by Lynne Graham
‘Book yourself a seat on Concorde.’
‘OK…’ she agreed with studied casualness, furiously blinking back the tears.
‘I didn’t realise it had been three weeks.’ Gianni paused, and then continued with innate superiority and instinctive attention to detail. ‘No, it hasn’t been three weeks, cara. Don’t you remember I stopped over one night before I went to Rio?’
‘Gianni, much as I love you,’ she groaned, ‘there are times when I just want to reach down this phone line and hit you! You were here for less than five hours!’
And then, just as quickly as it had come, the picture vanished and Faith was left sitting behind the steering wheel of her car in complete shock. But every emotion she had experienced during that slide back into the past had stayed with her, and the revelation of those powerful emotions now took her by storm.
Winding down the window with a shaking hand, Faith drank in great gulps of fresh air. It had happened, this time it had really, definitely happened, and she had genuinely remembered something. But that tiny slice of the past she had relived had been incredibly disturbing.
She had loved him. She had loved Gianni D’Angelo! She had had a capacity for emotion then that had virtually eaten her alive. Until now Faith had never dreamt that at any stage of her life she could have experienced such strong feelings. And it was even more devastating to be forced to accept that once she had adored Gianni D’Angelo, lived from one day to the next on that love, needed him as she needed air to breathe, felt she was barely existing when he wasn’t around…
Emerging from that shattering new awareness, Faith tried to block it out again. It had already been a hell of a day. Tomorrow she would take it all out again and deal with it. Not now.
She drove through town and parked at the rear of Petals, the flowershop she ran with Louise.
Gianni D’Angelo’s mistress. If she had once been that crazy about him, she could even begin to see how she might have ended up trapped in such a relationship. Love had made a fool of her. Love, she told herself urgently, was a lot more presentable an excuse than avarice.
But how was she to tell Edward? Edward was such a conventional man. Faith’s heart sank. Edward had chosen to assume that some flash young man had seduced her and then abandoned her when she fell pregnant. That was how Edward had dealt with getting engaged to an unwed mother. He had effectively excused her from all real responsibility and decided to view her as an innocent victim.
But being kept by Gianni D’Angelo as a mistress was a very different kettle of fish. And how could she not tell Edward, when Gianni was here in the flesh demanding to meet his son? It was all going to come out. Nothing she could do could prevent that. Gianni D’Angelo’s mistress. It was sordid. Why had she tried briefly to persuade herself otherwise? Edward and her parents would be extremely shocked. And Gianni wasn’t likely to sink back into the woodwork again. Climbing out of her car, Faith paled at that awareness.
The shop was empty of customers. Louise was dusting shelves and humming to herself. Her partner turned round, and as Faith moved into the light she frowned. ‘Heck, what’s happened to you?’
Faith stiffened defensively like a hedgehog under sudden attack. ‘Nothing…nothing’s happened to me.’
‘What have you done with your hair?’ Louise demanded. ‘My goodness, I never realised you had that much of it!’
‘I had a headache…have a headache,’ Faith corrected awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry. I should’ve called you to tell you that I would be out for so long.’
‘Nonsense. Go back home this minute. You look awful,’ Louise told her bluntly.
Relieved by that advice, Faith went back out to her car and drove slowly home to the rambling old farmhouse her parents had bought and renovated when she was a child. In the cosy front hall, the scent of beeswax polish and the ticking of the old grandfather clock enveloped her like a healing blanket.
Connor ran out of the kitchen, loosed a noisy whoop of welcome and flung himself at her. ‘Mummy!’ he carolled.
Faith reached down and lifted her son. She hugged him so tightly he gave a yelp of protest. Instantly she loosened her grip and pressed an apologetic kiss to his smooth brow. A great gush of love had just engulfed her, but for the first time there was a piercing arrow of fearful insecurity inside that love.
He was a gorgeous little boy. The combination of her blonde hair with his dark brows, sparkling brown eyes and golden skin tone was unusual. But all of a sudden Connor wasn’t exclusively her little boy any more. He was the son of a very rich man, who wanted a share of him. How much of a share?
Her mother emerged from the kitchen. ‘Are you taking the rest of the afternoon off?’ she asked, and then frowned. ‘Oh dear, what’s happened to your hair?’
‘I lost the clasp.’
Davina Jennings, a small, comfortably rounded woman with short greying fair hair and an air of bustling activity, sighed. ‘You should take time off more often. You do look tired, darling.’
‘Do I?” Averting her head, Faith lowered Connor to the floor.
She would talk to her parents tonight after dinner. There was no point putting it off. Gianni might just arrive on the doorstep. Possibly storming out on him hadn’t been the wisest move. It might have made her feel better but it would have increased his hostility. And how could she blame him for the reality that she had been his mistress? She had been an adult when she had made that choice, not a helpless little girl.
‘Since you’re home, I think I’ll just pop down to the church hall and check that everything’s ready for that choral do this evening,’ Davina Jennings continued. ‘I know Janet Markham said she would see to it, but I’m afraid the younger women on the ladies’ committee aren’t always as reliable as they like to think.’
Faith knew that her mother would be out for the rest of the afternoon. Davina loved to be busy. She would go down to the church hall, seize with alacrity on the idea that the floor wasn’t quite clean enough or the kitchen looked a little dingy and roll up her sleeves.
Faith went upstairs to her bedroom. Connor got down on his knees to run a toy car along the skirting board, making phroom-phroom noises while she got changed. She pulled on a sweater and a comfy denim skirt and took Connor out to the garden.
It was a lovely mild winter day. But the sense of tranquillity that usually enveloped her outdoors refused to come. What would Gianni do next? She was just sitting here on pins waiting to find out, wasn’t she? Suddenly ashamed of her own passiveness, Faith walked into the kitchen and reached for the phone. It made sense that she should contact Gianni to arrange to meet up with him. The last thing she wanted was for him to arrive unannounced at her home…
But the receptionist at the hotel didn’t seem to know whether they had a Gianni D’Angelo staying or not. Yet she still requested Faith’s name and address before she might condescend to pass on such privileged information. Exasperated, because she was afraid she might lose her nerve, Faith decided to leave a message instead.
‘Tell him Milly would like to see him. I’ll be…I’ll be in the park at four,’ she dictated tautly, and hurriedly replaced the receiver.
Cloak and dagger stuff, but why give her own name when it wasn’t necessary? And this way she would get the worst over with, she told herself bracingly. She would let him see Connor and find out exactly what he wanted. She was dealing with a very rich and powerful male, who was already hostile towards her. At this point, antagonising him without good reason would be foolish.
An hour later, Faith drew into the car park. There was no limo, so Gianni hadn’t arrived yet. In fact there were no other cars parked at all. With Connor holding her hand, Faith walked down the sloping path that ran between the steeply banked wildflower meadows towards the playground and the artificial lake. Her heart was now beating so fast she pressed a hand against her breast.
She rounded a corner and saw a man in a dark suit talking into a radio. She tensed, wondering what he was doing, suddenly appreciating t
hat she had come to a very lonely place at an hour when it was likely to be deserted. The man fell silent as she moved past. Connor pulled free of her hold and ran ahead into the playground, his sturdy little legs carrying him towards the slide he loved at a steady rate of knots.
‘See me, Mummy!’ he shouted breathlessly as he reached the final step, his face ablaze with achievement.
And at that exact moment Gianni appeared, striding down the path she had just emerged from. Something disturbingly akin to excitement flashed through Faith, freezing her in her tracks. The man with the radio spoke to him, but Gianni slashed a silencing hand through the air. Gianni’s entire attention was already fixed on the little boy carefully settling himself to the top of the slide, tiny hands holding the toddler grips tight.
The whole atmosphere seemed to charge up. Faith couldn’t take her eyes off Gianni. She watched him swallow, slowly shake his gleaming dark head in an almost vulnerable movement, and suddenly ram his hands into the pockets of his exquisitely tailored trousers. He stared at Connor as if he was the Holy Grail, and he did it with a raw intensity of emotional response that shook Faith to her innermost depths.
Did he ever look at me like that? she found herself wondering. She wouldn’t have credited that Gianni D’Angelo had that much emotion in him. But the stark prominence of his superb bone structure, the shimmering brilliance of his ferociously intent eyes and the hands that he didn’t seem to know what to do with any more as he jerked them back out of his pockets again all spoke for him.
Her throat thickened. Suddenly she felt on the outside, looking in. She had picked a guy who loved children but she had run away with his child. Why had she done that? He had known she was pregnant before she left him. Why had she left him? Hadn’t she realised that he might feel like this about their baby?
Without the slightest warning or expectation, Faith was beginning to feel guilty.
He had known her by another name. Clearly she had lied to him and given him that false name. Why had she done that? Had she been ashamed of the life she was leading with him? Had she been trying to ensure that nobody could ever connect Faith Jennings with Gianni D’Angelo’s mistress? Well, her lies must have hampered his every attempt to find them again. He couldn’t possibly have known where her parents lived, or indeed anything about them.
‘Whee!’ Connor screeched as he whooshed down the slide, scrambling off at the foot to race back round to the steps to do it again, totally uninterested in the adults watching him.
‘He’s blond…’ Gianni breathed gruffly from his stance several feet away, still not sparing her an actual glance. ‘Somehow I never thought of that.’
Faith’s breath feathered in her tightening throat. ‘He has dark eyes and dark brows and he takes a tremendous tan,’ she squeezed out unevenly. ‘And he’s pretty tall for his age, which he certainly didn’t get from me—’
‘He’s just tremendous,’ Gianni incised almost roughly, his foreign accent far more noticeable than it had been earlier in the day.
One day, in fact considerably less than twelve hours, Faith acknowledged. But today, in the space of those few hours, Gianni D’Angelo had changed her whole life.
Suddenly he turned his proud head, cold, dark flashing eyes seeking out hers in a look as physical as a blow. ‘I’ve missed out on two and a half years of my son’s life. You owe me…’ he murmured in sibilant condemnation.
Faith went pale and crossed her arms jerkily. ‘I didn’t know…I didn’t remember.’
‘You knew when you did your vanishing act,’ Gianni reminded her darkly. ‘Now go and get Connor and tell him who I am!’
Faith blinked in disconcertion. ‘I can’t do that—’
‘Why not?’ Gianni shot back at her.
‘I mean, he doesn’t know you…it’s far too soon,’ she argued.
‘I won’t allow you to introduce me to my own child as some passing stranger,’ Gianni spelt out. ‘I’m his father. At his age, he’s hardly likely to be traumatised by the news!’
Put squarely on the spot, Faith studied him with strained eyes. She hadn’t been prepared for that demand. Foolishly, she hadn’t thought beyond letting him see Connor, and even that decision, she recognised now with sudden shame, hadn’t been made for the right reasons. Playing for time, she had dangled Connor like a carrot, in an effort to soothe Gianni and prevent him from taking any other form of action.
‘Porca miseria!’ Gianni suddenly gritted in a fierce undertone, striding forward, dark eyes flaming threat. ‘Does he call your fiancé Daddy?’
Faith backed off a startled step and trembled. ‘No, of course not!’ she gasped.
Equally as suddenly, Gianni stilled. Dark, feverish colour had sprung up over his spectacular cheekbones as he surveyed her: a slight, shivering figure with replaited hair, drawn features and frightened confused eyes. Now clad in an ugly mud-coloured jacket, flat walking shoes and a shapeless denim skirt, she looked like a waif. The bitter anger sparked by his first emotive sight of a son who didn’t know him drained away. One thing hadn’t changed, he acknowledged ruefully. Without him around she was still a fashion disaster, choosing comfort and practicality over style.
‘It’s all right, cara,’ Gianni murmured quietly. ‘Really, it’s all right.’
‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ Faith whispered truthfully, her vision blurring with sudden tears.
‘I don’t know about the location, but this meeting was definitely a step in the right direction,’ Gianni told her bracingly, checking that Connor was still wholly entranced by the slide before extending a supportive arm around her. ‘Take a deep breath and let it out again…’
‘I might fall over…’ She tried to joke, but her taut voice emerged flat as a pancake. As he eased her into the shelter of his lean body she was alarmingly conscious of his male warmth and his intimate scent. Her tummy flipped, leaving her feeling desperately ill at ease.
‘Not when I’m around.’
‘I really don’t know why I gave you a false name,’ Faith heard herself confide. ‘It seems such a strange thing to have done, and I’ve always thought I was an honest person…I really did think that.’
Gianni tensed and suppressed a groan. The plot thickens, he conceded grimly. Of course she was going to assume that her real name was the false one. What else was she to think while she still fondly imagined that the Jenningses were her parents? But by the end of the day he would have dealt with that problem as well, he reminded himself grimly. Handling one problem at a time had become an impossible challenge.
‘Take me over to Connor,’ he urged.
His lack of comment surprised Faith. But then it had hardly been the right moment for that confession, she decided dully. His sole interest right now was naturally his son.
As she headed for Connor, Gianni let his arm slide from her. It felt oddly like being pushed away. Confusion assailed her. She was uneasily conscious of the change within herself. Since she had had that flashback Gianni no longer felt like a stranger. Now she was hugely aware that she had once loved him. A terrifying, all-or-nothing, no-sacrifice-too-great love, which she had apparently offered freely. But she didn’t think he had ever loved her. She had sensed her own insecurity during that phone call, relived her own determined attempt to conceal that insecurity.
When he saw them coming towards him, Connor perched on the end of the slide, restlessly swinging his legs, only curiosity in his eyes as he studied Gianni. He was a friendly, confident child, who had never been shy.
‘You’re big!’ he said to Gianni, his blond head falling back to take in the height of a male at least six feet three inches tall, big brown eyes wide as the sky above and openly impressed.
Gianni laughed, and immediately hunkered down to his son’s level. ‘I think you’re going to be big too,’ he commented, half to himself.
‘This is…’ Faith had to stop and start again as Connor gazed up at her with innocently enquiring eyes. ‘This is your father, Connor.’
‘Your daddy,’ Faith rephrased in a taut undertone.
He recognised that word. ‘Daddy?’ he repeated, small legs falling still, a puzzled look on his face. Then his dark eyes rounded and he studied Gianni with dawning wonderment. ‘Peter daddy?’
As Gianni tensed, Faith crouched down beside him. ‘Yes, that’s right…like Peter has a daddy. This is your daddy,’ she explained.
‘Who’s Peter?’ Gianni enquired out of the corner of his mouth.
‘His friend at nursery,’ Faith whispered back. ‘He’s been to his house to play.’
‘Play ball?’ Connor demanded, suddenly bouncing upright in excitement. ‘Daddy play ball?’
Gianni released his pent-up breath. ‘Not for a long time, but willing to learn,’ he muttered not quite steadily. ‘Why didn’t I think of bringing something like that?’
Connor danced on the spot. Peter’s daddy was more of a favourite than even Faith had appreciated. ‘Play cars? Phroom-phroom?’ he carolled hopefully, withdrawing a tiny toy car from his pocket.
‘Phroom…phroom,’ Gianni sounded obediently. ‘I love playing cars!’
Connor grinned and raised his arms to be lifted. ‘Phroom…phroom…phroom!’ he said exuberantly.
Gianni reached out and eased his son into his arms and then slowly came upright, a slightly stunned light in his usually keen dark eyes. He held Connor awkwardly, at a slight distance from him, visibly afraid of taking too many liberties too soon and spoiling the moment.
Reacting to the amount of attention he was receiving, Connor spread his arms and proceeded to noisily intimate an aeroplane going into freefall.
‘Connor, behave!’ Faith scolded in dismay, but Gianni saw his mistake and hauled his son closer before he could divebomb out of his arms.
‘Daddy!’ Connor exclaimed, and wound his arms round Gianni’s neck to plant a big kiss on his cheek. ‘My Daddy…mine!’ he stressed, with all the satisfaction of ownership.
