His convoluted story of an enraged husband—‘Never suspected a thing,’—a child in the background—‘I’ll never trust a blonde again,’—and a pleading woman—‘I told her from the start that I was all about the Fun,’—more or less managed to take her mind off the problem preying on it like a lethal virus with a mission to destroy. But as soon as Jack had left, walking back to his place after a couple of beers, she was thinking again about Angelo, replaying everything he had said to her.
She couldn’t believe that after all this time, and after all the changes she had made in her life, she could still find herself hurtling back into the past with such a lack of self-control. Back there, in the sitting room, when he had been standing in front of her deliberately baiting her with memories of when they were lovers, she had felt her body melting. Yes, he had been goading her on. Yes, he had liked seeing her rigid with discomfort. Yes, yes, yes! But she had still responded, against her will, against all rhyme and reason, and it had been written all over her face. No wonder he had been so insolently dismissive of her so-called relationship with Jack.
The intervening week gave her plenty of time to brood over the unfolding scenario. In fact, it became a close companion as she went through the books, paid a visit to their bank manager, dealt with the steady flow of clients and their demands. Daily stress had now linked hands with simmering panic and, between the two, they were giving her a number of reasons to lose sleep.
Jack, of course, was once again blithely sauntering through life, cooking magnificently in the kitchen, experimenting with different combinations and nurturing a new relationship which, he assured her, was free of hidden complications. He should know. He had cunningly checked out her house for contradictory signals, which apparently had been his big mistake with Jodie, the Blonde with the Background.
His amusing stories at least managed to keep her on an even keel. Thank God for him! He invited her to have opinions on everything, from his cooking to his love life, never leaving her the option of slinking quietly into her own thoughts and getting overwhelmed by them. Nor did he press her to share them with him.
She had to wait until she was in bed to really indulge in the nightmare of having Angelo around. If only she had never been recommended to Georgina. If only she had not been greedy and decided that they could handle a really big job. If only, if only.
But then, something whispered in her head, don’t you feel alive for the first time in years? That always seemed to be the little voice that had the last whisper before she fell asleep and was the first to greet her when she woke up in the morning.
But as the days dragged on and the phone remained thankfully free of Angelo’s dark, disturbing voice, she felt herself begin to relax a bit more.
She had been right. There was no need for contact, at least not for a while, not until they needed to make practical arrangements for delivery of the food. They would have to discuss what staff Angelo and Georgina needed and what staff they were going to employ themselves for an event of that size. There was nothing to be gained in mentally rehearsing conversations that would take place down the line and the grind of daily life left her little time to add that further element of stress to the repertoire already there and thriving.
So she didn’t think about it. In fact, she so successfully convinced herself that he was a distant bridge that she could happily defer crossing until some unspecified time in the future that it was a shock when, on a balmy Saturday evening, she answered the phone and heard his voice down the line.
She sat down as her stomach took an immediate nosedive, quickly followed by the rest of her internal organs.
‘What are you doing?’ was the first thing he asked her, before she had time to get her head in order.
‘What am I doing when?’
‘Now.’
‘Now? I’m…I’m…well…’
‘Nothing,’ he inserted helpfully. ‘Good. Because I’ve decided to pay you a little visit.’
‘It’s nearly six-thirty, Angelo! Jack and I…have plans…’
‘Have you? That’s funny. I telephoned him at his house. You remember his number is also on your business card? Someone called Robbie answered and informed me that he’s house-sitting for the weekend because Jack’s somewhere in Yorkshire until Monday. You mean you didn’t know?’ Angelo clicked his tongue sympathetically. ‘Very bad to be kept in the dark about your boyfriend’s movements…’
Yorkshire. The wretched cricket match which he had been determined to see with his mates.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said weakly. ‘Now I remember.’
‘So I thought that I would rescue you from an evening of solitude.’
‘Don’t you have more pressing plans for a Saturday night?’
‘Georgina is…not around, shall we say? So I’ll be with you in, say, half an hour. We’re going to go and buy some food and then you are going to show me what you can do with it.’
‘Jack is the real genius when it comes to the food,’ Francesca wittered on as a sickening alternative to Saturday night in presented itself. ‘I’m the lackey, really. Chopping and stuff.’
‘Chopping’s a good start. And don’t put yourself down, Francesca. I have every faith in your talents and I’m curious to see what you can produce. I will see you shortly.’
He seemed to have become very talented at abrupt conversations because he didn’t give her time to voice any more objections. In fact, he barely gave her time to brush her hair and stick on some make-up and then the doorbell was ringing and there he was. Cool, casual and impossibly good-looking. And on her doorstep. And yes, she was horrified to see him standing there. But she was also…shamefully excited.
‘I’ve already brought the wine.’ He handed her two bottles of very expensive stuff which she dumped on the table in the hallway before grabbing her bag.
‘This is just crazy.’ Her heart was thumping madly as she looked at him. He was wearing a casual pair of cream trousers and an open-necked designer polo shirt. Against it, his skin was bronzed and vitally attractive and she didn’t want to stare so she focused on the logo on his shirt instead.
‘What’s wrong with crazy some of the time?’ Crazy? It didn’t feel crazy to him. It felt like the sanest thing he had done in a while. Georgina, he mused, would have been very hard pressed to agree with his self-diagnosis. She, too, had called him crazy when he had spoken to her three days before. A lot else, as well. In fact, crazy had been one of her more gentle remarks.
‘You can’t do this,’ she had told him, over her spritzer in his apartment. ‘You can’t just break off this engagement, not when everything’s been planned and invitations have been sent out!’
But after the tears and the pleading had come the inevitable rage. And, at that stage, crazy had been one of her less flamboyant descriptions of him.
Angelo had gritted his teeth and sat through the tirade. He had felt sorry for her, in a curiously detached way, but had been implacable in his decision and he knew that his implacability had fuelled her anger, as had his observation that she would find someone far more suitable as a husband in time.
He had been relieved when she had finally stormed out of his apartment, after informing him that she would be keeping the vastly expensive diamond engagement ring and that he could cover the costs of every single thing that could not be returned. It had seemed a very small price to pay, in his opinion.
The only thing he had kept from her had been the reason why he had decided not to go through with the marriage. That would have been honesty stretched to the point of needless cruelty, so he had mentioned nothing of his previous relationship with their caterer and had greeted accusations of infidelity in complete silence.
‘Do you mean,’ Francesca was saying as she struggled to divest herself of the idea that they were on a date and focus on the notion that he might just want to prove to himself that she could cook, ‘that you’re testing my skills? For the big day? Just in case I secretly use cook-in sauces in my recipes? I don�
�t, as it happens.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. So you won’t mind proving it to me. My car’s just there so we’ll drive to the nearest supermarket. Where is it?’
‘I usually get my fresh meat and fish directly from source,’ Francesca said with a touch of pride. ‘And the meat is always organic.’
‘Well, I think that just for tonight we will do away with the fish and meat markets and just take what we can get at the supermarket counters. I can take or leave the organic business.’
‘That’s not a very twenty-first century response,’ Francesca said, slipping into the passenger seat and watching her house disappear with a certain amount of foreboding.
‘Well, maybe I am not a very twenty-first century man.’ He shifted down a gear at the traffic lights and glanced sideways at her. She was making a point of not looking at him but she would look at him eventually. There was no rush. He felt the same warm satisfaction spread through him as he had felt earlier on in the week, when he had made the decision to break off his engagement and to do what his gut instincts had been telling him he needed to do from the very first time he had set eyes on her in that restaurant in Covent Garden. He was no twenty-first century man.
Telling himself that he was civilised enough to restrict his responses to a casual shrug over an unfortunate episode in his past had been a vast misjudgement of his own character. His relationship with her had never, for him, been casual enough to warrant such indifference.
Revenge was an ugly notion, and no, he was not out to get revenge. He needed to remove her from his system and the only way he could achieve that, he had realised in one of his brutally honest moments, would be to have her once again. The fact that she was involved with someone else was an irritating technicality. As far as he was concerned, she and Jack were a ridiculous and improbable match and he would be doing her a favour by divesting her of that particular relationship.
The thought that Jack might once have been a rival on the side would make it all the sweeter.
He would have her and then, when it suited him and suit him it would, he would dismiss her but at least she would cease to haunt him. He would not consider her feelings because, as she would be the first to agree, surely, wasn’t all fair in love and war?
The wheel, at last, would turn full circle and it would be a thoroughly enjoyable process. Better still, he would be the one steering it.
‘What sort of meal do you have in mind?’ Francesca asked, breaking into his pleasurable train of thought, and he shot her a brief glance.
‘Something interesting involving fish and chicken,’ he said. ‘You’re the expert. What would you advise?’
Francesca looked at him suspiciously. He seemed in remarkably high spirits considering she was the one in the passenger seat.
‘I could do prawns in garlic for starters. It’s pretty simple and quick to do. And then, I suppose, chicken with green olives and we could have that with fresh pasta. I do know how to make my own pasta but I won’t have the time to do that.’
Maybe another day, he was inclined to say.
‘Do you limit yourself to Italian cooking in your catering?’ he asked, slowing down as they approached the supermarket on their left.
‘Why are you being so nice to me, Angelo?’
‘So suspicious, Francesca. I wouldn’t want to rub you up the wrong way and discover that the secret ingredient in my food was a touch of arsenic, would I?’
Francesca felt her mouth twitch in amusement but there was no way that she was going to indulge his sense of humour. She was suspicious and she had every right to be in view of his attitude towards her since they had met again. She had a sudden, vivid memory of the laughter they used to share. His wit had always extended beyond amusing surface charm. He could be funny enough to have her holding her sides. She shut the door firmly on that memory.
‘I’m fresh out of arsenic, as it happens, and I don’t believe it’s stocked in supermarkets.’
Angelo grinned and manoeuvred his car into one of the free parking spaces. ‘So I’m safe for now. Good. Life is…sweet at the moment. I wouldn’t—’ he killed the engine and turned to her ‘—want to give it up just yet.’
Francesca suddenly realised just how small the confines of his car were and she felt a lick of nervousness.
‘You haven’t answered my question. Why are you being so nice?’
‘Let’s just say…’ his black eyes locked on hers ‘…that I have discovered all sorts of challenges where there were none before. A very exciting prospect to a jaded soul like mine.’ He smiled slowly and Francesca, suddenly drowning in nectar, opened her car door and shot out.
Challenges? What challenges? Something to do with work, she supposed. He had once told her that the compulsion to work was driven not for love of money, or status, or power, but for the excitement of closing a difficult deal.
If not work, then maybe he was beginning to truly appreciate the anticipation of his impending marriage and the challenges that would inevitably offer.
It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to waste time unravelling his enigmatic statement. What she wanted was to cook him his meal, prove herself capable of the job they had given her and get him out of her house.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS PLANS went it was fine but its execution got off to a grindingly slow start. Francesca, having had the trolley manoeuvred out of her grasp, was inclined to circumnavigate the Saturday evening crowds and do the equivalent of a trolley dash. She very rarely browsed in supermarkets. She came with a long list, usually shopped during antisocial hours and always bought what had to be bought in record time.
Angelo, on the other hand, appeared to be in no rush. The first five minutes found him thumbing through the CDs on sale just beyond the rows of magazines by the huge opening doors.
He could feel her steaming behind him and let his fingers travel along the rack of CDs, pulling out another one and reading the index of songs at super slow speed.
‘What,’ he asked, turning to her, ‘do you think of this one? I live over here now, but regrettably I have not managed to get into the music.’ He handed her the CD and watched as she impatiently scanned it.
‘Have you any intention of buying a CD?’ Francesca asked. ‘I thought we came in here to buy food so that I could cook you a meal and prove that I’m capable of meeting your standards.’ She handed him back the CD and folded her arms.
Dressed casually, she was even more of a knockout than in the neatly tailored suits he had seen her in previously. Her jeans were faded to the palest of blues and fitted her like a second skin, flaring slightly at the bottom, revealing slender feet tucked into workmanlike sandals that would have looked ungainly on any other woman. Models, even ex-models, were built to be put into anything and still look good. Francesca was no exception. Where she differed was that she carried just sufficient weight to look feminine, even though her expression now was anything but.
Undeterred, Angelo surveyed her blandly, although he could feel the adrenaline pumping through him at the thought of his seduction and its inevitable success. A part of him marvelled at the fact that less than a week previously he had been engaged to be married to someone else. Of course, he had always known that he had chosen Georgina because of her credentials, had known that his fondness for her had never extended to love, had willingly accepted that her own feelings for him had been wrapped up in the tremendous ego boost of having landed someone as eminently eligible as he was…but, amazingly, he had given her no more than a passing thought since he had broken off their engagement.
Would he tell Francesca of that little development? he wondered.
Or would he bed her knowing that even the thought of him being betrothed to another woman would not be enough for her to resist him? How fitting for her to plead for him when she had once walked away.
‘We need music to listen to while we eat,’ he said, infuriatingly turning round to reach for another CD. At this rate, Francesca worked out that they would
n’t make it to the fresh meat section before closing time.
‘I have music.’ She relieved him of what he was holding and pointedly returned it to the rack.
‘But do you have music that I would like?’
‘Well, since you haven’t got into English music you’ll just have to trust my taste. Okay? Because we can’t dawdle here for hours sifting through CDs. You want me to cook for you—fine. I mean, it’s not something any other client has ever requested…’
‘But then, I am unique,’ Angelo pronounced with such staggering arrogance that Francesca raised her eyes skywards and sighed elaborately. ‘Okay, okay.’ He raised both hands in mock surrender. ‘I’ll trust your taste in music and we’ll get down to the business of buying food.’
And no chat. It was the message he was reading loud and clear from her body language. He let her have it her way for the first ten minutes, obediently looking on in silence while she frowned over the cuts of meat and inspected the vegetables for freshness.
Supermarket shopping was not something Angelo did on a regular basis, or any kind of basis for that matter. He had a housekeeper who took care of keeping his fridge stocked up and, if he ever needed anything beyond the usual, he simply took himself off to the nearest delicatessen and paid over the odds for the privilege. And, of course, for the past few months Georgina had cooked for him, basic English food that was unadventurous but edible.
For a short while he was content to eye the shelves and watch Francesca at work. Just for a short while, though.
‘Tell me what sort of music you like listening to,’ he said while she was frowning over the fresh pasta, and Francesca jumped because suddenly he was a lot closer to her than she had thought.
‘Why?’
‘Because I am interested.’ Sinfully black eyes roamed over her face, taking in her consternation. So desperate to keep him at arms’ length. Because of Jack? Something was missing from that relationship, whatever she said about love and perfect bonding, but he couldn’t quite work out what. Still, in his head, Jack was no longer a rival. In fact, he was fast becoming a ghost so he stifled the surge of jealousy and smiled sincerely at her.
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