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‘Yes you have—’
‘But I don’t like your attitu
de’ he said bluntly.
Every scrap of colour ebbed from her lovely face and she bent her head fighting for the control not to snap back at him. Her first marriage proposal and it was an insult. He knew his own worth too well. He saw no reason why he should dress up the degrading reality that all he wanted was her body on tap. He regarded her as a lesser being whom he would be honouring with his name and his riches.
Her role was to be a grateful recipient scarcely able to believe her good fortune. Unfortunately torture could not have dragged such a humble response from her at that moment. How dared he think that she would take him on such terms? How dared he tell her to her face that sex was all she had to offer him? She hated him. That was all she was sure of just then. Hatred and pain were like a twisting knife inside her and she couldn’t think beyond that.
‘l’m sorry you don’t like my attitude,’ she said woodenly, staring a hole in the tablecloth.
‘But 1 wouldn’t want to marry someone like you.’
The tension was appalling. She was so stiff she was afraid a sudden movement would shatter her into tiny pieces, and the silence seethed around her like a menacing storm. She had offended him, and his displeasure chilled the atmosphere.
‘Look at me…’
And she looked, even though she didn’t want to look, for the habit of command was so engrained in him that she could not resist its powerful pull. He surveyed her with impassive dark eyes and she shivered.
‘You’re saying no’?’ Like a marionette on strings, she nodded, hardly daring to credit her own nerve. Yet the more his formidable assurance and presence intimidated her, the harder she fought to remain untouched and unaffected.
Pure outrage leapt in Cristiano. He could not believe it.
Unless there was someone else she cared about. But how likely was that when she had been a virgin? A celibate, very moral someone else? Some dead guy? He suppressed that unusually imaginative train of thought with icy distaste. Could she dislike him so much? He rammed that reflection back down into his subconscious while mercilessly crushing that disturbing sense of outrage stone-dead. He had made the offer. If she was too foolish to appreciate the advantages of becoming his wife, honour at least had been satisfied. She had done him a favour. For the first time he reminded himself that she was a thief, and just as quickly he was marvelling that he had ever contrived to overlook that reality and even considered marrying her.
While Lydia watched, Cristiano checked the time and murmured without expression,
”We’re flying to London early tomorrow morning.’
Her spine was so rigid it ached.
‘Are we? But we only got here yesterday.’
”This is how my life is. 1 have a board meeting at the UK office.’
‘Right,’ Lydia muttered, her entire focus locked to him in bemusement. Was that it? Was that really it? Was there to be no further discussion of that staggering proposal? It seemed not. The savage tension had already vanished as though it had never been. He appeared cool, indifferent.
‘And you have an appointment to keep with the Happy Holidays charity.’
Her eyes opened very wide, and even though she assumed she had misheard him, she lost colour.
‘1 beg your ardor…?’
‘l’m afraid that, regardless of how you feel, you will have to bite the bullet and smile throughout the proceedings.’
‘What proceedings’?’
‘My staff have organised a photo opportunity and reception to which the press have been invited. You will officially hand over a cheque for the money you were accused of stealing,’ Cristiano explained with unnerving calm.
Her stomach executed a nervous somersault.
‘You’re joking !
‘No. 1 have never regarded theft as a laughing matter.
You do not have a choice on this one.’
Even though she had not been responsible for stealing the money in the first place, Lydia still cringed at the threat of being forced to meet the charity personnel again. ‘I won’t do it’
‘You will do it. The charity has agreed. It’s a PR exercise. You’re part of my life now, and your reputation must be rehabilitated,’ Cristiano advanced without apology.
‘But everybody’s going to know it’s your money I’m handing over! ‘
she protested, rising from her seat in her distress. ”What’s the point’?’ people may well wonder if it’s my money, but they will no longer feel so certain of your guilt. Doubts will be aired. And if, in a couple of months, you are seen to perform another act of goodwill for the same charity, you will look even more like an innocent. Most will assume that the recent…unpleasantness… ‘ he selected that word with acerbic bite : …was a storm in a teacup.’
‘I won’t do it,’ she mumbled again, but it was like talking to a brick wall.
‘I mean it, Cristiano.’
”Think of it as your penance.’
‘I thought you were that! ‘ she returned bitterly.
”Would you really prefer to carry the label of thief for the rest of your life’?’
That derisive question cut through her defences and she swallowed hard. Years from now, who knew what her life might be? Her supposed theft might well come back to haunt her when she least expected it. His argument was un-answerable. She supposed it was best if the whole shameful episode could be decently buried with a show for the sake of appearances. But the very thought of having to face the Happy Holidays fundraising team again tilled Lydia with dread.
‘I thought not,’ Cristiano murmured drily.
‘I can’t believe you asked me to marry you… ‘
Lydia heard herself say with an abruptness that startled her. She flushed to the roots of her hair. She had truly not meant to voice that tactless reminder, but the thought had raced straight into reckless speech.
Cristiano was more than equal to that sudden diplomatic challenge. Angling brilliant dark golden eyes over her, he drawled with unblemished cool, ‘Fact is often stranger than action.’
A manservant came to a tactful halt at the other end of the terrace and Cristiano spoke to him.
‘Your Italian teacher has arrived for your first lesson,’ he told her.
Her face was perplexed. ”You never did explain why you want me to learn Italian.’
He raised a sardonic brow. ”You will be a more useful hostess with it than without.’
A cheerful little man in his early sixties greeted them both in excellent English. After chatting for a few minutes, Cristiano left them. The teacher informed her that he would be concentrating on her ability to use conversational Italian. She listened with a relaxed smile but she was a thousand riles away, thinking about Cristiano and wondering if she would ever understand him.
Why had he offered marriage when he so clearly didn’t want to marry her? But perhaps being a wife would have been preferable to being a mistress …? That thought crept up on her and lingered even when she tried to shut it out.
Well, it was too late for a change of heart now, wasn’t it? In any case, she didn’t want to be married to a guy who felt nothing for her, and she wouldn’t marry him for the lifestyle he could give her. At least she was hanging on to a modicum of self-respect that way.
She dined alone that eventing, and wandered through the beautiful gardens, which were kept inimmaculate order. She did not see Cristiano before she finally went up to bed, and although she lay tense as a bowstring while she waited, wondering if he would come to her, she was left undisturbed.
She couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, wrestling with her seesawing emotions, until she fianally shamefacedly acknowledged disappointment.
Cristiano went through a couple of reports with his staff on the flight to London, while Lydia slumbered, curled up in an unselfconscious heap like a child. He covered her with a blanket.
While he worked, every so often he would raise his head and his keen gaze would rest with cool probing force ocher delicate sleep-flushed profile. It was rare for a
nyone to surprise him, but she managed that feat on a regular basis. She fought with him. She melted into his arms and then told him she hated him.
He had a Byzantine mind of surpassing shrewdness. He liked things to add up, and her behaviour didn’t. If there was another guy, dead or alive, he wanted to know about him. This was a live-in relationship, the most serious thing he had ever got into with a woman. It would probably only last a couple of months, but it would only be sensible to find out everything there was to know about her. He would have her checked out by a private detective agency.
‘What time is this photo opportunity with the Happy Holidays crew kicking off’?’
Lydia asked tautly in the limo that was ferrying them through the London traffic.
”Two this afternoon.’ He skimmed a glance over her pale tight profile.
‘I don’t know what you’re worried about.Nobody in the charity team will dare to be unkind. My patrenage is worth too much to them. As for the press, you’ll just have to keep your smile pinned on and take what you get thrown at you.’
Having proffered that dollop of cold comfort in a bracing tone, Cristiano told her that he would see her later. The limo nosed in by the kerb, his bodyguards leapt out, and he vacated the limo and strode into the Andreotti building.
She breathed in slow and deep. She promised herself that she would get through the day by dealing with it in small manageable bites. Only then did it occur to her that her mother might well see a newspaper photo of her daughter handing over a cheque to the charity. Her eyes brightened. That would certainly signal the all-clear for her parent to get back in touch again. That cheering prospect made the coming ordeal seem well worthwhile.
Having pushed through his own agenda as usual, and been listened to in hushed silence by his awe-inspired board members, Cristiano emerged from the meeting in good form. His most senior PA approached him, wearing a curious air of anxiety.
“Problems ‘?’
Cristiano enquired with a raised brow.
‘A Gwenna Powell has requested a meeting with you, and she’s a very insistent woman.’
Cristiano frowned. ‘Gwenna…powell’?’
The PA cleared his throat.
