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Her heart was beating very fast as she went from room to room, switching on every light as she did so, so that no surface would go unsearched.
Until she was forced to admit to herself the ghastly, horrible truth.
That Giovanni had left without a trace.
And that was when pain began to metamorphosise into anger…
Giovanni lifted his eyes to the dark-haired stewardess, and frowned, barely noticing the overt look of admiration she was slanting at him. ‘What?’ Automatically, he had lapsed into Sicilian.
Her eyes flashed excitedly as she heard the distinctive dialect, but she was only able to answer him in Italian. ‘I asked whether you would like a cup of coffee before take-off?’ she said in a smooth, practised voice.
What he wanted was for the damned plane to be touching down on the soil of his homeland—and certainly not a flight which involved a changeover in Rome while he waited for a connection.
For half a moment he had considered chartering a private jet to take him on from Rome, but another sharp jab of his conscience had stopped him. Was he really about to start rewarding his outrageous indiscretion with a flamboyant gesture of extravagance?
‘Please,’ he said shortly.
She prettily offered him a tray of pastries but he waved them away with an impatient hand, and spent the rest of the flight forcing himself to go through a batch of papers which could easily have waited.
But he needed something to occupy his mind. Something to try to stop him remembering the red blur of her hair and the emerald gleam of bewitching eyes.
You’re going home, he told himself. With all that that entails.
In Rome, he forced himself to eat a little something, reminding himself that he had had nothing since yesterday’s lunch. But the food tasted bland, and he pushed the half-touched plate away as his flight was announced.
The minutes ticked by like hours as Kate prowled around the flat, her initial sense of desolation gradually being replaced by a feeling of outright fury.
How dared he?
How dared he?
By such a cold and uncaring rejection he had reduced a wonderful night to the bitter realisation that she had indulged in a classic one-night stand.
And then been dumped!
She felt her cheeks stain with shame. They were both mature and consenting adults. OK, he might have decided that he didn’t want to see her again, but at least he could have done her the courtesy of going through the motions of civilised behaviour. It wouldn’t have killed him to have breakfast with her, surely? Or to have made love to her when she woke up? prompted the hungry voice of her senses. He could have taken her telephone number and said that he would ring her, even if he hadn’t meant it.
Bastard!
She couldn’t sleep, eat, or concentrate on anything. She ran a bath and afterwards threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt—and the more she thought about Giovanni’s behaviour towards her, the more her fury grew and grew. But fury seemed to hurt less than shame—and far less than the pang of realising that she would probably never see him again.
She couldn’t understand it. Had she misread everything?
He had been the best lover she had ever had, and she was certain that the experience had been as wonderful for him as it had been for her. She had seen that almost dazed sense of wonder on his face as their bodies had joined together.
So why creep out like a thief into the night and destroy what they had shared? Why leave her with the bitter taste of rejection and confusion?
Several times that day she reached her hand out to the telephone, then decided against using it when she reminded herself that men like Giovanni Calverri had it much too easy.
How would he ever learn that he couldn’t just go around taking what he wanted without showing a little more consideration in the process? Unless somebody actually had the nerve to tell him?
And the unthinkable notion that she might just be one in a long line of broken-hearted international conquests was enough to make up her mind.
Resolutely, Kate reached her hand towards the telephone again, only this time she picked it up.
‘International directories, please,’ she said crisply.
Giovanni drew to a halt in front of the Calverri headquarters, and wondered why everything felt different.
