“Yes.” Carrie’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly, and her smile was lightly mocking. “Because he’s the most supremely loyal son of a bitch you’ll ever meet.” She held up a hand to stall Annie’s argument. “When push came to shove, he chose me. You’re right. And I understand you feel offended by that. Betrayed, even. But, Annie. Giac has been protecting me since we were kids. He acted out of habit; an old loyalty that has outgrown its usefulness. He wants you now. He is loyal to you. He will not hurt you. Please, don’t hurt him like you are. He deserves better.”
“Me? Hurt Him?” Annie actually laughed, it was so ridiculous.
Carrie swept across the room and crouched before the raven-haired Annie. “He is hurting, Annie. He’s been hurting for years. The number of times I’d find him just staring out a window, and I know now that he was thinking of you. Let him show you that you are all that matters to him.”
“I can’t.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t you see? I’m terrified. I can’t go through that again.” She shook her head. “When he married you, a part of me died. How can I ever believe myself safe when I love him so much?”
Carrie nodded sympathetically. “Because he loves you that much, too. Annie, if you truly feel that way about him, you’ll do this one thing for me.”
She lifted her brows in a silent enquiry.
“Go to him. Go, now. Don’t shut the door on him. Give him a chance to tell you everything, once and for all. You will regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t.”
Annie stood, her brain swirling with questions and thoughts and ideas and beliefs. How many chances could she give him? How many times could she let him do this to her? She thought about Chloe and Stu, and the way their love for one another seemed stronger than ever, despite what they’d been through.
Knowing what to do with any certainty was impossible. But Carrie was right. Annie would always regret walking away from him. She would always wonder.
“Okay. You’re right.” She scooped up her purse, and slipped her feet back into her shoes. She moved to the door as if in a daze. Carrie followed, and together, they walked downstairs without speaking.
A cab passed almost immediately, and Carrie hailed it. Once Annie was seated inside, she stared bemusedly out at Carrie, still on the pavement.
“Are you coming?”
Carrie shut the door and leaned her head towards the open window. “No, Annie.” She squeezed Annie’s hand. “I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago. I’m going to give you two some space.” She stepped back. “I hope… and I know it sounds crazy… I hope we can be friends one day.” She knew that if they couldn’t, she would have to walk away. She’d already cost Giac too much with her stubborn reliance on his friendship. He deserved better.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It took him at least five minutes to come to the door.
“What?” He muttered gruffly, his accent thick, as he pulled the door inwards.
Annie stood there, her dark hair pulled into a side pony tail, her jeans and sweater unmistakably casual, her face pale, her eyes uncertain. She wrapped her arms around her chest, anxiety clear.
“Annie?” He stepped back, though his first instinct was to crush her to his chest and never let go.
She bit down on her lip. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
He nodded. “Come in.”
She prevaricated, hovering just outside his apartment.
He had the sensation that he was trying to grasp water. That she might run away again if he didn’t say exactly the right thing. “Or we can go somewhere?”
She shook her head. “I’ll come in.” She gulped as she walked past him, trying not to notice the way his pants were so low slung and his torso was bare.
“I’ve been at the gym,” he said by way of explanation. “I was about to shower.”
For both of them, it conjured images of the last time they’d been together. Annie’s cheeks flushed pink with remembered pleasure. She looked away.
“I’m glad you came,” he said honestly, walking ahead of her into one of the lounge areas.
“Carrie came to see me.” She blurted out, hoping the other woman wouldn’t mind that she’d said as much.
“She did, did she?” His smile was crooked. “I am not surprised. She was quite upset to hear about us.”
“She didn’t seem upset,” Annie contradicted. She didn’t sit. She was already at a height disadvantage. Instead, she moved to the glass doors that overlooked the western border of Hyde Park. Two mounted police officers were circuiting the graveled road. She watched their progress, a frown in her creased forehead.
“She feels guilty.” He shook his head. “I told her it is all my fault.”
Annie spun around, her cheeks pink. “You’re not usually one for self-doubt,” she snapped, emotions running raw through her body.
He tilted his head. “I was going to leave her Annie.”
“Was going to?” She spat, her eyes blazing. “That’s easy to say now!”
“I called her. I couldn’t do it over the phone.” He frowned, remembering the conversation. “I was going back to America, to break it off. I didn’t want to tell you about Carrie until it was all finished. I loved you so much, Annie Carlton. Even without Carrie, I felt like I could never deserve you. But with the baggage I brought with me… well, I knew it would be a hard sell.” He winced. “Then, she got sick.” Annie sobbed, and he had to physically restrain himself from going to her. He gripped the back of a dining chair. “Her life has been a disaster. Her father abused her, as I’ve told you. What I didn’t tell you is that I discovered the fact after Carrie took an overdose of sleeping pills. I swore, from that day on, I would not let harm come to her.”
“And that’s very noble of you.”
“Whichever decision I made, one of you would get hurt. I consoled myself that you would get over me. That you’d move on, and forget all about me. You were young; we’d hardly known each other long.” He shook his head. “I told myself that I was the only one who would suffer. That I was the only one who was giving something up.”
Annie’s heart turned over in her chest. As apologies went, it was almost perfect. Her voice was barely above a whisper. He had to strain to hear her. “But you were wrong. I never got over you. I never forgot. I never moved on. I’ve missed you every day.”
Her words filled him with ice cold remorse. But Giac Medici had always been solution orientated. “The thing is, Annie, we obviously belong together.” Like a panther, he stalked across the room. She stood perfectly still, watching and waiting. “I can promise I won’t hurt you again, and I can tell you that I mean it. But I think it’s better if you just let me show you.”
A whole family of butterflies were dancing in her belly. “How?” She demanded huskily. “How can you show me that?”
He laced his fingers through hers, and lifted her left ring finger to his lips. “By marrying you, and showing you every single day, for the rest of our lives, that you are all that matters to me.” He rubbed her finger between his thumb and forefinger. “I would do anything but see your face fall as it did yesterday.”
She swallowed convulsively. “I love you too much,” she said finally. “If you … changed your mind, and left me… I don’t know that I’d ever recover.”
“My mind is not open to change.” He shook his head. “Do you not understand, bella? I married Carrie, in name only. You had my heart. You had my body.” He put a finger under her chin. “Our marriage was never consummated. How could I be with another woman after meeting you? It has always been you, from the moment I first met you. It was as if I was struck by lightning and my soul was recreated, its purpose in life only to serve you.”
Annie didn’t realize she was crying until he leaned forward and kissed away one of her tears. “But if she didn’t divorce you….”
“I would have died a very sad, very lonely shell of a man, pining for you.” He shook his head. “I am sorry that my sense of obligation contro
lled my actions. I felt I needed to be released from what I had promised Carrie, so many years earlier. And I am, now, Annie, finally free to tell you how much I love you, and to beg you to put me out of my misery and agree to marry me.”
She was silent, and Giac felt an odd plummeting in his stomach. “I will not be a perfect husband,” he continued, his words tumbling over themselves in his haste to push his argument. “I know I’m arrogant, and demanding. I know I’m more than a decade your senior.” He frowned. “Annie, I am not accustomed to feeling as anxious as this. Will you please say something?”
She blinked, her eyes scanning his handsome face, his dark eyes, his stubbled chin. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you want to marry me?” He felt like his heart was being massaged and pulled in different directions.
And she did. She did, so desperately, but she wasn’t ready to tell him that just yet. “Let’s start with dinner, tonight.” She said, but her face was beaming.
He had never been left to balance on a knife’s edge before. Giac decided, sometime later that day, when he was impatiently watching the clock, that he didn’t like the sensation at all.
Annie had suggested a roof top restaurant in Kensington. He had gone along with it, though he preferred to call the shots. He wasn’t going to say or do anything that might endanger their future.
He needed her.
Still, he was left to cool his expensive, tailor made shoes at the bar of the restaurant for almost thirty minutes before she arrived.
Annie, so utterly beautiful, that he choked on the beer he was drinking. His eyes were drawn to her, and he couldn’t look away. Nor could anyone else.
Her dress was an emerald green, cut straight across the bodice, it clung to her narrow waist and then flared to the floor. In style, it was almost like a streamlined wedding gown. Her skin glowed against the color; her hair, long and black, she wore with a slight wave through it, and brushed to one side, like a starlet from the twenties. Her lips, those perfect, beautiful lips, were painted red.
He stood, scraping his chair back noisily in his haste. “Bella,” he whispered, once she’d reached him. “You are… exquisite.”
She simpered up at him from beneath her long lashes, and he felt his groin tighten.
“Why do I get the feeling you know you are putting me through agony?” He murmured, his eyes holding hers.
“And enjoying it,” she agreed, linking her hand into his elbow.
“Careful, bellissima. I am playing the part of a meek suitor, but remember who you are dealing with.”
“Oh, I do,” she promised, reaching up and squeezing his chin. “You’re the man who wants to marry me.”
“No, cara. I’m the man who’s going to marry you.”
Her pulse was racing frantically in an effort to regulate her blood flow. “We’ll see.”
After all, she couldn’t let him know that he’d already won her. Hook, line and sinker, she was his. Where would the fun be in that?
In the end, she kept him in a state of miserable doubt for three more months. She figured a month for each year was a fair penalty. Though really, she simply enjoyed the way Giac Medici was bending over backwards at every opportunity to convince her that he was perfect husband material.
Finally, as the short British summer gave way to Autumn, and Annie and Giac were walking down a small bricked ally way near his penthouse, she looked up at him earnestly. “Where would we live, anyway?”
His walk slowed imperceptibly, before he recovered himself. “When?”
“If we get married.”
He stopped walking and turned to face her. His face was a mix of victorious relief and bemusement. “Are you saying you’ll marry me?”
She smiled up at him. “I think I might. Yes.”
He wrapped his arms around her middle and lifted her high in the air, then slid her down his body, so that he could kiss her lips with all his passion and love. “You just had to make me wait, didn’t you?”
“You don’t want to marry a pushover,” she pointed out, her lips against his.
“I want to marry you, Annie, just as soon as we can arrange it.”
“What’s your rush?” She asked, though she didn’t want to wait either.
“My rush, dear, lovely Miss Carlton, is that I want the honor of being your husband, and I want that honor to begin as soon as possible. You are mine, and I want the world to know it.”
“Ah!” She nodded shrewdly. “And are you mine, Giac?” Though any doubts on that score had been thoroughly eroded, she still asked the question.
“Always and forever.”
EPILOGUE
Two years later.
The dress was perfect.
White, crisp, with the kind of beading and detail that almost justified the exorbitant price tag.
Annie ran her fingers over the fabric, her lips parted in awe. Her life had changed so much in a relatively short time. As she stood there in the middle of the Tuscan chapel, overlooking rolling hills and vibrant vineyards, she had to take a deep breath to compose herself. Never, in a million years, would she have hoped to be so lucky in life.
“Annie? They’re ready.” Annie looked up into Carrie’s smiling eyes, and felt another wave of gratitude. Becoming good friends with one’s husband’s ex-wife was unorthodox to say the least. But from the first moment she’d properly spent time with Carrie and Giac, she’d seen the complete lack of chemistry for herself. There were no sparks there to envy. While their formidable history made her feel left out at times, Annie had never been left in any doubt as to where she stood in Giac’s affections.
“Okay.” She stood, cradling her eleven month old daughter to her chest in a tight, head-popping squeeze. The love she felt for the sweet little cherubic angel was too much to bear sometimes. With Giac’s direct stare, and Annie’s quick smile, baby Amelia was a dream come true. Apart from her aversion to sleep, which Annie consoled herself would pass, eventually.
Together, Annie and Carrie slipped through a side door of the chapel, into the main body. Giac had suggested they keep it small and intimate. His mother had decided very differently, and Annie’s own mother had been no less excessive in extending invitations. Half of the small village had arrived, jubilant and joyous, waiting patiently outside the venue. Inside, guests were packed into pews and aisles.
Amelia, on cue, let out a loud, boisterous laugh, as she pointed at a woman’s particularly bright hat.
Annie smiled apologetically, and shifted her little girl to her hip.
She turned, looking for the priest who was to perform the christening, only for her eyes to land on Giac instead. His smile was slow and lazy; the effect a predictable but no less heart-stopping unfurling of desire deep within her.
“Hi,” she mouthed.
His smile widened, and she thought her heart would burst.
The ceremony was perfect, if slightly too long. Towards the end, Amelia began to grizzle and complain. It had been impossible to maintain her usual nap schedules over the past week. Every time Annie put her down in her cot, Giac’s mother found an excuse to pick her up. It would have been infuriating were it not for how completely she adored her little granddaughter.
“So, I’m a Godmother,” Carrie said, putting her hands in the air in a sign of happiness, as she came to join Annie on the edge of the celebrations.
Annie smiled. They’d had so much to celebrate in the past month. Carrie had finally been given the all-clear, she’d met a lovely man, and Stu and Chloe had welcomed their own little bundle of limbs into the world, in the form of a bouncing boy named Harry.
“Hello, Mrs. Medici.”
Annie turned at her husband’s deep growl, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.
“Happy tears,” she promised, seeing the concern that immediately clouded his face. She looked at Carrie, then out towards the assembled guests, busy sipping prosecco and eating fancy canapés that the caterers had insisted on serving. “I’m just so happy.”
“Excuse me, I’m just going to go and see if Amelia needs any God motherly advice. Cuddles, at least.” Carrie moved away, amazed at how immediately she’d felt like an outsider in Giac’s new relationship. Though he made it clear he continued to value her friendship, and she’d been lucky enough to gain Annie into the bargain, Carrie could see that what Annie and Giac shared was singularly unique. A completely personal, one-off connection, impervious to other people; they were each all the other needed.
“Have you given any more thought to our living situation?” Giac whispered, wrapping his arms around his wife and holding her close to him.
She picked an imaginary piece of lint from his suit, and lifted her eyes to his. They were rapidly outgrowing Giac’s penthouse. As Amelia grew, it became patently obvious that she was not a laid back child. When she had room to crawl, she found a way to bounce off the walls. She was happy, but noisy, and so full of energy!
“I truly don’t care,” she said with a simple shrug. “As long as I’m with you…”
He nodded. “We can stay in London,” he conceded, though Annie knew it wasn’t his first preference.
She stood on tiptoes and kissed his lips.
“We have time,” he promised, squeezing her around her waist, thinking he would move heaven and earth to keep his wife happy. How he adored her! His total devotion to her, at times, terrified him.
“Not as much time as you might think,” she remarked cryptically, breaking off to receive yet another congratulations from a guest. A woman she’d met a handful of times, who worked for Giac.
Giac stood impatiently beside her, listening to the inane civilities that went hand in hand with events such as this, before he could bear it no longer. “Excuse us,” he said with a curt nod to his British chief of operations.
He linked his fingers through hers and pulled her further from the assembled crowd. Giac’s property in Tuscany was, without a doubt, the most beautiful place Annie had ever seen. Perched high on a hill, it was near enough to a town to still feel part of a community, but miles from a city. They visited often, and each time, Annie felt it was more and more of a wrench to leave.
The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her. Page 11
