The Count of Castelfino (13 page)

As her visitors left all Meg’s pent up emotion escaped in a low moan of anguish. Despite all the noise and bustle of exhibitors setting up around her display, Gianni heard. He stopped, dismissed the journalists and walked quickly back to the Imsey stand.

‘What’s the matter, Megan?’

With his companions heading out of the main doors, she expected him to smile. He always smiled when he asked how she was feeling.

But not today.

She swallowed nervously. ‘Nothing—I’m fine. That interview was just a bit of a shock, that’s all. I’m not used to things like that being sprung on me at a moment’s notice. It made me nervous.’

‘That was why I stayed with them. In case you needed some moral support,’ he said tersely.

She thought of his morals, and her baby. Given the circumstances, Gianni couldn’t possibly want this child as much as she did. He wouldn’t want it at all. She came to a split-second decision. The less he knew, the less power he could have over her.

‘I assumed you were making sure I didn’t bad-mouth you to the gentlemen of the press,’ she said casually.

His grim mask slipped a little, and he looked shocked. ‘No. I know you’re far too much of a professional to do that. I also knew you’d be too self-effacing when interviewed. I came along to ensure you got your fair share of the credit.’

‘That’s all?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Then thank you, Gianni,’ she said quietly. ‘When will the article appear?’

‘In time for a big promotion I’ve been arranging in England. That’s why I’m over here,’ he said, quashing any idea that he had travelled from one side of Europe to the other to win her back. Meg knew then she had made the right decision. She could not possibly let him know about the baby. She would dissolve like meringue at the slightest hint of either his hatred or his pity. She needed him to carry on being the rigid, emotionless aristocrat standing before her.

‘Well, as you’re here, shall I supply you with another raft of plants for your latest harem?’

The joke almost lodged in her throat, but she got the words out somehow. Managing to smile was quite a different prospect. It was hopeless. Quickly, she busied herself gathering up a few last tufts of cotton wool and compressing them into a tiny ball, the size of her atrophied heart.

‘Not quite. I only need one.’

Meg’s blood curdled in her veins. There could be only one possible interpretation she could put on his words.

‘Only one? Then it didn’t take you long to find a replacement mistress.’ Her movements were light and careless. They fluttered over the soft moss of the display, refining the tilt of each orchid bloom or broad, smooth leaf.

He shook his head. ‘From the way you kept reminding me of all your qualities, I’m surprised you hadn’t realised you were irreplaceable, Megan. For your information, I’m no longer in the market for a mistress. Not now, and not ever. That part of my life has come to an end.’

‘Then…’ She looked at all the plants she had so artfully arranged in her display. They were all in groups. She was the only singleton, now and for ever. ‘That must mean you’ve found yourself a wife.’

‘Possibly. The final details still have to be decided.’

Meg looked away so he would not be able to see the pain in her eyes. ‘You make it sound like a business proposition.’

‘That rather depends on the arrangements reached. This is my last night in London. I’d like you to bring the plant around this evening.’ He pulled out his PDA, tapped a few buttons and cross-referenced its display with his wristwatch. ‘I shall be free from seven p.m.’

It sounded chilling. Meg stared at him, knowing this should be the last time they met.

‘Will your fiancée be there?’ she asked gingerly.

His mouth became a tense line of disapproval at the word.

‘I have a window of opportunity at seven. That’s all,’ he announced. Then he was gone.

M
EG
could not bring herself to be petty or mean-minded about the plant she chose to fill Gianni’s order. She took her own favourite plant from the display. It had the most beautiful flowers, white petals overlaid with a pink flush and set off with a delicate yellow lip. She took great care in wrapping it. Crackling cellophane would protect it from the December chill, while the yards of pink ribbon she curled to decorate her offering made the finished plant a present she would like to receive herself.

The address of Gianni’s Mayfair apartment was engraved on her heart from their first meeting. That didn’t prepare her for the reality of it. A uniformed doorman showed her in. A phone call had to be made by Reception to check that she was a legitimate visitor. She was whisked up to a penthouse suite by a lift that was whisper quiet. Stepping out into a world of thick, plush carpet and gently hissing air-conditioning, she was faced with a sleek featureless door. There was no handle, knocker or any suggestion who might be behind it. Meg raised her hand, but she didn’t have time to knock. A maid in a smart black uniform and white apron opened the door. She lifted the
gift-wrapped orchid from Meg’s hands, but was distracted by a movement from inside the flat.

‘
Grazie
, Consuelo. You can go home when you’ve dealt with that,’ Gianni’s voice murmured out to greet her. Despite everything, Meg’s heart leapt. When he moved into her field of vision, it stopped altogether. Instinctively, her hand moved to her waist. Then she let it fall away. Gianni mustn’t suspect anything. Tonight, he looked every inch the career bachelor. Moving easily around his spacious apartment, he was in his element. He hadn’t changed out of the suit he had worn for his meeting with the journalists, although he had lost his tie and jacket and his feet were bare. He had removed his gold cufflinks too, and his shirt sleeves fell back to expose his beautiful tan.

‘There wasn’t a chance to thank you for everything you’ve been to me. I wanted to spend some time catching up with each other,’ he said to Meg as the maid pulled on her coat and wished them both a good night.

It sounded a hideous idea to Meg. The last thing she wanted was to be force-fed details of the woman who had overcome Gianni’s lifelong aversion to marriage.

‘How long do we have?’ Meg asked as he led her further into his flat. She looked around with small, nervous movements. Desperate to find any trace of the Other Woman, she was sick with fear she might actually see something. There was nothing obviously feminine on display. Gianni’s apartment was a masculine blend of clean lines and expensive furnishings. Silver curtains held back by golden ropes brushed a luxurious white carpet. Beyond the windows that ran the whole length of one wall, London by night was spread out in a kaleidoscope of flickering lights.

‘We have as long as
I
like,’ Gianni announced. ‘I need
to explain something to you, and must be absolutely certain you have it straight in your mind.’

She nodded dumbly. Moving over to a low coffee table made of a single piece of solid beech, he picked up a crystal decanter of cognac. Two glasses stood on a silver tray. Splashing a finger of spirit into each, he offered one to her. Still lost for words, this time Meg shook her head. He shrugged.

‘Suit yourself—I’ll leave it on the table. You may feel like it later.’ Holding his glass up in the soft glow of wall lights scattered around the room, he admired the clear golden liquid before taking a mouthful. It met with his approval, and he smiled. Seeing his face touched by a trace of the pleasure she had seen there so often, Meg smiled, too.

‘I was wrong, Meg,’ he said unexpectedly, diving in under her guard. ‘I thought that to make you anything more than my mistress would turn you into a woman like my mother. She was a wife, and the ruin of my father. I thought committing to you would submerge everything special, unique and priceless about you beneath a tide of greed. Can’t you see? I couldn’t take the risk of getting emotionally entangled. As my mistress, I could preserve you as my ideal woman, for ever. Marriage would turn you into a wife, and the Meg I knew deserved better than that. You were soft, sweet and sensuous—the ideal mistress, perfect to visit after a hard day at the office. I wanted to keep
you
, not some shrew obsessed with gym membership and spa treatments. Seeing you turned into all the worst memories I had of my mother was the very
last
thing I wanted.’

It was a long speech, delivered as Gianni stared down
into his glass. Meg stirred, wondering what she could say. He hadn’t finished. ‘My earliest memories are all of conflict. My mother screamed the whole time, my father shouted, and it was all carried on in a windmill of gestures. My childhood was punctuated by the sound of crockery shattering against every surface. I didn’t want to live like that. And then you arrived, wanting more than my body, or my money.’

Confused though she was, Meg couldn’t let that go.

‘I thought you said your mother died in childbirth?’ she probed. In the past few moments her face had worked through every emotion. Fear and confusion had passed. She was now tense with suspicion. Her fingers running back and forth softly across her waistband, she waited for his reply.

‘A child did cause the death of my mother, but it wasn’t me. My half-brother was stillborn.’

Meg couldn’t speak. Nothing she could say seemed appropriate. Finally, when Gianni’s shoulders moved in a silent sigh, she reached out and placed her hand on his sleeve.

‘Your father must have been devastated,’ she said softly.

This time there were no explanatory smiles. He shook his head in despair.

‘You have no idea.’

He swore, a bitter Italian explosion that he could not stifle. Meg looked away.

‘As a child I assumed he was heartbroken. He was—but loss of trust damaged him far more than my mother’s death. She’d conducted affair after affair, eventually falling pregnant to one of her many lovers. My father never spoke of it to me at the time, but shut himself away in the Villa Castelfino. I was sent off to school in England. Someone
must have thought I’d be protected from the gossip and stories. They didn’t count on the cruelty of children. In our isolation, both Papa and I grew shells of steel. The moment I left school I came home, hoping we could be a support to each other. I tried to help, but it was no good. He would never mention it. He encouraged me to go out and enjoy myself, on the absolute understanding that the woman I eventually chose to marry was perfect Bellini family material. Papa spent every moment of his life regretting his choice of wife, and didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.’

‘What a terrible example of married life.’ Meg said slowly, thinking of her own parents’ idyllic partnership. ‘No wonder you never wanted to be tied down.’

‘I wasn’t going to let my heart lead me into disaster. My father married for love and was cheated. If my own mother couldn’t be faithful, how could I possibly trust any other woman?’

‘We aren’t all alike.’ Meg got her point across firmly. ‘It’s a good job my mum is nothing like yours. At least she wasn’t, before I left for Italy…’

‘Things have changed?’ He gave her a knowing look.

She nodded.

‘I told you so,’ he said, but with such regret Meg knew he was sympathising, not trying to score points.

‘It’s nobody’s fault, Gianni. I left you because my feelings were hurt. When I got home, I realised you were right. Times change, people move on. I should have been confident enough in my own abilities to shrug off whatever you and your friends thought about my work. I know I would have proved you all wrong in the end. And I should have been big enough to part with you on better terms.’ She stopped. There was a lump in her throat that threatened to
betray her real feelings. ‘We have to end this properly, right now,’ she said in a rush.

‘Of course.’ Gianni’s practised ease broke her heart into still smaller fragments. This must be a regular occurrence for him. A tearful girl, the fond farewell, the pretence of regret…

A mobile phone buzzed angrily from somewhere. Putting down his glass, he strode over to where his jacket lay on a chair. Retrieving the handset from an inside pocket of his suit, he muttered a curse and killed the call without answering it.

‘That reminds me—you’ll have to take my details off your BlackBerry,’ Meg said, hoping he would ignore the quaver in her voice.

‘I can’t,’ he said frankly, ‘because they were never on there.’

The pain that had tortured Meg for so long swam into her eyes. Working hard to master her features, she managed to look up at him in undiluted defiance.

‘But all your vital numbers are stored on there!’

Shocked by her tearful response, Gianni’s retort was rapier swift.

‘Not yours. Oh, don’t look at me like that—what else did you expect? Would you rather I lied to you, and said it was on there? No, thanks. I leave deception to people like my mother.’

‘Gianni! How could you be so heartless?’ she said bitterly. ‘If you ask me, I think you just use your father’s experience as an excuse not to marry because you’re too selfish! I’ll bet in reality he couldn’t wait to see you safely married!’

‘What?’

Her jibe threw him completely off balance. For long seconds he stared at her, totally unable to summon up enough English to reply.

‘While you were stuck in a time warp of commitment-dodging, your father was always more interested in the future. I spoke to him often enough to know the Bellini traditions wore him down. He was ready for change. I think he would have loved to see you married, Gianni. He’d probably got to the stage where he didn’t care who she was, as long as she loved you for all the right reasons, and that you’d chosen her for all the wrong ones—such as your raging testosterone.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Gianni retorted, but his surge of anger brought more turbulent emotions to the surface. He frowned. ‘I was his heir. He
had
to care. When I think of the times he raised his eyebrows over breakfast when I was headline news again…when he asked me why I never brought any of the girls home to meet him, I thought he was being sarcastic. And the celebrity dinner parties he held in New York or Athens where all the guests had daughters…’ Gradually his voice faltered. When it disappeared altogether he gazed into the middle distance as though in search of it.

‘So that’s your defence against marriage blown right out of the water. He wanted you to get moving. Now you’ve got no excuses left, Gianni. Say goodbye to me now, so you can go and present the orchid I brought you to the poor long-suffering woman who is going to become your wife.’

The mention of excuses brought him straight back to the present. Grabbing her hand, he began to pull her through the lounge. Meg thought he was about to throw her out of his suite altogether, but she was in for a shock. Instead of
heading for the main door, he took her into an adjacent dining room. An intimate dinner for two was planned. The central table was set with a battery of silver cutlery and bone-china plates decorated with a discreet pattern in gold leaf. In the centre stood the orchid she had brought, still decked in its cellophane and ribbons. The lights were low, and the room warm and welcoming.

‘An aristocratic Italian girl is the last thing
I
want,’ he muttered, guiding her around the table. The far wall was almost completely filled by an enormous mirror in a heavy gilded frame. Below it stood a highly polished walnut sideboard. As they got closer Meg saw a young lemon tree in a terracotta pot standing in the centre of the sideboard. Everything glowed and shimmered in the light of dozens of candles.

Gianni looked as distracted as she felt. His tousled hair and open necked shirt gave him a reckless look, but his manner was anything but spontaneous.

‘Your resignation was a real wake up call to me. I’ve spent every second since then examining my motives. I’m still convinced you did the wrong thing, Meg.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

Before the accusation had fully left her lips Gianni grabbed her by the shoulders.

‘Wait! Listen to me—you’ve driven a hole right through my reasoning, Meg. Do you hear that? All my life I’ve been working towards what I thought my future should be. I wanted a legitimate son to carry on my family name. That’s still my objective, but you’ve made me realise I was going about it all the wrong way.’

Meg narrowed her eyes. ‘How many ways are there to break a woman’s heart, exactly?’

He flung his arms wide with exasperation.

‘I thought I was being the ideal forward-thinking executive, but in reality I was always looking back over my shoulder. I was surrounded and haunted by the expectation of the past and the duty of being count.’

She watched him carefully, wishing she could read his expression. Gianni had hurt her more than she could bear, but she should have expected that. They weren’t simply from different sides of the track, they were from opposite sides of Europe. Aristocrats were one thing. Foreign aristocrats were still more enigmatic. She loved Gianni so much it hurt, and would have done almost anything to take this look off his face. The only thing she could not bear to do was sacrifice her pride by asking how she could help. Meg might be meek, but acting as a doormat was not her style. She shook her head. With that, he indicated the potted lemon tree standing before them.

‘And so I came to a decision.
Presto!
What do you think of this?’

From every branch hung a small package wrapped in red velvet. Each one was suspended from fine gold wire and the weight caused the little bush to bow and tremble in the warm air.

‘It looks like a Christmas tree,’ Meg said slowly.

‘They’re all for you.’

Hesitantly, she took a step forward. The little presents begged to be touched, taken and opened. Somehow, she couldn’t do it. He must be trying to buy her off. In her fevered imagination they represented drops of her heart’s blood, and they sprang from loving him. Slowly, she ran her hand over the back of his as he held her by the wrist. She knew every contour as well as her own. This would
be the last chance she had to savour that smooth, taut skin. His fingers had to be peeled away from her. She had to release him so that both he and her baby could be free. It tore strips from her heart.