Locating Gina’s small Fiat parked under some nearby trees, Antonia shoved her into the passenger seat, before taking her own place behind the wheel, switching on the engine and roaring off down the drive.
There wasn’t any clear plan of action in Antonia’s mind when she left the villa so precipitously. She only knew that she had to get away for a while—and to put some distance, however temporary, between herself and Lorenzo. She also knew that it was unlikely that she would be missed for at least the next hour or so. Which would give her time to think through, clearly and objectively, the whole situation. And, above all, to try and understand why Lorenzo hadn’t told her about the arrest of Giovanni Parini.
The woman sitting beside her was clearly not happy as Antonia drove the car fast down the mountainside—gasping out loud in terror as the small Fiat seemed to take the hairpin bends on only two wheels.
‘Where...where are we going?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Antonia snapped curtly. ‘Where does this road lead to?’
‘Florence,’ Gina muttered in a small voice.
And it was then that Antonia realised that she had her passport and credit cards in her handbag, which she’d taken with her on leaving the patio.
And, since she didn’t want to have anything to do with Lorenzo—not until she’d really thought the whole problem through—there was clearly no point in hanging around here, in Italy. Especially as he’d have no problem in tracking her down. In fact, probably her best option would be to try and put as much distance between them as possible.
Which was why, after demanding that Gina direct her to the airport, she found herself boarding a plane back to Britain.
But now, over six weeks later, she was no nearer coming to a real understanding of why Lorenzo had behaved the way he had. And even going to stay with Tom and Flavia had proved to be of small comfort.
‘It’s no good expecting me to answer such a complicated question,’ Flavia had muttered when, for the umpteenth time, Antonia had demanded an answer to her problem. ‘Men are complicated creatures at the best of times,’ her sister-in-law had added, mixing some paint on her palette before leaning forward to complete the background to a still life on the easel in front of her.
‘The thing is,’ Antonia had said, pacing up and down the large, airy studio, ‘even if that awful woman Gina was lying through her teeth, there’s still the problem of why Lorenzo didn’t tell me that he was no longer in danger.
‘After all,’ she’d added, ‘I didn’t have any other jobs lined up. He could have said, “They’ve got hold of the bad guy. So let’s go off and have a holiday with my mother.” Why invent a whole tissue of lies?’
‘I honestly don’t know, dear,’ Flavia had murmured. ‘I do remember thinking that he was absolutely dotty about you, if that’s any help. After all, he did ask for one of those drawings I did of you last Christmas.’
‘What?’ Antonia had frowned at her. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
Flavia had shrugged. ‘It was when you came here—after the explosion. I was drawing him... such a magnificent head... and then he asked to see some of my paintings.’
‘So?’
‘So, when he particularly admired one of the drawings I’d done of you, I gave it to him,’ she’d explained. ‘As I said—he seemed very keen on you. At the time, anyway.’
Antonia had given a heavy sigh. ‘Yes, I think he was—at the time.’
‘And I’m sure he still is,’ Flavia had told her firmly. ‘But you know what people are like when they’re in love. All rational thought and logic seem to fly out of the window. Quite honestly, darling,’ she’d added, standing back to take a good look at her work, ‘I can’t help thinking that the easiest and quickest way to answer all your questions would be to ask Lorenzo himself.’
Flavia hadn’t seemed to understand why she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Unfortunately Antonia knew, with absolute certainty, that she’d only have to hear that low, sexy voice for all her strength and resolution to immediately dissolve and melt away. And, having fallen so deeply in love with a man who appeared to have no trouble in charming the birds from the trees, she knew that she would be nothing but putty in his hands.
Besides, she told herself angrily, he hadn’t made the slightest attempt to contact her, had he? In fact there’d been a deafening silence, as far as any contact with Italy was concerned.
There had been, of course, many times when she’d almost weakened. Those moments during the small hours of the night, when she’d woken to find her pillow damp with tears, the temptation to pick up the telephone had been almost irresistible. But she had conquered the impulse, her resolution hardening whenever she thought about Lorenzo and Gina.
Because, of course, that hadn’t been something that she’d felt able to discuss with her sister-in-law, Flavia. How could she admit to the searing, corrosive green jealousy which left her weak and trembling with pain whenever she thought about Lorenzo making love to such a spectacularly beautiful woman? There were even times, huddled in her lonely bed, when she found herself whimpering out loud with agony, tortured by flickering images of him intimately caressing the other woman’s body.
Because, while she might have made a fool of herself over Lorenzo, she wasn’t entirely an idiot. She knew that Gina must have come to the villa specifically to wreck her involvement with Lorenzo. And, having successfully achieved her aim, the other woman would undoubtedly have done all she could to entice Lorenzo back into her bed. And what man could possibly resist such perfection?
The only faint light on the horizon concerning this whole, wretched affair was the fact that the news didn’t seem to have got out amongst her profession. No one seemed to realise, as yet, that she’d been made such a fool of by Lorenzo. That was undoubtedly due to the fact that this was one of the busiest times of the year for those involved in close protection. But Antonia feared that it could only be a matter of time before James Riley, at least, would have no problem in putting two and two together. And that was hardly a prospect to be relished.
With another heavy sigh, Antonia tried to concentrate on filling in the time sheet in front of her. What was this guy’s name? She turned over a piece of paper to check his details. Well, if Eric Chapman, whoever he was, didn’t put in an appearance soon, she was going to send him off with his tail between his legs. And then have a few hard words with his boss! she was telling herself irritably when there was a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ she barked, refusing to look up and continuing uing to tick the boxes on the form in front of her, in order to teach the man a lesson.
‘You cannot allow your employers to pay for a course, and then turn up a good half-hour late. Please sit down,’ she continued, still keeping her eyes firmly down on the work in front of her. ‘I just have to finish filling in these ‘forms.’
There was a sound of a chair being pulled up to the desk and a low rumble of laughter as the man sat down before her.
‘I’m afraid that I don’t find your lack of punctuality quite so amusing,’ she was saying as she raised her head to glare angrily at the man. ‘In fact, I’ve a good mind to... What the hell... !’ She gasped, staring transfixed into the face of Lorenzo, sitting only a foot or two across the desk.
‘What ...what the heck are you doing here?’ she whispered, when she’d at last managed to find her voice.
He gave a shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘One of us had to break the silence, Antonia,’ he drawled smoothly.
‘Oh—right! And that’s it?’ she demanded incredulously. ‘No other explanation? No reason for not getting in touch with me for six weeks?’
He gazed at her steadily for a moment. ‘I now find myself wondering why I have bothered to make the effort to contact you,’ he told her sternly. ‘After you demonstrated such a total lack of trust... the distress you have caused me... Believe me, Antonia, there have been times when I never wished to see you again!’
‘Hah—th
at’s rich!’ she snapped. ‘And what about my distress? What about the fact that you lied about Giovanni Parini being still dangerously on the run, when you blackmailed me into going with you to Italy? The lies you must have told those hoodlums, protecting a man who already knew he was quite safe. And what about the fact that you’re probably going to make me the laughing stock of my profession?’
To her utter astonishment, he merely shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Don’t you think that I am at least entitled to an explanation?’
‘And how, my dear Antonia, am I supposed to explain one of the great mysteries of life? How can I, a mere mortal, give you a definitive explanation as to why two people fall in love?T
‘I .... don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she muttered, so used to Lorenzo’s fiery, emotional response to any difficulty in his path that she now found herself feeling totally confused—and badly frightened.
Because she very much feared that Lorenzo hadn’t come here gripped by a passionate desire to reclaim his new girlfriend—as, to be entirely honest, she’d been hoping and praying that he would. And, whatever the reason for his appearance, she had an awful feeling that this meeting was definitely not going to end on a happy note.
Suddenly not able to bear the fact that the one and only man she’d ever truly loved was now sitting only a few feet away, and regarding her with such cold, dispassionate eyes, she quickly pushed back her chair. Rising to her feet, she moved swiftly across the small office, towards a window on the other side of the room.
‘Yes, I realise that you do not know what I am talking about, Antonia,’ he told the woman now standing with her back to him, her figure stiff and rigid as she stared out of the window. ‘So, how can I hope that you will understand the force of the love I had for you, hmm?’
With every sense acutely aware of the man sitting at his ease behind her, Antonia immediately picked up the fact that he was using the past tense when describing his feelings for her.
So, that was why he was here. To tell her that it really was all over between them. Well ...she’d just have to take it on the chin. Stand firm. Let him think that she didn’t give a damn. Goodness knows, there’d be plenty of time to weep her eyes out after he’d gone. The rest of her life, in fact.
‘You have accused me, quite correctly, of lying to you about Giovanni Parini,’ Lorenzo said, his voice seeming to come from a long way off as she struggled to hold herself together. ‘You are also quite right when you say that I used threats to force you to accompany me to my home in Tuscany. Moreover, I have no wish to deny that I went through the farce of hiring guards when I knew that I was perfectly safe.
‘In fact, my dear Antonia,’ he added quietly, ‘I freely admit that you are right to accuse me of deplorable conduct towards you. On that, at least, we can agree.’
‘But why? Why?’ she muttered, still staring blindly out of the window, desperately trying to control the weak tears threatening to fall any minute, and almost choking on a
hard lump which seemed to have become stuck in her throat.
‘Ah—now that is the point at issue,’ he said, before giving a heavy sigh. ‘Although I’m not sure I can fully explain the power of love. Because, you see, although I fought it like the devil, I did fall very suddenly and violently in love with you. And I then discovered, admittedly rather late in life, that real, true love is an all-consuming emotion.
‘So, there really is no easy explanation of why I did what I did. Possibly the unpleasant truth, my dearest Antonia, is that when you decided our affair was over I discovered—to my horror, I may say—that I was prepared to lie, cheat, steal...just about anything, other than murder, of course ...to keep you by my side, until such time as I could persuade you of my deep feelings-persuade you that, if we truly loved each other, as I believed we did, we could have a future together.
‘But you ...you never gave us a chance. In fact, your total lack of faith and trust in me was truly abysmal. At the first sign of difficulty, you immediately took to your heels and ran away, didn’t you, Antonia?’ The harsh contempt in his voice caused her to gasp, as though she’d been wounded by a savage blow to her solar plexus.
‘However, there’s no doubt I should have called a halt to the farce,’ Lorenzo admitted with a heavy sigh. ‘Which I planned to do after the lunch my mother gave to introduce you to the family.’
‘To introduce me?’ she muttered, her mind in a complete state of confusion. ‘But I thought...’
‘Why else would my family make an effort to come so far—unless they had suspected that I wished to introduce them to the woman I intended to marry?’
‘But ...but you never said anything about wanting to marry me,’ she said, turning slowly around to face him.
He shrugged. ‘I was intending to ask you, after lunch. But then you ran away, didn’t you, Antonia? Why did you listen to that stupid woman’s lies? Oh, yes—I realised that it must have been Gina who’d called to see you that afternoon. The servants had no problem in describing her very accurately,’ he added caustically.
‘Yes, well ... that’s another thing!’ She scowled at him. ‘How about those three days in bed with lovely Gina? It sounds like you had a high old time in Milan, leaving me to worry myself sick about your safety! How could...how could you come straight from that awful woman’s bed to mine?’ she cried, tears of anger and frustration filling her large grey eyes.
‘Ah, my darling!’ he murmured, rising swiftly to his feet and striding quickly across the room to take her in his arms. ‘How can you imagine...how can you possibly believe that I would do such a thing?’
‘But Gina said...and even your mother seemed to know where you were... and I was so worried about you,’ she muttered tearfully, burying her head in the curve of his shoulder as his arms closed protectively about her.
He gave a heavy sigh, before leading her tearful, trembling figure over to a sofa on the far side of the room.
‘My mother is a clever and astute woman,’ he said, sitting them both down on the soft cushions. ‘So, of course, she would have had a very good idea of where I was going—and what I intended to do, before my return to you, at the villa,’ he added, placing a hand firmly beneath Antonia’s chin and tilting her face up towards him.
‘I told you, the first time we made love together, that I was a serious man—yes? And that means that I did not feel I could.., that I was not at liberty to tell you of my deep love for you while there was even the slightest question of another woman in my life. And so, although my relationship with Gina Lombardi had come to an end before I met you, I had to make sure—for the sake of my own honour if nothing else—that she was both well provided for and that I had definitely closed that chapter of my life, before I could begin a new one, with you. Do you understand what I’m saying, Antonia?’
She nodded.
‘So, as soon as we arrived at my home in Vallombrosa, I immediately drove to Milan to sort out Gina, buy her an apartment, some trinkets and a new car, before returning with a clear conscience to tell you how much I loved you and hoping to ask you to be my wife.’
‘And ...and you weren’t really engaged to Gina?’
‘Of course not!’ He waved a hand dismissively in the air. ‘I may have...er...enjoyed her company in the past. But I was never in love with her. So how could I possibly have asked her to marry me?’
‘I’m sorry...I should have trusted our love for one another, shouldn’t I?’ she muttered, brushing the tears from her eyes. ‘But I still don’t see why ...I mean, you must have known how upset I’d be when I found out that you’d been lying about needing a bodyguard, once Giovanni Parini was in custody? So ...so why didn’t you get in touch with me before now?’
‘My darling, I’ve not been able to see you before now because my mother had a sudden heart attack, only a few days after you ran away.’
‘Oh—no!’ Antonia cried, gazing at him with horrified eyes,
all their problems and her differences with Lorenzo completely forgotten in her overriding concern for a woman of whom she’d become so fond. ‘I’m so sorry. I know just how important she is to you. Is ...is she going to be all right?’
He nodded quickly. ‘Yes, it was only a mild attack. A warning to take it easy.’
But when she remained clearly upset by the news about his mother Lorenzo took both her hands in his. ‘I can assure you, my dearest,’ he murmured, pulling her gently into his arms ‘these things just happen, and she is expected to make a full recovery. She is also looking forward to seeing you, very soon.’
‘Oh, no ...I’m quite sure she isn’t,’ Antonia muttered, savouring the strength of his tall, muscular figure. ‘I’m sorry if I disrupted your lunch party. I hope everyone wasn’t too cross with me?’
He shook his head, his arms tightening about her. ‘No—I’m afraid to say that they were mostly furious with me!’ he explained ruefully. ‘Especially when, after hunting high and low through the house for you, following your disappearance, Claudia found that damn newspaper clipping. She’s really taken to you,’ he added. ‘And blames me for mishandling the whole affair. In which she is, of course, quite correct.’
‘I really don’t know what happened,’ Antonia confessed sadly. ‘I was just so confused ... and, I’m sorry to say, so very jealous of Gina that...’
‘There is no reason why you should believe me, of course,’ he told her with a heavy sigh. ‘But that woman never even came close to denting my heart. Nor, despite what she may have said, did I ever lead her to believe that she had a permanent place in my life—and I certainly never allowed her to move into my apartment.’
‘I do believe you,’ Antonia muttered. ‘It was incredibly stupid of me to listen to her poisonous lies. In fact, I refused to accept most of what she said-until she showed me that newspaper cutting.’
‘Now...I don’t want to hear any more about Gina—who is now old history,’ he said firmly, giving her a quick kiss.
‘I am far more concerned about our future, Antonia. Flavia warned me that...’
Mary Lyons - The Italian Seduction Page 18
