Falcon lifted his hand to her cheek and she rubbed against it. When he tried to take her in his arms, she moved away, confusion knitting her brows.
“Explain yourself.”
His hands fell back down to the bed. “I should have known you by your golden eyes. You remember Egypt? Remember when you flew in the air on the wings of a…”
Angelina stared at him, her eyes widening. “Falcon?”
*
“Armand Falcone d’Alessandro,” he declared with a grin, leaning back against the pillows with arms open wide.
Angelina’s jaw dropped. “Do you see what I mean?”
“Angel…”
She came closer, but only to jab him in the chest with a finger. “You are the heir of il Ducato!”
He sighed. Dropping his arms, he sat up. “Technically, yes.”
“What do you mean, technically?”
“The old man almost worked himself up to a heart attack when I told him I wasn’t interested in taking over the business. Leo’s going to take over when Dad’s done. I guess having one son in the business is better than none, right?” He chuckled, and then lunged for her.
Angelina slid out of reach. “Ugh! Armand, don’t try to change the subject! And this is not a technicality! This,” she sputtered. “This is the biggest lie of all!”
She was looking around the room. Her narrowed eyes settled on a Ming vase on the dresser.
“Angel…” He caught her around the waist before she could make it off the bed.
She shook him off. “What else is there that I should know about you?”
“Ah, there might be one or two aliases I forgot to mention. Some unfinished business in Southern California. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of months.”
Angelina looked like she was about to say something more, but her jaw dropped again.
“What else do you want to know?”
Her jaw was working, but nothing was coming out of that beautiful mouth, so he went on.
“Look, my father called after you were taken. He said he’s been watching over you for your parents. That’s when I found out your real name. At first I was mad you’d lied to me, but when you think about it, how everything just worked out so perfectly, you coming here with the Strad…”
“All those years you stayed away. You never came back.” Angelina got off the bed, her eyes flashing. “Why?”
“Angel, I was seventeen. I wanted to see the world. There was no particular reason. I just grew up, that’s all.”
Those golden pools filled with tears, and he went to her and pulled her into his arms. “When I went away to find my place in the world all those years ago, I didn’t realize a beautiful eight-year-old loved me. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He brought her chin up to kiss her lips. “We’re together now, that’s all that matters.”
“No, it’s not. The violin is the reason we’re together now. Your Colossus matters.” Angelina pulled away from him and started gathering her clothes.
“What are you doing?”
Angelina slipped on a pair of jeans. “I’m going home.”
“All right, we’ll go home together.” He shrugged out of the bathrobe and started putting on his clothes.
“No, I mean I’m going home to England.”
He stopped zipping up his jeans. “You can’t go to England now, what about the symphony?”
“It’s still three weeks away. I have to get out of here. This … this … everything is just crazy!” She went into the bathroom.
Falcon followed her with one arm through his T-shirt. “What about your classes?”
Her answer was to dump things into a travel case.
“Angel, don’t leave. I know things are crazy but let’s talk.”
“Why, do you have more truths to reveal? No, Armand, I think we’ve done enough talking. Talking to you makes me realize how foolish I’ve been to get involved with someone I know absolutely nothing about. Besides, you have your precious violin now. Excuse me.”
Angelina tried to edge past without touching him but he loomed over her, filling the bathroom doorway.
“You can’t leave like this. It sounds like you’re breaking up with me.”
She punched him in the chest. “Aren’t you the clever one?”
“Ti amo.” He wrapped his arms around her.
Her tears finally fell. Her ragged sobs muffled against his chest while he hoped a good cry would get this talk of leaving him out of her system.
After a while, she lifted her head. “Our relationship is based on so many lies, for which I am equally at fault. How could we ever believe each other again?”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“How will we live? I’ll never know what day I’ll get The Call informing me of your demise in some disaster gone wrong, surely cloaked in lies for my civilian ears! I couldn’t handle that.”
“Angel, take it easy. I know you’ve been through a lot…”
She pushed on his chest. “You said you loved me. But that love is based on a woman that doesn’t exist. We’ve had two idyllic months together here in Italy, but it wasn’t real. We are not Sacha and Armand here. What’s worse is I will never know whether you really wanted to be with me or if you just wanted the violin. I think you will always be Falcon.”
Falcon ran a hand through her hair. “What do you want me to do? I’ll do whatever you want if it will make you happy.”
“Let me go.”
He held her tighter because he couldn’t let her go. But then, going against his good sense, he let his hands fall.
Falcon moved out of her way. For a moment, he stood in the doorway, wishing he could have the last few hours back to make things right. At a loss as to how to do that, he went to wait in the living room while she gathered the rest of her things.
He had revealed too much. She couldn’t handle all of this after the week they’d had. He still had not told her about Darien’s investigation, but now was not the time for more revelations. A discussion on past lives was definitely out of the question.
It was a glum two-hour drive back to Naples with her silent tears.
“Let me go with you.”
Angelina shook her head and turned away from him towards the car window.
Their first stop was the Naples Conservatory. Angelina met with the head of the program and gained leave for a short visit with her family. Next, they stopped at the apartment on Piazza Avellino for her suitcase.
Falcon watched her plane leave an hour later. She didn’t speak to him when she left to board the plane, and moved away when he tried to kiss her. And then she was gone.
It was another hour and many regrets later before he got up from his seat in the terminal overlooking the runway of the Naples International Airport in Capodichino.
* * * *
Angelina had been gone just four days. They were the longest four days of his life.
Falcon had returned to the Casa di Città. Numb and needing exhausting physical labor to distract him, he had packed away all the surveillance equipment himself.
Granger was sending a team to help him, but when they’d arrived with the van the next day, the only thing left for them to do was help load it with equipment. They had all headed back to Rome.
Running wore him out in the mornings. In the afternoons, he met Granger for a workout at the gym, but the nights were hell. If he slept three hours, he was lucky. When he did sleep he was haunted by visions of Angel’s sweet warm vanilla skin. He invariably woke with the need to sink himself deep inside of her. Though he knew she must be hurting just as bad, it did little to soothe him.
She would have to come back to Italy for the symphony, but there was little consolation in that. It was weeks away.
She did not want him to call her in North Yorkshire. She was so mad at him that he feared she would never speak to him again.
Granger’s advice was to leave her alone for a while and give her time to think. Then he’d suggested they send a t
eam to bring her back to Rome in light of the continuing investigation into il Dragone.
Talking to his father just made him feel worse. The master chef’s advice was to forget all this undercover stuff with the Organization, seeing as how it was messing up his love life, and to work in the family business.
He’d had all the advice he could take. On that fourth day since Angelina had walked out of his life, Falcon called Darien in the New York office.
“I’m going to England.”
“The Cardiff girl? I knew you’d come to your senses.” Darien’s soft-spoken Italian held approval. “How long will it take you to wrap this up?”
“We’ll be back in Italy within the week.”
"That’s good news. Falcon, have you decided yet when you’re coming stateside to start the transition?”
“I’m not certain. There are some loose ends to tie up. I’ll call you.”
That evening, Falcon boarded a plane bound for England.
Chapter Eleven
North Yorkshire
Her parents had been happy to see her, never asking once why she’d come home so suddenly.
Mum met her at the airport, took one look at her and proceeded with an update on her brother Leif’s contribution to the Sacha Collection, a sparkling tiger’s eye necklace, the first piece of jewelry he’d designed on his own.
Mum kept up a steady stream of information on the plans for the rest of the Sacha Collection as James, the butler, raced through the quaint village of Scarborough.
In the back of the Mercedes, the outskirts of the town flew by in an autumn-colored blur. The old butler’s driving didn’t bother Sacha. She couldn’t get home fast enough and felt better with every mile away from Italy.
Or, at least that’s what she told herself. When she’d spied the River Wharfe, which snaked through the Cardiff estate, Armand’s face popped into her mind. She forced a laugh at one of James’s long-winded jokes. Mum gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze.
When they got home, Mum tucked her into bed with a tight hug. Mum would wait until she was ready to talk about why she came home, but Sacha didn’t know when that would be. Tears threatened every time she thought about Armand.
A few days later, her father returned from a business trip and took her in his arms, but she was still unable to talk about what had happened. At dinner, her brother Miles tried to draw her out in conversation with adventures of a ski trip to the Swiss Alps he’d just returned from. She teased him about his new girlfriend to make Mum smile.
She tried to be the old Sacha for them, but she was in physical pain since leaving Armand. She would never again be the old Sacha.
Playing the Stradivarius was her only solace. Somehow, it made her feel closer to Armand when she lost herself in the music. If she were lucky, sometimes she’d hear that second set of instruments in the background as she had that first time they had played together at the Naples Conservatory.
Sacha agonized over her decision to leave him, and alternated between bemoaning her mistake to vowing never to speak to him again when she returned to Italy for the symphony.
When she was little, she had fallen in love with her Falcon. She’d looked forward to the vacations the families took together every year. But one year Falcon hadn’t come, and she had asked her mother why he wasn’t there. It was five years before she stopped asking for him. She was acutely aware of the fact that it took the missing Colossus to bring him back to her. How can I ever trust him?
Being home should have been a comfort to her, but headaches were constant and lessened only with the few hours of sleep that were hers to claim every night before disturbing, fiery nightmares woke her.
It was noon on her sixth day back in North Yorkshire, and she was still dozing in bed.
The housekeeper Anne, James’s wife, had taken her holiday in Italy as an opportunity to work on her bedroom again. From the bed furnishings to the wall hangings, the room was done up in her favorite shade of purple, all darkened now to umber as the matching brocade draperies were closed to the gray day.
There was a tray on the satinwood table by the balcony that the maid Caroline had left for her. Maybe she would feel better after breakfast—no, it was lunch now—and a shower. After that, she would find her parents and tell them everything.
What she needed was some advice, because she didn’t know how much longer she would survive on three hours of sleep at night.
* * * *
Falcon hadn’t corrected Darien, who probably thought he was bringing Angel in to headquarters for the formal filing of charges against her.
Far from it. He didn’t see the sense in either of them suffering for their transgressions any longer. Falcon was going to speak to her parents.
Angel wouldn’t have told them a thing about him. She rivaled him with secrecy, and besides, she’d be too upset to talk about anything.
He was giving up her confidences with this sudden appearance at the Cardiff estate. Angel had left England a virgin and returned a woman in love. Her parents knew her well enough to know the difference.
However, as awkward as it might be for Angel, he had no qualms about showing up on their doorstep. This was not a secret he planned to keep.
An hour after his plane landed, Falcon sat in St. Clair Manor’s huge two-story library overlooking the north lawn. He waited for an audience with Roman Cardiff, the owner of the conglomerate Cardiff Jewels.
The place was just as he remembered. The library’s mullioned windows were gray now on this mid-October afternoon, but he didn’t see that. He saw the sun’s rays sparkling on the parquet floor, where he’d taught Little Angel how to beat Miles at cards.
He’d had to prod James’s memory. The butler was in his seventies now and hadn’t seen him since he was a teenager. Once he’d passed interrogation, pointing out James’s hiding place for a good bottle of Scotch behind the potted palm in the foyer, his old friend clapped him on the back and ushered him in.
St. Clair Manor was similar to Castel Tivoli in Lazio, where he’d grown up before his parents got divorced. The manor was a child’s playground. There were enough nooks and crannies, doors that led to nowhere and hideaway holes to boggle a child’s imagination.
Although St. Clair Manor was not as old as the castle, it held myriad treasures from centuries past. Like the castle, St. Clair Manor had an atmosphere, which made him feel as if he’d traveled back to an honorable time, where duels were fought and love instigated battles.
While the castle had actually been an ancient fortress, the four-story St. Clair Manor had over a hundred rooms and was just as formidable with its soaring limestone walls that protected the secrets of a dynasty.
Now he understood some of those secrets. The mansion bore the name of the one for whom it had been built.
Falcon had been so upset about Angelina leaving him that he hadn’t made the name connection until he’d gotten off the plane in England.
Jacqueline Bouveau St. Clair was Margaux’s sister. Although Mademoiselle Jacqueline had been betrothed to another, Marchese Falco remembered the looks that had often passed between her and his friend Captain Roman Eric Cardiff. He’d met the captain at the Comte d’Avril’s home, the Chateau de Vaujours, on several occasions.
His knowledge of the Cardiff family history was limited, but he knew that Captain Cardiff had returned to England after the chateau was torched in 1789. The captain must have built this home for Jacqueline.
Falcon had many questions now. Would Roman Cardiff have the answers? Did the owner of Cardiff Jewels know who he’d been in the past?
The library door opened and in walked the man, the image of Captain Cardiff.
Physically, Roman was twenty some odd years older than when Marchese Falco had known him. His temples were lightly sprinkled with gray, but it was him.
“Armand, it has been too long! Look at you! The strapping boy I remember has grown into a man.” Roman pulled him into a hug. “It does my heart good to see how well Pietro’s ol
dest boy has turned out. No wonder he’s so proud of you.”
Falcon was relieved Roman remembered him, but disappointed there was no recognition about their past lives in those blue eyes.
Did you think the man would grieve over the d’Avril family’s murders with you?
“Roman, it’s good to see you. I’ve stayed away too long. Did you say he was proud of me?”
“Oh, don’t let Pietro fool you. He can’t stop talking about his firstborn.” Roman chuckled. “Your father tells me you’re in international communications.”
He’d rib his father about it later. The old chef could use a little ribbing. “I’m glad I caught you at home.”
“I just returned from Frankfurt and I don’t have to go out again until next week, so I’m cooling my heels in North Yorkshire with my bride. How long are you in town?”
“I’m here for as long as it takes,” Falcon said. Roman gave him a quizzical look, and he added, “Ah … a few days, I guess.”
“I see. Business?”
“You could say that,” Falcon hedged.
“Well, you’re staying with us. I’ll have Anne get a room ready for you.”
“That would be great. Is Amelie home?”
“She’s around here somewhere, probably in the Blue room, listening to her music. She’ll be so happy to see you. And, you’ll never guess who else is home.” Roman grinned.
“Angel?”
“She came in last week from Italy. Pietro must have told you about the symphony.”
“Yes, he did and I’m very proud of her.” Falcon said slowly, but he didn’t want to slow down. He also didn’t want Roman to kick him out after hearing this unbelievable tale. Before he could change his mind, he pushed on. “Roman, I’m the one who drove her to the airport in Naples.”
Roman let out a bark of laughter and clapped him on the back. “Don’t tell me you’re the reason she’s so miserable!”
“I need to talk to you.” What a day it’s going to be at the manor…
“I’m sure you do,” Roman chuckled. “You’ve got some serious business on your hands now. Let’s go into the study and have a drink, my boy. You look like you could use one.”
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