The Count's Prize

by Christina Hollis

  ‘Quite frankly, I can’t.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘It’s setting me up for disaster. You’ll find someone else, exactly like Andy did. The only difference is, this time I’ll be expecting it. It’ll be like sitting on a ticking time bomb. When it goes off and you leave me, I’ll be convinced, once and for all, that I’m emotionally hopeless and ought to avoid any contact with other people ever again!’

  ‘What?’ He was incredulous. ‘How can you say that? It’s not true—and you can’t simply shut yourself away! Everybody loves you!’

  ‘No, they don’t. You don’t, for a start. And you never will.’ Her eyes blazed, and he could see she was struggling very hard to control herself.

  ‘But … think of all the goodwill there is for you, back in England,’ he said, manfully hiding his desperation. This had started life as such a brilliant idea, but here was Josie, scattering his plans to the four winds. Dario was amazed to find that his usual caution had deserted him. Josie was hurting and he wanted to make her feel better, but he had no idea how. His own feelings had to be forgotten while he tried to salvage the situation.

  ‘If they thought anything of me or my work at all, they would have given me enough money to do what I wanted in the first place. You wouldn’t have had to go behind my back like this.’

  ‘Josie! Try looking at this rationally. There’s only one reason why they didn’t give you all the money you needed—because it wasn’t there to be given,’ Dario said firmly. ‘That’s why the university was so delighted to accept my offer. All the people I spoke to there were full of praise for you. They would have loved to support you more, if only they’d been able to. In fact, before I stepped in they were worried that some other institution would head-hunt you.’

  Hiccuping back her tears, Josie looked up at him suspiciously.

  ‘You’re making it up.’

  He looked back at her with the smallest suspicion of a smile. ‘Would a faithless playboy lie to you about something serious like that?’

  ‘He might, if he thought it would get him back into my good books.’

  ‘I think too much of you to lie, Josie.’

  They both went very still—and then Dario frowned.

  ‘… I mean as a friend of the family, of course. I didn’t mean to upset you. All I wanted to do was to give you a nice surprise. It was nothing more than that.’

  To his utter horror, Josie burst into floods of tears again.

  ‘Whatever is the matter now?’ Dario asked before a sudden flash of insight hit him. ‘What’s really upsetting you?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  He shook his head, which only made her misery worse. He felt her pull in a huge shuddering breath before confronting him one last time.

  ‘Thanks to you, I have to go back to England right now anyway because I love you and you couldn’t care less about me and if I stay you’ll dump me and it’ll break my heart all over again and I won’t be able to bear it!’ she wailed in one long drawn-out howl of agony, before dragging herself from his sheltering arms and running straight out of the room.

  Dario was so stunned he let her go. He had obviously read the situation all wrong, but he didn’t have a clue how to put things right. He suppressed a desperate impulse to go chasing after her because he had no idea what to do or say. The awful suspicion that he would only make a terrible situation worse kept him trapped inside his office.

  He thought about his portrait of Josie, wearing her lovely green dress. It was still incomplete because work on it had been interrupted so often by their desire for each other.

  And now it will never be finished, he thought with a pang of realisation as the true scale of this disaster suddenly came home to him. I’ve lost her just as surely as I lost Arietta.

  The name pierced him like an arrow, but in a way he didn’t expect. It wasn’t with the pain of sorrow, but with the shock of revelation.

  For Arietta would never have spoken to him as Josie had done.

  Storming back to her own rooms, Josie dressed, piled everything into her suitcases and scrawled a note asking for all her equipment to be packed up and sent back to England. The last thing she did was take her beautiful green cocktail dress from its padded hanger. She gazed at it for a long time before laying it down on a sheet of tissue paper and folding it reverently for its trip to England. Yet striking all her colleagues dumb at the university Christmas ball was the very last thing on her mind now.

  All she wanted to do was get as far away from Dario as possible.

  No, Arietta wouldn’t have spoken to me like that, Dario thought with growing unease. She would never have put up with me keeping a light alive for another woman in the first place.

  He remembered how he had fought with Arietta on the night she’d died. If he had let her come back in her own time, and not provoked her into going too fast as she went into that bend, his life would have turned out very differently.

  And I wouldn’t be standing here, resisting the temptation to go after Josie and tell her a few home truths, he thought bitterly. Knowing he was in the same building as she was, but separated from her by a huge gulf of misunderstanding, was unbearable. Abandoning his work, he strode out to his studio and turned her unfinished portrait to face the wall. Then he began methodically going through his tubes and pans of paint, and rinsing brushes. The only alternatives were to risk her dashing off for ever, or force a showdown that could have no winners.

  Dario was the tenth Count di Sirena. Aristocrats didn’t do that sort of thing. His ancestors had ruled by the sword and they were afraid of nothing. Josie knew that. He thought of her now in her new manifestation as a bouncing fireball of defiance and suddenly, strangely, he wanted to laugh.

  She’s brave, I’ll give her that, he thought. What a Contessa she would have made!

  That really did make him smile. It was an expression he couldn’t sustain, because loving was something Dario had convinced himself he could live without. Letting another woman into his life would mean reliving all the agony he had suffered over Arietta, and he couldn’t do it. If I give in now then somehow, some day, I’d lose Josie too, and I couldn’t bear to go through all that pain a second time.

  ‘As though living like this is any better!’ he yelled, suddenly grabbing the nearest thing to hand and sending it flying across his studio.

  It was a box of willow charcoal. It hit the wall and burst, sending brittle black shards in all directions. The sooty explosion brought Dario to his senses. Shocked, he went to retrieve what he could. As he did so, he passed the window and caught sight of the landscape he knew so well. It made him stop and think. For hundreds of years his forebears had fought and died for these glorious acres. If they had been afraid of what might happen, the di Sirena family would have died out long ago and Dario wouldn’t now be enjoying the heady mix of joy and responsibility that made up his life. Those warriors had lived their lives to the full, and to hell with tomorrow.

  Josie had been as brave as any of his sword-wielding ancestors and, in refusing to risk his heart a second time, Dario knew he had lost her.

  Antonia was upset to see Josie leave, but she was too good a friend to pry. Everything was arranged with Castello Sirena efficiency, from a car to take Josie out to the castello’s airstrip, to her premature flight back to England. By the time everything was organised, the arid anger and despair that had forced Josie to storm away from Dario had faded. Now regret lodged in her throat like a cherry stone. She had been afraid this would happen, and sure enough her nightmare had come true. Why had she been stupid enough to let herself fall under Dario’s spell?

  Because I hoped history wouldn’t repeat itself, she thought bitterly. It’s the same mistake every woman makes.

  She twisted her damp handkerchief between her hands, unable to believe that the man who made her feel like the only woman in the world could still end up hurting her so grievously. To take her mind off her pain, she checked her documents. Then she did it a second time. After
that, she went through her handbag, over and over again. Counting change and flicking through her diary passed a few more minutes, but not enough. When a mutter of annoyance rippled through the di Sirena staff she looked up, glad of any distraction. Through the glass wall of their office, she could see someone on the phone. The ground crew were summoned. She watched them straggling into the room. They were some distance away, but the office door had been left open. Josie tried to hear enough without looking as though she was listening. She could only make out a few words, but that was all it took to throw her into a panic.

  Dario was coming.

  He must have given orders to delay her flight on the di Sirena jet. Josie had never felt so angry—or so alone.

  At the worst possible moment, her phone announced an incoming text. With a distracted cry she grabbed it, then stopped and stared.

  It was from Dario. The two short, simple words he’d sent her made no sense, but they still had the same effect as a blow to her head. Totally absorbed by his message, she stood up, but why, she didn’t know. Then everything and everybody else in the aircraft hangar suddenly faded away from her consciousness. A little bubble of silence grew to envelop her. She glanced around wildly. Then she looked back at the display on her phone, as if by some miracle the characters had morphed into something more understandable. They still made no sense. Two words—after all the thousands of words she had wasted on Dario … It must be a mistake. It had to be. What else was she supposed to think? That he could be as cruel as he was unthinking?

  A terrible rumbling sound echoed through the whole airstrip building. It was like thunder, but Josie knew thunder wouldn’t reverberate up through her feet like that. And a storm would stop outside the main doors …

  This one didn’t. It was Dario. He was riding Ferrari, galloping the horse so fast he couldn’t stop. They hurtled straight into the hangar before he managed to pull up in a plunging, wheeling rattle of hooves.

  ‘Well, Josie? What is your answer?’

  She stared at him. He was pale, breathless and as focused on her as ever.

  ‘No.’

  He flung himself off his horse. Slapping it on the rump, he sent it back to the stables while he cornered Josie.

  ‘No? What do you mean, no?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. What are you trying to do to me, Dario? You mess up my life and then suddenly, out of the blue, you send me a text as though the past few hours had never happened. What do you think I am? A masochist, or simply insane?’

  ‘Marry me.’

  It had been a shock to read it as a message on her phone. Now it was more than that.

  Josie looked at him and saw the truth. This was the last gamble of a desperate man. His expression was hunted, and his normally tidy hair windblown. She noticed a strange base note to the usually subtle fragrance of his aftershave. Later she realised it must be the tang of adrenalin, but at that moment all she could concentrate on was how she was going to get through the next few minutes. She breathed unevenly, trying to steady her nerves, but she found things had gone too far for that.

  ‘That didn’t make any sense when you sent it as a text, Dario. Saying it out loud doesn’t make it any more sensible.’

  ‘It’s what you want. It must be what you want,’ he repeated, his voice rising.

  From somewhere in the distance came the faint sound of the ground crew. They had an audience. For the first time in her life, Josie didn’t care what anyone else saw, heard or thought. All she was interested in was Dario. She gazed at him, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘You sound like a man who is trying hard to convince himself.’

  ‘I am convinced—because deep in my heart I know you want me, and I want you—’

  Josie covered her face with her hands. ‘No … you want my body, that’s all. And yes, I want yours, too. But marriage is a partnership for life, Dario. I don’t think you understand what that means,’ she sighed.

  ‘You’re wrong—wrong, Josie! I know exactly how marriage works!’ he growled through gritted teeth. ‘I spent years watching my parents tearing each other apart. You think I’ve refused to commit before now simply because of Arietta? You don’t know the half of it. There were times when I would have paid a king’s ransom to get away from the unhappy life sentence that was my parents’ marriage. They couldn’t divorce: my father didn’t want to be the first in his family line to break rank. My mother was too fond of his money and the position in society it gave her.’

  Josie was shocked. ‘Then why in the world do you think that proposing marriage to me will be the answer to all your problems?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  It was a clumsy, hurtful answer. Realising that, Dario swore under his breath and tried again.

  ‘It’s because I know nothing less than marriage will keep you here at my side.’

  Josie looked at him narrowly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There must be more to it than that. You’ve told me your parents put you off marriage. Proposing to me must seem like running your head into a matrimonial noose! You don’t need an heir, you’ve got Fabio, so it can’t be because you’ve suddenly decided you require a legitimate son. Women flock around you. There must be something else.’

  His eyes locked with hers. They were dark as jet as he said, ‘I once told a woman I loved her, and she left me.’

  ‘Arietta didn’t leave you, she died.’

  It was cruel, but Josie had long since stopped feeling kind when it came to Dario’s relationships with other women.

  ‘Yes.’ He gazed at her with naked anguish. ‘And I killed her. For years I’ve been telling myself I sent her car into that ditch as surely as if I had been driving it myself. I chased her away, Josie.’

  ‘But it didn’t stop you racing after me,’ she said slowly.

  She saw the colour drain away from his golden skin. He nodded.

  ‘It was a risk I had to take. I couldn’t bear the thought of you boarding that plane and flying out of my life. It wiped every other thought clean from my mind.’

  He slumped down in the seat beside hers. Once again she saw him rub at his face as though trying to erase all his bad memories. Knowing what he must be going through but feeling powerless to help, Josie waited.

  ‘When you first walked into my life, it brought back memories of how happy I had been—and how devastated I was when Arietta died,’ he said eventually. ‘I couldn’t bear to lay myself open to that torture again. That’s why, when Fabio was born, I made him my heir. I couldn’t imagine letting any woman so far into my life that there could ever be the possibility of children. Until a few weeks ago it simply wasn’t an option. Like you, I had learned that it was less painful to keep everyone at arm’s length. That was why, when you stormed out on me this morning, I pretended I could leave you to come to your senses. I thought it was your loss, and that I didn’t care. But it wasn’t true. An awful fear began to crawl over me that one day I would forget you, the way I’ve forgotten Arietta. I don’t want to do that, Josie. Not ever.’

  It was too much. In the face of his confession, Josie’s own injured feelings meant nothing. Forgetting all her resolutions, good and bad, she reached out and gently slipped her arms around him as he sat beside her. When he didn’t resist, she leaned against him and laid her head against his chest.

  ‘Does this mean you understand?’

  ‘Maybe.’ She nodded, and then felt him swallow hard.

  Josie closed her eyes. Tears were very close, and she didn’t want to weaken.

  ‘I love you, Dario—more than you could ever imagine … but it won’t work. I can’t hope to compete for your love on the same level with Arietta. Don’t you see? I’ve got all sorts of human failings, but she’s an angel—your angel.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with the way I feel about you, Josie,’ he said quietly. ‘The pain of losing Arietta will never go away, but I don’t feel the same about it now. My father was right when he asked
me at the time what I knew about love. My answer then was “everything”, but in truth it was less than nothing. At the time.’

  ‘You weren’t likely to learn much about love from him, by the sound of it,’ Josie muttered, half to herself. She felt Dario’s hand run over her back until it came to rest lightly on her shoulder.

  ‘And it’s why I think you should reconsider your proposal very carefully, Dario,’ she continued with a sudden return of common sense. ‘You’ve told me that the pain of losing Arietta stopped you risking your heart again, but falling in love is never going to be easy. Sometimes you just have to take a chance. I’ve been here before, so it’s a scary place for me, too. I need to know I’ll be getting all of you, not just tantalising glimpses of the loving, caring man you really are, deep down inside. How can you promise me this is for ever and not just until you get scared and back off?’

  It was a long time before Dario could answer. ‘A di Sirena is never scared.’

  Josie lifted her chin and met his glittering black gaze with defiance. ‘Then prove it to me.’

  ‘No. I don’t need to.’ His voice rose dangerously, attracting the attention of everyone in the building. ‘I’ve already done everything I can to prove how much I need you. There’s only one thing left to say: Josie Street, I love you. I want you, body, heart, soul and spirit for as long as I live. Nothing else matters,’ he said in a crescendo of passion that left her speechless and wide-eyed with wonder.

  Their audience of ground crew erupted in noisy excitement, but Josie hardly noticed. She was at the still, small centre of a universe that consisted only of Dario. He was looking down at her with such intensity that nothing else mattered to her. Josie knew she wanted him more than any other man in the world, and always would. It was madness to hesitate even for a second, but she wanted to be too sensible to be bounced into a quick answer.

  Suddenly it was all too much. The arguments, the worry, all the uncertainty … Her eyes filled with tears. That only added anger to her maelstrom of emotions. This was what she had wanted all along, wasn’t it? For Dario to put her first and show that he loved her? Well, statements didn’t come much more explicit than a public proposal of marriage.