ill-starred marriage was permanently over. Soon he’d be free to seek a more willing lady to share the marital bed with him when he felt inclined—probably some doe-eyed Italian beauty with a talent for maternity.

Which would certainly please his old witch of a grandmother, who’d made no secret of her disapproval of his chosen match from the moment Marisa had arrived back in Italy under Julia’s eagle-eyed escort. Harry had not accompanied them, having opted to spend the time quietly at his sister’s home in Kent, but he’d announced his determination to fly out for the wedding in order to give the bride away.

But Renzo’s next wooing would almost certainly be conducted in a very different manner.

She’d wondered sometimes if it had been obvious to everyone that he’d rarely touched her, apart from taking her hand when making introductions. And that he’d never kissed her in any way.

Except once …

It had been during the dinner his father had given at the house in Tuscany for her nineteenth birthday, with a large ebullient crowd of family and friends gathered round the long table in the sumptuous frescoed dining room. She’d been seated next to him in her pale cream dress, with its long sleeves and discreetly square neckline, the epitome of the demure fidanzata, with the lustrous pearls that had been his birthday gift to her clasped round her throat for everyone to see and admire.

‘Pearls for purity,’ had been Julia’s acid comment when she saw them. ‘And costing a fortune too. Clearly he’ll be expecting his money’s worth on his wedding night.’

Was that the message he was intending to convey to the world at large? Marisa had wondered, wincing. She’d been sorely tempted to put the gleaming string back in its velvet box, but eventually she’d steeled herself to wear it, along with the ring he’d given her to mark their engagement—a large and exquisite ruby surrounded by diamonds.

She could not, she’d thought, fault his generosity in material matters. In fact she’d been astonished when she’d discovered the allowance he proposed to make her when they were married, and could not imagine how she’d spend even a quarter of it.

But then, as she had reminded herself, he was buying her goodwill and, as Julia had so crudely indicated, her body.

It was a thought that had still had the ability to dry her mouth in panic, especially with the wedding drawing closer each day.

Because, in spite of his promised forbearance, there would come a night when she would have to undergo the ordeal of submission to him. ‘Payback time’, as Julia had called it, and it scared her.

He scared her …

She had turned her head, studying him covertly from under her lashes. He’d been talking to the people across the table, his hands moving incisively to underline a point, his dark face vivid with laughter, and it had occurred to her, as swiftly and shockingly as a thunderbolt crashing through the ceiling, that if she’d met him that night for the first time she might well have found him deeply and disturbingly attractive.

His lean good looks had been emphasised by the severe formality of dinner jacket and black tie. But then, she’d been forced to admit, he always dressed well, and his clothes were beautiful.

But fast on the heels of that reluctant admission had come another thought that she’d found even more unwelcome.

That, only too soon, she would know what Renzo looked like without any clothes at all.

The breath had caught in her throat, and she’d felt an odd wave of heat sweep up over her body and turn her face to flame.

And as if he’d picked up her sudden confusion on some secret male radar, Renzo had turned and looked at her, his brows lifting in enquiry as he observed her hectically flushed cheeks and startled eyes.

And for one brief moment they had seemed caught together within a cone of silence, totally cut off from the chatter and laughter around them, his gaze meshing with hers, only to sharpen into surprise and—oh, God—amused awareness.

Making her realise with utter mortification that he’d read her thoughts as easily as if she’d had I wonder what he looks like naked? tattooed across her forehead.

He had inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement, the golden eyes dancing, his mouth twisting in mocking appreciation, and reached for the hand that wore his ring, raising her fingers for the brush of his lips, then turning them so he could plant a more deliberate kiss in the softness of her palm.

Her colour had deepened helplessly as she’d heard the ripple of delighted approbation from round the table, and she had known his gesture had been noted.

And she had no one to blame for that but herself, she’d thought, her heart hammering within the prim confines of the cream bodice as she had removed her hand from his clasp with whatever dignity she could salvage. She had known, as she did so, that the guests would be approving of that too, respecting what they saw as her modesty and shyness, when in reality she wanted to grab the nearest wine bottle and break it over his head.

When the dinner had finally ended, an eternity later, she’d been thankful that courtesy kept Renzo with the departing guests, enabling her to escape upstairs without speaking to him.

Julia, however, had not been so easily evaded.

‘So,’ she said, following Marisa into her bedroom and draping herself over the arm of the little brocaded sofa by the window. ‘You seem to be warming at last to your future husband.’

Marisa put the pearls carefully in their case. ‘Appearances can be deceptive.’

‘Then you’re a fool,’ her cousin said bluntly. ‘He may be charming, but underneath there’s one tough individual, and you can’t afford to play games with him—blushing and sighing one minute, and becoming an ice maiden the next.’

‘Thank you,’ Marisa returned politely. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

She’d momentarily lost ground tonight, and she knew it, but it was only a temporary aberration. She’d find a way to make up for it—somehow.

And so I did, she thought now, only to find myself reaping a bitter harvest as a consequence.

Her reverie was interrupted by the return of Corin, looking woebegone.

‘She wants her half-share in the gallery,’ he announced without preamble. ‘She says that I’m far too conventional, and she’s planning to take an active part in the place—imposing some ideas of her own to widen the customer base. Which means she’ll be working next to me every day as if nothing’s happened. Well, it’s impossible. I couldn’t bear it.’

He sat down heavily at his desk. ‘Besides, I know her ideas of old, and they just wouldn’t work—not somewhere like this. But I can’t afford to buy her out,’ he added, sighing, ‘so I’ll just have to sell up and start again—perhaps in some country area where property isn’t so expensive.’

Marisa brought him some strong black coffee. She said, ‘Couldn’t you find a white knight—someone who’d invest in the Estrello so you could pay your wife off?’

He pulled a face. ‘If only. But times are bad, and getting harder, and luxury items like these are usually the first to be sacrificed, so I could struggle to find someone willing to take the risk. Anyway, investors generally want more of an instant return than I can offer.’

He savoured a mouthful of his coffee. ‘I may close up early tonight,’ he went on, giving her a hopeful look. ‘Maybe we could have dinner together?’

I’m sorry, Corin, she thought. But I’m not in the mood to provide a shoulder for you to cry on this evening—or whatever else you might have in mind. You’re a nice guy, but it stops at lunch. And it stops now. Because I have issues of my own that I should deal with.

Aloud, she said gently, ‘I’m sorry, but I already have a date.’

She hadn’t intended to meet Alan either, of course, but it had suddenly come to seem a better idea than sitting alone in her flat, brooding about the past.

That’s a loser’s game, she told herself with determination, and I need to look to the future—and freedom.