The Italian Tycoon's Bride

by Brooks, Helen

  By the time the two friends said goodnight and retired to their respective rooms Maisie knew she wanted to leave London as soon as possible. Perhaps even tomorrow? Lovely though Sue had been, Maisie felt she needed to be somewhere where no one knew her history, where the deepest conversation she’d have with someone would be about the weather. Some folk might term it running away and maybe it was, but she didn’t care. It was what she needed right now and that was that. If it didn’t work out she could always come back to London and begin again. And if it worked out well, she wouldn’t. Simple. About the only thing in her life that was.

  She sat down on the bed, fighting the urge to cry, and it was then that her eyes focused on Liliana’s bag. The food! She felt a guilty dart that she hadn’t at least sorted through and put what could be salvaged in Sue’s fridge. Walking across the room, she lifted the bag on to the small dressing table and took out the contents, and there, right at the bottom where it must have slipped down during the journey, was a little box tied with a ribbon.

  A present from Liliana? Oh, bless her, Maisie thought, flipping over the little card attached to the box.

  I hope in time the memories this evokes will be happy ones. We’re both going to miss you. Blaine.

  Her hands shaking and her eyes already filling with tears, Maisie undid the ribbon and opened the little box. She took out the beautifully worked little dog that was Humphrey right down to the funny little clump of hair under his chin and stared at it as the tears dripped off her face. Blaine must have had it specially made—it was too like Humphrey to be a coincidence. The sculpture sat in her hand, looking up at her with soulful eyes, and her heart broke.

  She walked across to the bed again and sat sobbing and shaking for long minutes before she tried to pull herself together. What had Blaine thought of his present? she wondered as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose after putting the

  little dog safely on the dressing table. She had seen the small painting on one of their days out in a shop next door to the restaurant where Blaine chose to eat, and under the pretext of going to the ladies’ cloakroom had crept out and bought it. It had been by a local artist of high renown and very expensive, but the Mediterranean villa had been evocative of summer days and mellow evenings, the children playing in the sunlit courtyard and the woman standing in the doorway watching them exquisitely painted. But it had been the roses round the door of the villa that had caught her attention.

  Maisie sniffed and wiped her eyes again. At the time she had bought it with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, hoping he would take it in the spirit it was meant and see the joke. Now it was too poignant to even think about. Especially after her little sculpture.

  She climbed into bed, curling up into a little ball under the covers and knowing sleep was a million miles away. Was Blaine lying awake thinking of her? She hoped he was. She hoped he was as miserable as her and that he didn’t get over her departure from his life too quickly, even if it was lust and not love on his side. That might mean her love for him was a bit egotistical and selfish, but if half of what Sue had said was true she was due a bit of putting herself first anyway. Not that she particularly wanted to—she’d love Blaine to be part of her life so she could put him first. First, second and third.

  She sniffed, reaching for her handkerchief. It was going to be another long night…

  The next day at three o’clock in the afternoon Maisie stepped off the train and stood gazing about her. The Yorkshire air was bracing. Not exactly below zero, but definitely bracing. She pulled her jacket collar up round her neck and picked up her case, walking out of the station.

  The very nice taxi driver recommended a bed and breakfast when Maisie asked; it was his sister’s place, he said, but for all that it was definitely second to none. Later that evening Maisie phoned Sue and Jackie and told them where she was and that she was fine. She wasn’t and they all knew that, but some things were better left unsaid.

  She spent a week in the bed and breakfast before moving into a tiny one-bedroomed flat on the ground floor of an old terraced house in Thirsk. The town was very English with its cobbled market place, eighteenth-century inns and old buildings, and that suited her. She could do English. It was any reminder of foreign climes she couldn’t handle.

  When, within days, she had found a job at a veterinary practice which was practically on her doorstep, she knew someone up there was looking after her. Everything had fallen into place with remarkable ease and she knew she ought to be grateful, but the ton weight on her heart made it difficult to feel anything much at all.

  But that would pass, she reassured herself each night. She had arranged the delivery of her few bits of furniture and personal belongings from the friend who had been storing them for her, she had a much nicer little home than she’d had in London, she had money in the bank—thanks to Jenny’s generosity, and she was again doing the job she loved on a salary she could live on. It was enough. It would have to be enough.

  She had been living in Yorkshire for nearly six weeks when Jackie rang her one night to say she and Sue were coming up for the weekend and intended to take her out for a slap-up meal. ‘We’re bringing sleeping bags and will spin a coin to see who sleeps on the sofa and who has the floor,’ Jackie said cheerfully when Maisie warned her there was only one single bed in the place. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  Maisie didn’t protest too hard. Everyone had been very friendly at work and she had already had a couple of invites to go out with the other two nurses, who were both young and fancy free, but it wasn’t the same as being with Sue and Jackie. She did warn Jackie to bring winter woollies, though. It was only the last week of October but they had already had several white frosts and even a sprinkling of snow the day before.

  Sue and Jackie arrived in Sue’s little car at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, having been up at the crack of dawn for the two hundred and forty odd mile journey—as Jackie wearily informed her. Jackie had wanted to come by train but Sue loved driving and rarely had the chance to put her smart little car through its paces.

  ‘Come on in and I’ll make a coffee.’ Maisie pulled them into the kitchen as she spoke. The house had been converted in such a way that she had her own separate front door accessed from the narrow front garden. The other three flats—one each on the first and second floors and then a loft conversion—had a communal key to a door leading to stairs from which the respective flats were approached. ‘We’ll get your stuff in later.’

  After hugs all round the three of them had just sat down with a cup of coffee and slice of cheesecake—at least Sue and Jackie had sat down on the two stools the kitchen boasted and Maisie was perched half on the worktop, one leg on the floor and the other dangling—when a knock came at the door. ‘Apart from you two, I haven’t had one other person come to the door since I’ve been here and now there’s three in one morning,’ Maisie said, sliding off the worktop and walking across to the door.

  She pulled it open and then the world stopped spinning and everything was flung into space. There was a moment of utter silence and then Blaine said softly, ‘Hallo, Maisie.’

  He was real, then. He wasn’t a product of her fevered imagination. She stared at him but she still couldn’t speak or move. She heard a scramble behind her and then Sue’s voice saying, ‘I don’t believe your cheek! How dare you come here?’

  Then Jackie babbling, ‘I didn’t give him the address, Sue. I promise. We agreed, didn’t we?’ And then they were both at her elbow.

  ‘Shut the door!’ This was from Sue.

  But it was only when her friend tried to grab the handle that Maisie found the strength to say, ‘Don’t, Sue. Look, would you two please take your coffees through to the sitting room for a minute?’ And to Blaine, ‘Come in.’

  Sue groaned. ‘Don’t ask him in, Maisie,’ she implored, before turning to Jackie and saying, ‘How could you? I mean I know he’s your uncle and everything, but how could you after we agreed we wouldn’t say?’

  ‘She di
dn’t say.’ Blaine was talking to Sue but he hadn’t taken his eyes from Maisie’s white face. ‘Her mother let slip you were both going away for the weekend and I put two and two together. I followed Jackie to your house last night and then waited outside until you left this morning.’

  ‘All night?’ Jackie squeaked.

  ‘All night, and then I followed you. It wasn’t difficult.’

  The icy wind blew a quiff of hair over his forehead and it was then that Maisie said again, ‘Come in,’ stepping back so the other two were forced to do the same.

  Once in her tiny kitchen he immediately dominated it, the black leather jacket and black trousers he was wearing adding to the aura of brooding masculinity. Maisie swallowed. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. Thank goodness she’d made an effort with her hair and put some make-up on this morning in honour of Sue and Jackie’s arrival. She had thought if she looked reasonably good it wouldn’t be so much of a ‘poor Maisie’ weekend. Her mouth was dry with shock and she swallowed again before she turned to her friends. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said weakly. ‘Please, go through to the sitting room.’

  ‘You don’t look all right.’ Sue was really into the British bulldog role.

  ‘I am. Please, Jackie.’ Maisie looked at Jackie and the other girl answered the appeal by taking Sue’s arm and yanking her out of the kitchen.

  ‘Sit…sit down.’ Maisie gestured to one of the stools before hastily placing the girls’ coffee and cheesecake on a tray. ‘I’ll just take this to them.’

  Blaine didn’t sit, neither did he say anything more. He just looked at her and something in his gaze made hot colour flood her face. She hurriedly left the kitchen, walking into the sitting room where Sue and Jackie were both standing poised like lionesses ready to protect their young. ‘Sit down,’ she whispered. ‘Have your coffee. I’ll call if I need you.’

  ‘Promise?’ Sue said grimly.

  ‘Sue, he isn’t about to attack me or anything,’ Maisie said a bit more strongly. ‘He’s obviously come about something, so the least I can do is to hear what he has to say. Is Guiseppe all right?’ she suddenly added to Jackie as the awful thought struck that maybe Blaine had come to tell her bad news.

  Jackie nodded silently.

  But it could be Humphrey or even the little foal. He might not have come to see her, not in that way. She turned quickly and, once in the kitchen again, saw that Blaine hadn’t moved. She stood just inside the door, totally at a loss on how to handle what had become a surreal situation. And Blaine still didn’t say anything. Her hands in fists with nerves, Maisie blurted, ‘Is Humphrey all right?’

  ‘Humphrey?’ Blaine stared at her as though he didn’t have a clue what she was on about.

  ‘I…I thought you might have come to tell me Humphrey was ill. Or the foal.’

  Blaine swore softly. ‘Damn Humphrey. I have come to see you.’

  The spark of hope that had flared deep inside when she had first seen him at the door re-ignited. ‘Why?’ she whispered.

  ‘Do you have to ask?’ He reached her in one stride, taking her in his arms and crushing her into him. ‘Because I have finally come to my senses and I have been praying for days that it is not too late. Every minute we have been apart I have died a little. I cannot live without you, mia piccola. I do not want to live without you. Love hit me the minute you walked into that café with your hair tousled and your face pink and an uncertain smile on your face. I have been fighting it ever since.’

  ‘You…don’t love me.’ She pulled back a little. She couldn’t believe this. It would be too crushing, too devastating when she realised she’d got it wrong. She wouldn’t be able to recover again. ‘You said so. You don’t want to be with one woman—’

  ‘I don’t want to be with any woman but you.’ His mouth sought hers and he kissed her until her head swam. ‘I have never felt like this in my life; you must believe that. And it happened like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Instantly. And it scared me to death. I knew I could not let you go but I was scared to let you in too, so I devised the perfect plan. You would come to Italy and take care of things for my mother. I would be able to be with you and this ridiculous thing I was feeling would burn itself out. Only it did not happen like that. The more I was with you, the more I loved you, and the more I loved you the more frightened I became. It is not nice, eh, to discover the man you thought you loved is a coward?’

  ‘You’re not a coward,’ she said shakily.

  ‘Sì, Maisie, it is so. And it was not altogether my experience with Francesca that was holding me back. I must be honest if there is any hope for us. With Francesca, she did not touch here—’he placed her hand over his heart and she could feel he was trembling ‘—and I knew this as time went on. You were different. From the moment I met you I knew the power you had over me was too much, too dangerous. You would be able to break me. That is what I could not handle.’

  She stared up at him, something starting to sing deep inside. ‘But I would never do that,’ she murmured. ‘I would rather die than do that. I love you.’

  He stroked his hand over her hair, along her cheek. ‘But how could I trust that this would be so?’ he said softly. ‘We had only met three months ago, I told myself. This is madness. I had a good life, an acceptable life. My needs were met—’ her eyelids flickered but still he went on ‘—I lived as I wanted to live and answered to no one. If I wanted to take off on a whim I could. No consultations, no compromise. I had my freedom and I lacked nothing. Why would I let all this go and only gain the potential to be hurt beyond measure in return? It was not logical or sensible. Why would I do that?’

  ‘Why would you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Because it was all ashes without you.’

  He was holding her small hands in his strong brown ones and as he drew her into him again a sob burst from her throat. ‘But are you sure?’ He had talked of getting hurt but he had already hurt her more than anyone else in the world. She could only take so much.

  ‘I love you, Maisie. I want to marry you, have children, dogs, cats, anything you want. A house like the painting, sì? Where you will grow brown in the sun with our children and wait in the doorway for me to come home at the end of the day. This all happened too suddenly for me and I understand that now, but that’s the way it is sometimes. I have known many other women, mia piccola, but none of them have ever stirred in me even a shadow of what I feel for you. I shall regret the heartache I have caused you to my dying day and I can never make up for the harm I have done, but I beg you, I beg you to trust me now. If you love me, believe me. Take me on faith. That is what love is all about, after all.’

  Tears were raining down her face now. ‘I’m afraid this is just a dream.’

  ‘No, it is real. I am real.’ His mouth took hers and he kissed her with gentle reassurance at first, then with rising ardour, his hands moving over her body with sensual purpose. ‘Will you marry me, Maisie?’ he said at last as he lifted his lips from hers. ‘Will you be my wife?’

  She looked into the beautiful greeny-blue eyes and this time there was no mask to hide how he felt. All the love in the world was there staring at her, beseeching her, wanting her, needing her.

  She wrapped her arms round his neck and took the step of faith he had asked for. ‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes shining and her face aglow. ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes.’

  It was a Christmas wedding, all shades of cream and red and gold. Maisie looked more beautiful than any woman had ever looked since the beginning of time, according to Blaine, as she floated down the aisle of the little Italian church in a long full gown of cream silk with tiny gold pearls trimming the bodice and flowing veil. She carried a small posy of Christmas berries and tiny gold orchids, ribbons of cream and gold entwined through them. Sue and Jackie—or the bloodhounds, as Blaine had teasingly nicknamed her two best friends—marched proudly behind her in red silk, their Cheshire cat grins announcing how thrilled they were about everything.

  Maisi
e’s mother and most of her relations had been flown out to Italy by Blaine for the nuptials. Maisie had now risen to dizzy heights in their opinion after landing such a magnificent catch and so things were easier between Maisie and her mother. Just in case Susan Burns forgot, however, and slipped back into her old ways, Blaine’s piercing gaze was there to remind his mother-in-law that his wife would be treated with the utmost respect.

  Jenny had been ecstatic and distinctly weepy for weeks and even Guiseppe had damp eyes when the two took their vows, their voices ringing with love. It was a perfect wedding, everyone said, just perfect. And even the weather joined in the celebrations, the air mild and bright sunshine spilling out over the happy couple and their guests as they ate the wedding breakfast in the huge marquee in the garden of Jenny and Guiseppe’s villa on Christmas Eve afternoon.

  Blaine looked down at Humphrey who, as ever, was parked firmly at Maisie’s feet, or on one satin-clad shoe to be exact. ‘Have you noticed the tag on his collar?’ he murmured in her ear.

  She looked into her husband’s beautiful eyes. ‘How could I notice anything or anyone but you today?’ she whispered back.

  Blaine grinned. ‘Right answer.’ He bent down and lifted the little dog on to his lap, where Humphrey sat looking rather surprised at the unexpected bonus. He was a lot nearer the source of the wonderful smells which had been drifting down from the laden table here.

  ‘Look.’ Blaine lifted the large Christmas tag fixed to the collar Maisie had given Humphrey before she had left Italy at the end of the summer.

  Maisie bent closer, receiving a quick lick from Humphrey who smelt wonderful having been bathed and coiffured for the occasion. He had submitted to all the ministrations with good grace, knowing he had got one over on all the other dogs—not to mention the cats—who had all been banned to the stables for the afternoon.

  This is a special gift from me to you on your wedding day, darling. He loves you far more than me and is longing to be an only dog with no competition, if only for a little while before you fill your new house with more dogs and cats and babies. All my love, your other mum.