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Yet deep down she knew that much of her behaviour was because she wanted to prove to herself that Gabriella was wrong. That Giancarlo’s friends wouldn’t all be wondering why he had married her. That even when they found out about the pregnancy—which might very well be tonight, judging by her oddly distended stomach—they would still like her and think her the sort of person who was worthy of him. She turned away from the vase to face him. ‘The meal will probably be a complete disaster,’ she moaned.
‘Just calm down,’ he soothed. ‘They’re not coming to judge you.’
But that was where he was wrong. Of course they would be judging her—it was human nature to judge, especially when a shop-girl married a much older man who happened to be a billionaire.
She dressed for dinner and re-jigged the place-cards—frighteningly aware that the guests had travelled a long way for this dinner. Gianpiero and Serafina were Paris-based, and Nick and Kate were visiting from New York. Only six of them—because she’d felt that eight might be a bit over-ambitious—and now she worried whether six might make the big table look awfully empty.
Cassie had organised the menu, knowing that Gina disapproved of most of it, but telling herself that she didn’t care. Because this was about more than introducing herself to Giancarlo’s friends as his wife—it was about trying to define her role as his wife. It meant gently showing Gina that she wanted to be involved in the running of the house and that she wasn’t just some docile little puppet of a woman.
But that was what she felt like. Sometimes she might almost have been invisible. It was as if she didn’t count—as if she had no real place in a house paid for by her wealthy husband and run by his efficient housekeeper and his other members of staff. And wasn’t this dinner also supposed to make Giancarlo see her as a partner, rather than an appendage? Not just some fertile little blonde quietly growing her baby in the background while he carried on working with the same intensity and dedication as he’d done as a broke young lawyer who’d first arrived in London.
This was supposed to be their first outing as a couple. Because even though their sex life had resumed since that night in Rome she still felt no closer to him. Wasn’t this just another hurdle she had to leap over—to prove to him that she was someone he could trust? Someone he could confide in.
Fortunately, the simple dark dress she wore gave no hint of her burgeoning belly and she left her hair free to tumble over her shoulders. She’d chosen white hyacinths and tiny white narcissi with which to decorate the rooms and the whole house smelt heavenly.
And when Giancarlo emerged from his dressing room, looking formidable and yet heartbreakingly beautiful in a dark, dark suit which hugged the powerful body and drew attention to his muscular physique, she prayed that she would not let him down.
‘Stop worrying,’ he said as he saw the small frown furrowing her brow. ‘They won’t bite.’
Maybe they wouldn’t—but Cassie still felt terribly intimidated when the two couples arrived. Kate was a sleek New-Yorker with a freckle-spattered nose, a lazy smile—and the most immaculate clothes Cassie had ever seen. Her husband, Nick, was ‘something in films’—his suit was linen and slightly crumpled, but he exuded the indefinable air of the truly powerful. As for Serafina—she left Cassie wondering if there was such a thing as a plain Italian woman, and her banker husband was equally good-looking.
While having pre-dinner drinks in the drawing room, Cassie was so nervous that she slopped champagne over Kate’s silk jacket.
‘Oh, gosh. Oh, no. Oh, I am so sorry!’
‘It doesn’t matter. Honestly.’
‘It only cost nine hundred bucks, didn’t it, honey?’ joked her husband.
‘Sit down, Cassie,’ said Giancarlo gently. ‘And let Gina serve the drinks.’
She felt like a child who had been reprimanded—but maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth. In many ways her life experience was as insignificant as a child’s when compared to theirs. She didn’t even get a chance to talk about the articles she’d read in the papers—or the news bulletins she’d tried hard to memorise. This rarefied group were all ten to fifteen years older than her and they seemed to want to talk about things she’d never heard of. Or people she’d never met and probably never would. Giancarlo’s age had never seemed a barrier—but now, with this laughing glossy posse of friends, he seemed to have stepped even further beyond her reach. Maybe Gabriella had been right after all.
Her decision to serve a traditional English roast dinner was as ill advised as Gina had hinted. Cassie saw the slight narrowing of Giancarlo’s eyes as a dish of misshapen Yorkshire puddings made their appearance—and she distinctly overheard Serafina asking Gina whether she still made her delicious home-made pasta.
