by Abby Green
* * *
The end of the week of the honeymoon came and went and Gianni had still made no move to go back to Rome, even though he felt the need to do so like an annoying burr under his skin. But the fact was that the lure to stay and indulge himself making love to his wife was far more powerful.
He’d looked at the woman—exhausted—in the bed beside him that morning and cursed her roundly. Merda.
He’d taken this week out to focus on his new wife and give her some sense of security in the marriage and get to know her. But the worrying thing was that he couldn’t seem to envisage a time when he would feel relaxed enough to leave Keelin to her own devices so that he could get back to work.
It was almost as if, superstitiously, he knew that leaving this place would break something apart that felt very fragile. And would also remind him of things that he was deliberately pushing to the back of his mind, like since when had he ever had the compulsion to indulge in a domestic idyll?
Staff had returned to the villa from their week’s holiday and the place resumed its usual busy efficiency. Gianni had distracted himself when he wasn’t with Keelin with half-hearted attempts to focus on things that needed to be attended to there.
Like his plans for a new vineyard and newer plans to open a stables. He’d just spoken to his friend Gio Corretti in Sicily, who he’d rung for advice on the matter, and something about hearing Gio’s children laughing and playing in the background had made something inside Gianni ache a little. Something completely alien and new.
He hadn’t told Keelin about those plans and he didn’t like how his decision made him feel a little exposed. He told himself it had nothing to do with the fact that she loved horses and that he’d thought about it after bringing her to a local stables the other day, where they’d spent the day on horseback. Her pure undiluted joy had been infectious and he’d practically had to drag her away, she’d been so happily mucking in. He also told himself it had nothing to do with the fact that he’d seen her smile, like that. Exactly like the photo in her father’s office.
It was a clinical decision based on the fact that he was merely trying to do everything he could to make Keelin feel as at home as possible.
He frowned now—where was she anyway? He got up and left his study and found her in the small garden outside the kitchen, planting herbs with Lucia. Their backs were to him so he could watch them for a minute.
Keelin rested back on her heels, wiping her brow. She was frowning and saying in halting Italian, ‘Buondìa, buongiorno, buonanotte...’
Lucia was beaming and saying, ‘Bene, molto bene.’
Keelin smiled. ‘Grazie mille.’
Gianni felt his chest get tight to hear Lucia conducting a rudimentary Italian lesson. The earth under his feet was moving, shifting. As if sensing him, Keelin looked around and smiled.
Dammit. The tight feeling increased.
She rose to her feet with a lithe move, displaying her long bare legs in cut-off shorts and her stunning curves in a halterneck top. A straw hat protected her delicate pale skin from the sun; even so, she was acquiring freckles and a golden glow.
Gianni had the most bizarre desire to never leave this place, and to feel her arms slide around him so that he could rest his head on her breast and experience a measure of peace and security that had eluded him all of his life.
She stopped before him and tilted her head. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
Before that incisive green gaze might see too much, Gianni grabbed her hand and all but dragged her into the villa. By the time they were in the bedroom with the door shut firmly behind them, they were mutually ravenous—tearing at clothes and falling into the bed in a tangle of limbs, mouths meeting with a clash of tongue and teeth.
Gianni weakly welcomed the equilibrium he regained as he embedded himself deep in Keelin’s slick heat. All he wanted right now were these incandescent moments that drowned out the voices screaming, What the hell is going on here?
* * *
Early the following morning as dawn rose, Gianni left a sleeping Keelin in bed. He couldn’t seem to rest, even though his body was sated in a way that made him nervous. Sated, but still ravenous. As if he was being kept on a knife edge at all times. It was disconcerting.
In his study he noted the flashing lights of about a million messages and passed his hand over his face wearily. Before he listened to them he opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out the small velvet box that had been delivered the previous day.
Opening it, the emerald ring Keelin had chosen in the shop in Montefalco glittered up at him. It seemed to mock him for lots of things. For being so careless with his first choice of ring. For believing her ridiculous charade at the start. For not realising that despite her natural unfussiness, she had an innate style and grace.
He hadn’t given it to her yet. Something was holding him back and he hated that it wasn’t just something he could do without feeling as if suddenly some kind of meaning was attached.
Gianni sighed and closed the box, putting it back in the drawer. And then he picked up the phone to listen to his messages. As he listened to message after message, his world stopped turning and his previous thoughts and feelings reverberated in his head, mocking him loudly.
He finally put down the phone. Shock made him feel sluggish. And all he could think about and feel was the incredible sting of betrayal. And think of the woman in the bed upstairs, the woman who had given him her innocence in a bid to make him believe that she was innocent through and through. When she wasn’t at all.
One of the most important lessons his father had ever taught him—inadvertently—was that you could only trust yourself. In the Mafia, where the code was loyalty and family, everyone knew that at any moment your own brother could shoot you in the back, so that stuff about family and loyalty? It was all rubbish.
Ever since Gianni had looked at that photograph of Keelin on the horse, and seen something pure in her smiling face—something he’d believed didn’t exist—he’d been behaving like a fool. And now he stood to lose everything.
The fact that she had to be guilty was unequivocal. She’d played him from the start and he’d fallen for it. She’d gone to incredible lengths to distract him, and ultimately seduce him so that he didn’t realise what was going on. Hadn’t she admitted to him that she’d do anything to prove her loyalty to her father? Well, she just had, by running so many rings around him that he didn’t know if he was coming or going.
He made a call, an awful terrifying feeling of rage spreading to every limb, turning him icy. Icy was better. He’d been too consumed with heat, and look where that had left him—in serious jeopardy.
He spoke into the phone, his voice curt. ‘Have the helicopter ready within half an hour and tell them I’m on my way.’
* * *
When Keelin woke she had a strange sense of déjà vu. And then a sound broke into her consciousness. She cracked open her eyes and noted that she was spreadeagled across the bed, gloriously naked.
A tumble of images came into her head, of Gianni dragging her up to the room yesterday, and of how he’d been remorseless...in his determination to send her over the edge. So many times that she’d been begging for mercy.
They’d finally fallen asleep and the sound made Keelin frown. It was louder now. A rhythmic thwack thwack.
The helicopter. She went cold. No. Gianni would not have done this again.
She got out of bed and scrabbled for clothes, dragging on her shorts and a T-shirt. She raced downstairs and to the front of the villa, opening the door just in time to see the helicopter rise into the air from the back of the villa.
There were two figures in the seats, and one was unmistakably her husband. For a moment Keelin felt a lurch of panic—perhaps something had happened?
But Gianni made no attempt to
look down, his gaze firmly set on the distance where they were headed. The machine banked left and then it took off over the estate and towards the horizon.
And he was gone. Just like before. Without even saying goodbye. Except this time there was no reason—she hadn’t made him angry.
Frowning, and not liking the slightly sick sensation in her belly, Keelin went back inside and looked in Gianni’s study to see if he’d left a note. But there was nothing.
Then she thought she might have missed something in the bedroom, but again there was nothing.
She could hear movement and realised that this wasn’t as bad as the last time. Now she knew that people were around, and also, she had the somewhat unsettling realisation that even if others weren’t around, she wouldn’t have that awful sense of abandonment.
But the hours crept by and there was no sign or call from Gianni to explain where he’d gone. And any kind of confidence Keelin had been feeling started to crumble, like blocks that weren’t steady enough yet to weather any undue force.
She smiled as Lucia served her lunch, valiantly trying out the few words she’d been learning. And now she felt silly. What had she been doing for the past few days? Fooling herself into believing that somehow everything began and ended with this villa? That the real world wouldn’t encroach and remind her that this was all just a mirage?
She’d had the strong suspicion that Gianni had just gone out of his way to seduce her into believing that she might be happy as his wife.
And by the time evening rolled around with still no sign of her husband, Keelin was coming to terms with the fact that clearly he felt that he’d spent enough time lulling his wife into a false sense of security so why would he need to hang around for longer than necessary?
All day and evening, Keelin had resisted the urge to call Gianni, believing the onus was on him to explain himself. And now she seethed and hated the familiar sense of powerlessness and that she was being ignored.
But she was no longer helpless.
Before Lucia disappeared to bed, Keelin found her and managed to find out what time the train to Rome was in the morning.
There was no way that Gianni was going to get away with believing that she would be happy to sit quietly at his rural home and await his return. She was so focused on her anger that when she took a stingingly hot shower and emotion rose up in a wave it shocked her.
Sob after heaving sob erupted from her chest, tears coursing down her cheeks to merge with the hot water. Aghast at this outpouring but unable to stop it, Keelin shut off the shower and stepped out, her chest still heaving slightly.
Feeling shell-shocked, she looked at her face in the mirror and saw puffy swollen eyes. And she had to finally acknowledge the truth that she’d been resisting all day, and since Montefalco, if she was honest.
The worst thing had happened. She’d fallen in love with her husband. She’d fallen in love with a man who would never love her back. His actions today only proved that.
After all she’d been through, she’d learnt nothing, except that the defences she’d so carefully erected long ago had started tumbling as soon as she’d locked onto that black gaze.
And all the while Gianni had just been playing with her. Proving his dominance. Ruthlessly dismissing her own wishes and desires in a bid to get what he wanted. His cynicism knew no bounds. For the past week he’d wooed her with his body and attention, only to drop her from a height.
And now Keelin looked at herself and felt despair at her lovelorn expression. Was she really so pathetic? So she’d fallen in love with a man who had never made any promises to do the same. If anything, he’d been nothing but brutally honest with her. So she had no one to blame but herself.
But she knew what she had to do. It was time to end this charade once and for all—deal or no deal. And if that meant sacrificing her deepest desires, then she would do it and move on. Because nothing was worth a lifetime of unrequited love. She’d already been defined by that and she wouldn’t allow it to define her again.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN KEELIN GOT off the train in Rome she was hot and sweaty. And angry. She buried all of her vulnerabilities under the fire in her belly. No way would Gianni ever know how much he’d hurt her.
She hailed a taxi and gave them directions for Gianni’s offices and apartment building. When they arrived she made her way to the private lift. The doorman, Lorenzo, recognised her and said, ‘Signora Delucca, shall I inform your husband you’re on your way up?’
Keelin pushed down the flutter of nerves. ‘Is he in his office?’
The man nodded. ‘I believe so.’
Keelin forced a smile. ‘Then yes, that would be great.’
The lift doors opened and she went in, relishing the air conditioning. As the elevator ascended silently though, her palms got sweaty with nerves.
The lift stopped and the doors opened to reveal Gianni with his hands on his hips and a hard expression on his face. ‘What are you doing here?’
Keelin was so taken aback for a moment that she could only open her mouth. He was angry. Blisteringly angry. Why? She was the one who should be angry. If anything it made things easier to see the depth of his displeasure that she’d climbed out of the box he’d put her in.
‘I thought I told you never to leave me like that again.’
Gianni sneered. ‘Spare me a repeat of the sob story, Keelin. I don’t have time for this.’
Keelin’s gasp of outrage was almost swallowed up by the doors starting to close again and she pushed the button to keep them open.
‘What did you just say?’
Gianni was icy. ‘You heard me. I have no desire to talk to you right now. Go back to Umbria, or go to hell, I don’t really care. But don’t for a second assume that I’m not going to deal with you.’
Gianni stepped back and turned to walk away. The lift doors started closing again and Keelin stepped out, uncomfortably aware of her jeans and sleeveless loose top, a light jumper tied around her waist.
She followed him in shock at his words. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m not the one who took off in a helicopter at the crack of dawn to avoid saying goodbye.’
Gianni whirled around and Keelin noticed for the first time that he hadn’t shaved and his clothes were creased.
‘Damn you, O’Connor. If you want to do this now, fine.’
He took her arm in a punishing grip and ignored her gasp of surprise, all but frog-marching her into his office and slamming the door shut.
Keelin was reeling. Damn you, O’Connor? Did he really hate that she’d followed him here that much?
He let her go and strode to his desk, turning around before it and crossing his arms. ‘Well,’ he asked eventually, ‘how much did you know?’
Keelin felt increasingly like Alice in Wonderland. ‘Know what?’
Gianni laughed but it was curt and harsh. When he stopped he said, ‘I wondered what you’d go for—either denial or petulance.’
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Gianni turned around to his desk and picked up a newspaper. He threw it across the room where it landed at Keelin’s feet, face up. As she bent down to pick it up, a headline registered slowly onto her sluggish brain: O’Connor Foods Goes into Receivership.
Keelin scanned the piece and certain words jumped out: On the cards for months... Last-ditch efforts to save itself by merging with other companies... Will its newest star association, Delucca Emporium, survive this fall? Unlikely.
Comprehension sank in. She recalled her father turning so pale on the wedding day when Gianni had been late. No wonder. She looked up and Gianni was more remote than she’d ever seen him. Eyes like black holes that looked like they wanted to incinerate her on the spot.
Faintly she said, �
�That’s why you left so suddenly.’
He clapped slowly. ‘Brava. Your keen understanding of the nuances of this news is truly astonishing.’
Keelin was too shocked for his sarcasm to really penetrate.
Her hand tightened around the paper. ‘I didn’t know anything about this. You can’t possibly think I did, do you?’
But that was a rhetorical question.
Gianni pretended to consider for a moment and then said musingly, ‘Let me see, from the moment we’ve met, you’ve displayed a dizzying array of roles in an obvious effort to distract me from what your real agenda was.’
Keelin opened her mouth to defend herself again but he cut her off brutally. ‘Don’t bother wasting your breath. The answer is yes, I absolutely believe you were all over this. Your father has admitted that your role was crucial—via the marriage of convenience, so that when he went down, I’d feel somehow obliged to step in and save him, for the sake of family ties. The depth of your collusion with him is astonishing. He knew he was in trouble and your loyalty knew no bounds, even going so far as to fake disharmony.’
Keelin gasped at that injustice. ‘I did not collude with my father, anything but. Everything I told you was true—I didn’t want to marry you. I just went along with it to placate him.’
The extent of her father’s machinations was too horrific to absorb under Gianni’s disgusted gaze and he saved her the need to do so. He put up a hand. ‘Save it. I’m done. We’re done, Keelin. That divorce you wanted so badly? It’s yours. Now get out. I never want to see you again.’
* * *
Gianni felt nothing as he watched Keelin flounder, her skin as pale as alabaster, the golden lustre of the last week leached away. He felt nothing because ice flowed through his veins.
A voice urged him that perhaps he was being too hasty? But he shut it down. From day one Keelin had been running rings around him. Doing her best to distract him with enough smoke and mirrors to make sure he didn’t look too closely at the deal, or suspect that O’Connor was in trouble.
