Celebration: Italian Boss, Ruthless RevengeOne Magical ChristmasHired: The Italian’s Convenient Mistress

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘So, what did you do?’

  ‘I went and got my eyelashes dyed and then took a gentle spin on the London Eye and cried my eyes out. I must have looked a fright! I’m surprised the other passengers didn’t press the emergency bell. What about you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I told you, I’m …’ He was just about to make the usual polite response that meant nothing, just about to move on and get on with his day, but something stopped him. Whether it was the events of the last few hours that had him acting out of character, or whether it was her that made him change his mind, Angus wasn’t sure and could hardly believe he said the words that slipped out of his grim mouth. ‘Well, since you ask, I’m feeling pretty crap actually!’

  And still she smiled, still she didn’t move, just blinked those newly dyed eyelashes back at him and stared at him with those blue eyes. There were bits of snow in her hair now, Angus thought, one flake on her eyelashes, and just this … something. Something that made him stand there, that made him speak when perhaps he shouldn’t, made the morning’s events real when till now it had felt like a bad dream.

  ‘My marriage just broke up.’

  ‘Just?’ A smudge of a frown was the only change to her expression.

  ‘About four hours ago …’ What the hell was he doing? Here he was standing in the car park and telling an agency nurse his problems, yet it was as if a ticker-tape parade was coming out of his mouth! Words just spilling out! All he could do was wait for the procession to pass as it all tumbled out. ‘I’m just about to go into work—tell them I can’t come in over the next few days. I’ve no idea who’s going to fill in for me over Christmas …’

  ‘How are the kids?’ She dragged his mind back to the important part of the problem.

  ‘My sister’s watching them.’

  ‘They’re not with their mum?’

  ‘No, she’s gone.’ She was frowning now and Angus didn’t like it. He neither needed nor wanted her concern.

  ‘She’s just gone?’

  ‘It’s all under control!’ Angus snapped, only it wasn’t. He had a horrible feeling that there was a tinge of panic in his voice, it sure as hell sounded like it. He was an emergency consultant, for heaven’s sake, was used to dealing with drama and problems, only it wasn’t that his marriage was over that had him reeling—he’d dealt with that ages ago. No, now it was the thought of facing the kids, of telling them—what? He didn’t know.

  ‘Come and have a coffee.’

  Was that her answer? Was she mad?

  Angus certainly looked at her as if she was!

  ‘I don’t have time …’ He didn’t. He had to go into work and give them the news that the dependable Angus, one of only two emergency consultants covering the Christmas break, actually couldn’t cover it. The thought of sitting in the canteen or the staffroom and talking, instead of doing, was incomprehensible.

  ‘Come on …’ She gestured with her head, and started to walk away from the hospital, offering the same wise words he had offered yesterday. ‘You have to make time.’

  ‘I don’t have sugar …’ Irritated, but not at her, he snapped out the words. His life was down the drain, he had a million things he had to get on with, yet here he was sitting in a packed café, surrounded by Christmas shoppers. Carols were frying his brain from the speakers overhead as she calmly came over with two big mugs of sickly, milky coffee and proceeded to load them with sugar.

  ‘You do today.’ Imogen shrugged as a strange sort of grin came to her lips. ‘You’re in shock!’

  ‘Shut up!’ He actually laughed. On a day when he never thought he would, when there was nothing, not a single thing to smile about, he started to laugh. Maybe he was in shock, Angus thought. Maybe this strange euphoria, this sort of relief that was zipping into him, was some sort of shock reaction, which a mug of something hot and sweet wasn’t ever going to cure. But, as he took a sip, it somehow did. Not a lot, not even a little bit, but it sort of did do something.

  ‘I’m not in shock,’ he said finally when he’d taken a drink and put down his mug, ‘because it really wasn’t a shock—I just didn’t think it would be today that it ended.’

  ‘And certainly not the day after she sacked the nanny.’ Imogen, as she always seemed to, Angus was realising, got right to the very point. ‘How old are your children?’

  ‘Jack’s five, Clemmie’s four.’

  ‘Are they at school?’

  ‘Jack is.’ He nodded. ‘Clemmie starts in September. Not that it makes any difference at the moment, they’re on holiday and I’m rostered on all over Christmas. She sacked our cleaning lady last month as well,’ Angus added gloomily. ‘The house is like a bomb site!’

  ‘Can you ask her to come back?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘Who—Gemma or the cleaning lady?’

  ‘The nanny.’ Imogen grinned, assessing him as she would a patient and glad to see he had his sense of humour intact.

  ‘Don’t think so …’ He shook his head. ‘I went to see her this morning; I gave her her holiday money and a reference. She’s actually already found another job—you’ll never guess who for.’

  ‘Who?’ Imogen frowned.

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone in London.’

  ‘Guido!’ He watched as her jaw dropped. ‘As dire as my situation is, I think Maria’s brother needs help more than I do right now—and Ainslie’s great. It’s good to know that Guido’s being taken care of.’

  ‘By a thief?’ Imogen pointed out.

  ‘No.’ Angus took a long drink of his coffee. ‘I’m pretty sure that I was right about that too …’ He gave a tight smile as she sat there bemused. ‘And I’d hazard a guess that the cleaning lady wasn’t guzzling our gin either.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘Never mind. My loss is Elijah Vanaldi’s gain …’ Angus said evasively, ‘that’s all you need to know. Guido will be well taken care of by Ainslie.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Imogen asked. ‘With you and Gemma?’

  He gave a tight smile. He certainly wasn’t going to go there—and certainly not with a stranger. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand, given that you’ve been through it yourself, if I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘No.’ Imogen shook her head. ‘Talking about it is the only way to get through it.’

  ‘For you perhaps,’ Angus clipped, but Imogen wasn’t fazed.

  ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’

  Why was he grinning again?

  ‘Brad had an affair.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Imogen gave him a startled look. ‘Don’t be sorry—it was absolutely my fault!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘He had needs, you see …’ Imogen said. ‘Very Special Needs. He’s very good-looking, he’s an actor, you know …’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I mean, what was I thinking, Angus?’ She shot him a serious look. ‘I should have been at the gym if I’d cared about him, really cared about him. I’d have lost my weight straight after I had Heath, now, wouldn’t I? And I certainly wouldn’t have had a baby guzzling on my boobs at all hours of the night. I would have asked about his day more, wouldn’t I, Angus?’

  She was like icy water on an impossibly hot day, just this refreshing drench that stunned him. He didn’t get her, yet he was starting to want to—never knew when she opened her mouth where it was going, yet every word gave him something, like this join-the-dot picture, as she revealed herself.

  ‘If I had really wanted to keep him,’ she continued, not lowering her voice, not caring who might hear, just utterly at ease with herself she carried on. He was half smiling, but very sad too as he stared at this amazing woman—sad for all she had been through, but smiling at the way she shared it. ‘I would have stroked his ego more, I would have been tidier, remembered to put on my make-up before he came home, perhaps dressed a bit better. You see, Angus, I didn’t understand
how demanding his career was, but she did. She appreciated him, she understood his Very Special Needs—whereas I was fat, lazy and lousy in bed!’ She ticked them off one by one on her hands. ‘So, you see, it was absolutely my fault that he had an affair.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For what you must have been through. I’m sure you didn’t deserve it.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Imogen said without even a trace of bitterness. ‘And I’m not, by the way!’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Fat.’

  ‘No,’ Angus politely agreed, ‘you’re not.’

  ‘I mean, I’m not supermodel material—I accept that—and, yes, I do like to eat, but I think there are better words to describe me than fat!’

  ‘You’re not fat.’ Obviously getting hot now, she’d taken off her jacket, big boobs jiggling under her jumper. Her skirt was biting into her waist over her soft, round tummy, and Angus felt a terribly inappropriate stirring under the table. ‘You’re …’ Gorgeous was what he’d been about to say, but that seemed too much. Fine as you are sounded patronising and just way, way too little, so he settled for ‘lovely’ instead, which seemed sort of safe and couldn’t be construed as flirting, because he wasn’t flirting. Well, he didn’t think he was.

  ‘And I’m not lazy.’

  ‘I know that!’ Angus answered, ‘I worked with you yesterday—I know that you’re far from lazy!’

  ‘And …’ Imogen gave a cheeky grin as he reached for his mug ‘… Brad was wrong on the final count too!’

  ‘Quite!’ He took a gulp of his coffee.

  ‘Just in case you were wondering!’ She winked.

  He wasn’t going to answer that one!

  So she tried another question instead. ‘Was she worried, Gemma?’ Imogen flushed just a little as she fished. ‘About you and the nanny?’

  ‘Ainslie!’ Angus shot her an incredulous look.

  ‘Just wondering.’ Imogen shrugged. ‘Just you said that you went to see her this morning …’

  ‘Because she was thrown out of my house!’ He didn’t even hide his annoyance at her suggestion. ‘Because, like you, she’s from Australia, and in the same way I was concerned about you yesterday …’ He stopped in mid-sentence, because for the first time in the entire conversation he was veering from the truth. His concern for Ainslie had been as an employer, whereas his concern for Imogen … Angus swallowed hard. ‘Look,’ he said brusquely, ‘I can assure you Gemma wasn’t, neither did she have any reason to be, jealous.’

  ‘Then consider me assured!’

  ‘In fact—’ Angus bristled with indignation ‘—it’s Gemma who’s been having an affair.’

  ‘So things weren’t happy at home?’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Angus started, but she was right, because the facts spoke for themselves. Eventually he nodded. ‘She says she didn’t intend to have an affair, but she fell in love.’

  ‘Well, you can’t plan for that,’ Imogen said.

  ‘You can when you’re married.’ Angus argued then gave in. ‘OK, yes—things weren’t good at home. We were both holding on till Clemmie went to school—it was over a long time ago. Gemma’s a model,’ he explained. ‘She stopped working when we had the children, then when Clemmie was one she went back to it. Till that point, even before we had kids, it had been pretty low key, catalogues, brochures that type of thing. Then suddenly things just took off for her in a way neither of us expected really. I supported her at the start, well I hope I did. That’s how I got into this blasted celebrity doctor spot—I was at a television studio where she was being interviewed and they needed an expert opinion …’

  ‘Do you like doing it?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Angus said. ‘It’s certainly a good forum for education—just sometimes …’ He gave a tight shrug, not noticing her slight smile at the rather formal description. ‘It started to take over and I pulled back. Gemma wanted me to do more of the celebrity stuff and wind things down at the hospital, but for me that wasn’t an option. I guess, in the end, we just wanted different things.’

  ‘Like what?’ Imogen asked, but Angus didn’t answer. ‘Like what?’ she pushed, but Angus just shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve got great kids, a great home, we love our work …’ He blew out a breath of frustration. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Tell me about it …’ Imogen sighed then perked up. ‘Except Brad’s and my home wasn’t actually that great and I wasn’t particularly happy at work either, but we did have the great-kid bit!’

  ‘Are you always so open?’

  ‘No!’ Imogen grinned. ‘But given I’m not going to be here for long, and after yesterday I have no intention of working back down in your emergency room again, I think I can afford to be. You can be too!’

  ‘We agreed last year things weren’t working …’ He gave a pensive smile. ‘That makes it sound like we drew a neat conclusion, but it was the toughest thing we’d ever done. We both decided to stay together till Clemmie was at school.’

  ‘In September?’ Imogen checked.

  ‘Yep.’ Angus nodded. ‘I’d signed up till then with the TV station, knowing that once they were both at school, I was going to give it up anyway and become the primary carer.’

  ‘Not Gemma?’

  ‘She figures she’s only got a few years of modelling left—as I pointed out to her, the kids only have one childhood …’ He drew in a deep breath then let it out. ‘For the kids I could live a year or so in a marriage that was over, just not an unfaithful one. Gemma, it would seem, couldn’t. After I got back from speaking with Ainslie this morning, we had an almighty row and the truth came out. Gemma did what I always knew she would in the end …’ His eyes were two balls of pain. ‘She walked out on the kids.’

  ‘Do they know?’

  ‘They know that she’ll be away for a few days. I’ve told them she’s away on a photo shoot, they’re pretty used to that … I’m hoping that she’ll see sense.’

  ‘That she’ll come back?’ Imogen checked, but Angus shook his head.

  ‘That we can work out properly what we’re going to tell them—then tell the kids together. But, no—she’s not coming back.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Don’t know …’ he admitted. ‘My mum’s in Scotland. I’ll ring her tonight, ask her to come and help out for a couple of weeks …’

  ‘Will she be terribly upset?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angus said. ‘I’m going to have to ask her though …’ He gave a small grimace as he realized how many other busy lives would be disrupted by his. ‘She’s going to visit friends for a few days for Christmas. I’ll ask her to come after that—at least till I find a new nanny. My sister, Lorna, lives nearby. I’m sure she can help out sometimes, although she is working …’

  ‘So you have got a plan!’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Which doesn’t help now.’ He took another mouthful of coffee then screwed up his face. ‘This is cold—do you want another?’

  She didn’t, but she nodded, and Angus idly watched from the counter as she sat and checked her phone as he ordered a couple of coffees and two mini Christmas puddings, surprised himself at how much better he felt now just by talking.

  ‘Don’t you miss Heath?’ Angus asked Imogen, though he was still thinking about Gemma. ‘When he’s with his dad?’

  ‘All the time!’ Imogen answered. ‘I feel like I’ve permanently forgotten my keys when he isn’t around. I confess to being the world’s most overprotective mother—Brad always said he’d turn out to be a mummy’s boy if I didn’t back off, but he’s turned out quite the opposite …’

  ‘So how …’ Angus frowned ‘… can you stand for him to live in London and you in Australia?’ This time it was Imogen looking at him as if he’d gone stark raving mad in the middle of the café! ‘You said he was here with his dad.’

  ‘He is,’ Imoge
n answered slowly, ‘because I brought him here.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Brad doesn’t live here!’ She smiled at his confusion. ‘Brad and I pretty much share care back home in Queensland,’ Imogen explained. ‘Though, given the nature of his work, it tends to fall on me. When he got offered this role, well, it was huge for him. They’ve got time off over the Christmas break, but it would have been practically impossible for him to get home and he didn’t want to be apart from Heath for Christmas. It’s just a one-off—you see, he’s got terminal cancer.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘Not Brad!’ Imogen grinned at his appalled expression. ‘His character—Shane. He only took the part because it was short term—just three months. Brad would never come and live here and leave Heath. He’s only going to be in England for a few more weeks, but even though I really wanted Heath to have some time in London, and some real quality time with his dad, I just couldn’t stand to be away from him over Christmas. So I said that I’d bring him over, but that I’d stay pretty much in the background. I mean, Heath’s having a ball, I’ve just taken him over to the studio now—he’s watching his dad and all the cast are spoiling him. I don’t want to interrupt that …’

  ‘You’re amazing,’ Angus said.

  ‘Amazing and broke!’ Imogen admitted. ‘This little jaunt to support my ex-husband’s rising career has cost an absolute fortune—the airfares, the accommodation, my mad moment on the London Eye—’

  ‘Worth it?’ Angus broke in.

  ‘Very much so!’ Imogen smiled. ‘I took Heath to see Buckingham Palace this morning, which was just amazing. Mind you, I’m already sick of taking him to cafes for lunch. I don’t want him staying with me at the youth hostel—but I can’t afford to stay anywhere else …’ Her voice trailed off as she caught him frowning. Their eyes locked for just a fraction of time, then both rapidly looked away concentrating on their mini Christmas puddings.

  ‘You could always …’ Angus broke the sudden silence then blew out a breath, before looking at her again. Serious, practical, yet somehow terribly hazardous, she offered a taste of a solution. ‘Look, I’m minus a nanny. The nanny’s empty room might not be the best on offer, but I’m sure that it would beat the youth hostel …’