The Count of Castelfino

by Christina Hollis

  ‘Isn’t that the best place?’ Leaning negligently against the wall, he watched her open the door. ‘That secret refuge where life is as sweet as we can make it, as often as we like?’

  Meg put her head down and ran. She headed for her cottage, not caring who saw her. She did not dare stop, because the rip tide of her emotions would drag her straight back into his arms.

  ‘Don’t worry, Meg. You’ll always have a position here.’ His voice followed her out into the upper hall and down the marble staircase. ‘You’ll be back—and I’ll be here. Waiting…’

  His chuckle was so delicious. The knowledge she could never afford to hear it again cut Meg to the bone. Squeezing her eyes tight shut against the pain, she refused to weaken, and ran on.

  Chapter Eight

  MEG had to keep telling herself she had done the right thing, because it went against every instinct. She knew her spell as Gianni’s lover had been doomed from the start. It was bound to end, the moment he found himself a wife. Taking fate into her own hands hadn’t made her feel any better. She wrote a resignation letter the moment she got back to the Garden Cottage. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t merely her job but her whole life that was over. Losing Gianni would have been unbearable, until she had heard how little he thought of her. That made it easier—but only slightly.

  Though she wanted to leave straight away she was too conscientious to leave her colleagues in the lurch. She did her best to work out her notice without seeing him. It was almost impossible. He had transferred most of his business interests to the office in the villa, so he rarely left the Castelfino estate these days. Until her resignation, he had taken delight in staying at home with Meg rather than roaming the world. If business concerns hadn’t started dragging him away again, she would have been in utter despair. Meg knew his future could not possibly lie with her. She prayed he had accepted she would not weaken and tried her best to avoid him whenever she could. Turning aside or hurrying away whenever she heard his footsteps was bad enough. But each time she did it, Meg then tortured herself by watching him secretly until long after he disappeared from sight.

  The twelfth of November was to be her last day at work. Meg marked it with a big red circle on every calendar she could find. It sat on the page like a spider waiting to pounce. She tried to see it as the first day of a whole new life. It didn’t work. All it signified was the end of her brief, joyous affair with Gianni. That thought made the time pass faster still. And all the time her body was distracting her. She lived in a perpetual state of arousal, needing Gianni, but scared of the consequences. Things came to a head one day when she was cutting flowers for the house. Thoughts of him had kept her awake for half the night. She was tired, and her guard was down. He sauntered up behind her while she was unaware. The first thing Meg knew was the glorious sensation of his hand slipping around her waist.

  ‘Megan—’

  ‘No!’ She leapt aside like a gazelle. Avoiding his touch called for drastic action. Thanking her lucky stars that her arms were full of Monte Cassino asters, she thrust the airy mass between them quickly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Offended at her reaction, he frowned. It could do nothing to spoil the rising tide of need in her.

  ‘N-nothing. You made me jump, that’s all.’

  ‘Does that mean we can be friends again?’

  A slow, predatory smile tantalised his lips. He began moving towards her.

  ‘No! I’m sorry—that is…please don’t, Gianni…’

  Fighting every instinct to throw herself into his arms, Meg shuffled backwards and away from him. For the sake of her peace of mind she could not afford to be seduced by him, ever again. Although he projected the image of an ideal modern man, every fibre of his being was stiff with heritage and aristocracy. The moment Gianni decided the time was right to provide himself with an heir, Meg knew he would see her as nothing more than an inconvenience.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be like this, Megan,’ he said, disappointment clouding his eyes.

  ‘No—thank you. Things have changed. You made it crystal clear how you feel about me and my role here, and in any case it’s time I went home to visit my parents. My father is due to go into hospital again soon, so my mum will be glad of company. They need me. Think how you would have felt if you hadn’t been able to see your father when he was in hospital!’

  She threw out one last desperate excuse, and saw it connect. Instantly the light went out of his expression and he took a step back from her.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She tried to view her situation through his eyes. From the gossip she had picked up, it was practically standard practice among aristocrats to have affairs among their employees. Gianni had only humoured her over the kitchen garden project because he had wanted to get her into bed. She could see that now. The realisation hurt her more than his anger would have done. That was why she needed to escape back to England as soon as possible.

  Autumn blew in with the second week of November. Gianni stood with his back to his desk, hands on hips, watching the sky. It was a wild day. Watercolour clouds billowed over the ridge of di Castelfino land far beyond his window. For centuries his ancestors had watched and waited for attack from the north. Gianni, Count di Castelfino had never feared anything in his life. Now the thought of winter chilled his heart. The bitter wind sweeping down from the Alps wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

  He strolled back to look at the sheet of notepaper lying open on his desk. Meg’s clear, well-rounded handwriting flowed across the page. It was her resignation letter. Reading it again, he almost smiled. Instead of a stiff farewell, she had added thanks for all the help and support she had received, and for the wonderful experience working at the villa had been.

  Gianni glanced towards the telephones on his desk, automatically reaching forward. Then he reconsidered, and subsided into his office chair. He was deep in thought.

  All his other staff were happy, and none of them had experienced the bonus of his constant physical attention. Why the hell couldn’t Meg see when she was well off? He’d offered to do whatever it took to keep her at his side. No inducement worked. Instead she had done her best to disappear off the face of the earth, while still working as hard for the estate as ever. Her influence was everywhere: in the floral art gracing every room of his house, and in the cold empty space beside him in his bed at night.

  He had been forced to go around to the kitchen garden several times, trying to find her. He told the staff it was because he needed to make sure she had suitable plans in place for her successor. Not that he had the heart to advertise the post. He already knew Meg was one of a kind. The gardens of the Castelfino estates could sicken and die for all he cared. The greenhouses and flower borders would be too painful a reminder of her, once she was gone. On the few occasions he managed to track her down, she was never alone. She refused to dismiss her staff, and made sure he never got within arm’s length. Each time, she went through an emotionless ritual of showing him all the records and computer updates. Gianni couldn’t break down the barriers she had raised against him, and he couldn’t catch her out on anything. She was impossible to distract. Whether he tried to slip in a sly comment or lifted a quizzical eyebrow expecting a smile, he got the same response. Meg had become a stone-faced company girl to her icy fingertips.

  The wind tossed a blizzard of white doves across the autumn-gold slopes of the hillside outside his office window. Gianni barely noticed them. Right now he should be busy on the phone, oiling the wheels of commerce and loving every minute of it. Instead he was wasting time over a letter that took seconds to write and could be binned with equal ease. Snatching it up, he swept Meg’s note towards the shredder—but something stopped him dropping it in.

  He needed closure. It wasn’t something that could be put into words on a featureless white page. There was a need deep inside him to clean out the wound Meg had caused to his pride. It mustn’t be allowed to fester. Within twenty-four hours he would be headin
g across the Atlantic, and the moment would be lost.

  He stood up again, roaming around his office like a fury. Not even the display shelves lined with their tasteful objets d’art could distract his attention for long. He lifted a millefiori paperweight, and dragged his finger across the sinuous folds of a modern bronze, but none of these beautiful things made any impression on him. All he could think about was the hole Meg would leave in his life when she left him.

  His intercom clicked. He killed it stone dead. Then he dropped his hands onto his desk in exasperation. Meg was wreaking almost as much havoc as his mother had done. But Meg was an intelligent woman. Why couldn’t she see that a secure job here with the benefit of his lovemaking was worth a lifetime of scratching a living anywhere else? For the sake of some outdated notion of commitment she would throw it all away and simply because…

  He stood up, letting his hands fall to his sides with a smack of infuriation. One minute his life had been running smoothly. The next, Meg had demolished the statue of his pride and left the remains strewn all over the place. It was one thing to accuse him of being incapable of commitment, but to accuse him of being damaged had torn away all his layers of resilience. She hadn’t even given him the right of reply. Each time he had cornered her since then, the moment was never right. He always came away with her assurance that everything was under control. That included his reactions. He felt manipulated, without knowing exactly how she was doing it.

  The reassurance of her constant presence at his side had been a bittersweet pleasure that had never failed. He frowned, unable to understand how this girl had found something so soft and yielding within him. It was a quality he had never suspected that he possessed. For once in his life, Gianni had stopped looking for his next great conquest.

  He wanted the one he hadn’t finished with.

  Living the perfect modern life with unlimited money and an intelligent, career-minded woman gave Gianni the best of both worlds. He was in no hurry to relinquish his hold on either.

  He set out for the airport next day determined to drive straight there with absolutely no distractions of any kind. He lasted twenty yards. Grabbing the Ferrari’s handbrake on with a twang that sent pigeons flying from the trees, he crossed the drive towards the Garden Cottage in a rattle of gravel. No woman had ever walked away from him in the heat of a relationship before. Megan Imsey wasn’t going to carve a first on his spirit.

  Her little hire car was parked outside. Resisting the temptation to check it for dents, he went straight to the front door. Lifting the heavy black knocker, he dropped it with a bang.

  There was no reply. Gianni felt the back of his neck burn with the curiosity of a dozen pairs of eyes, watching secretly from the house and grounds. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter how many members of his staff saw this. The story would be all around the villa in seconds anyway, whatever he did. That was something else to add to Miss Megan Imsey’s list of triumphs.

  He was about to lift the knocker again for a second thunderous report when the door jerked right out of his hand. Meg scowled up at him from the doorway. She had one hand cradled in the other.

  ‘You should be on your way to California by now, Gianni.’

  Her face was white as paper. It made quite a contrast with the thin red seams of blood running between her fingers.

  ‘You’ve cut yourself!’ He stared down at her, the gyroscope of his anger unable to get a purchase on the slippery slope of circumstance.

  ‘Thank you. I know. I would have had it cleaned by now if I hadn’t had to stop and answer the door.’

  Meg’s crisp defiance was in total contrast with her feelings. The relief at finding Gianni on her doorstep was tempered by the suspicion he was expecting her to faint at his feet like a Victorian heroine. The sight of blood—especially her own—always made her feel wobbly. She felt herself growing into the part of feeble woman by the second, but gritted her teeth. Fainting was most definitely not part of her job description.

  Gianni clearly agreed with her. Taking charge of the situation, he bundled her into the house and slammed the front door behind him.

  ‘You should be sitting down.’ He guided her into the kitchen with a firm hand under her elbow. ‘Take a seat while we have another talk about this.’ Pulling out her letter of resignation, he brandished it triumphantly.

  ‘Oh, Gianni, I haven’t got time for that right now! Look at this mess…’ She spread her fingers in a hopeless gesture. Beads of blood were blossoming across the ball of her thumb.

  ‘I’ll talk and you can listen while I see to your cut,’ he said firmly, grasping her hand and pulling it towards him.

  She flinched.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

  ‘You might. And an argument isn’t going to make you feel particularly caring.’

  ‘This cut has got nothing to do with you or me. This is a simple health and safety issue.’ He glanced at the scatter of plant material arranged over her worktops. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘I wanted to take home some mementoes of my stay here. I was preparing some cuttings when the knife slipped.’

  He picked her penknife up from the kitchen counter and tested the blade carefully against his skin.

  ‘When was the last time you sharpened this knife? Really sharp knives are always less dangerous.’

  Meg looked away. ‘I was trying to be quick.’

  ‘Yes, and look where it’s got you.’

  ‘All I wanted was some souvenirs,’ she muttered.

  Gianni dropped the penknife and stared at her.

  ‘You wouldn’t need any souvenirs if you simply agreed to carry on working here. You don’t have to go, Megan! How often must I tell you? If I said anything I shouldn’t, then I’m sorry. You see? This hell is all of your own making,’ he finished triumphantly.

  ‘Your memory is painfully short, Gianni. You didn’t want to employ me at all to begin with. Now you want my contract to include being your mistress, without giving me any loyalty when you talk about me to your friends. Or any assurance of how long it will last—and we aren’t talking only of my career. I need my future to provide a lot more security than you’re offering me, Gianni.’

  Her voice rang with the resignation of someone who knew exactly what she was up against. This time Gianni couldn’t stare her out. The first-aid box was open on the table, so she pushed it towards him. He dropped his gaze to her hand. She stared at the top of his head as he bent over the cut on her thumb.

  ‘It’s been hopeless, trying to dress my right hand with my left,’ she said, suddenly glad that he was here and taking control. She felt more faint than she wanted him to know.

  ‘I wonder if you might need a stitch or two in this…’

  ‘What?’ Meg roused as though from a dream. She stopped, unable to carry on. He wasn’t listening to her, but concentrating on her thumb.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, trying to convince herself.

  ‘Are you up to date with your tetanus shots?’

  ‘It’s practically inscribed in my job description.’

  He cleaned the crime scene with all the skill of a surgeon.

  ‘Are you quite sure you don’t want me to run you into town to get this looked at? You’re very pale.’ He searched her face. Meg looked away.

  ‘Thanks, but I mustn’t delay you any longer. It’s time you weren’t here,’ she said with chilling certainty.

  ‘Sit there.’ He indicated tersely. Meg did as she was told as he began organising scissors, tape and bandage. She watched him, but neither spoke.

  She felt she had drawn a line under their affair and said enough: no more. But to her irritation Gianni couldn’t leave it at that. He had a pathological need to have the last word, and to always be in the right. Meg had presented him with a wrinkle in his smoothly ordered life. He couldn’t leave it alone. He’d had to visit, expecting her to roll over and pander to him eventually, as everyone else always did. She pursed her lips. How could he call
himself forward thinking, while keeping a mistress as all his ancestors would have done? If she gave in to her instincts and threw herself into his arms, she would be right back where she’d started. The clock would be counting down the days until he started clearing the way for a wife and legitimate family to replace her. That would spoil any last illusions she had about him. I’m not falling in with his plans just to salve his guilty conscience, she thought. As that thought crossed her mind Meg had a flashback. She was in the greenhouse with Gianni. He had played on the sensuality of his caresses all that evening, and made her wildest fantasy into a dreamlike reality. On that first precious evening he had carved his name deep into her heart.

  I want you to be perfectly clear what I have in mind for you, Megan. It isn’t marriage.

  With those few words he had drawn her into a way of life that could only mean heartbreak. She looked down at him as he bent over her hand. It was all she could do not to dive the fingers of her good hand into the thick darkness of his curls. But that would plunge her straight back into his arms and his bed. Meg moved restlessly in her seat. She only felt truly alive with the touch of his fingers and the bliss of his kisses, but she could never risk leaving herself open to the pain and misery of seeing him marry another woman. She couldn’t expose her heart to the sort of damage losing Gianni a second time would inflict.

  ‘I’ve stopped the bleeding. How does that feel, mio dolce?’

  ‘Much better, thanks.’

  To her horror, Meg realised she was smiling. She had gone into this with her eyes wide open, yet Gianni had still managed to get the better of her. His seductive skills were irresistible. She knew he could sweep her up on wings of desire and take her to indescribable heights. They always shared something way beyond lust or heat. It had been a melding of two spirits…but one of them had resolutely kept a foot on solid ground at all times. Gianni was too keen on watching his back to give himself to her completely. She knew he would never let himself suffer by being led astray.