Millionaire Tycoon's English Rose Page 8

  ‘I’d have given anything to see Hope’s face,’ Celia said longingly. ‘Still, I expect she got the joke.’

  ‘I think even she was a bit taken aback by that one. Toni said it would make her think carefully about what commands she gave him in future.’

  ‘Does he always obey her commands?’ Celia asked with interest.

  ‘More or less. But don’t think he’s henpecked. Being devoted to her is what makes him happy.’

  ‘Then he’s the one who loves?’

  ‘They love each other,’ Francesco declared.

  ‘No, I mean, that old saying about there’s always one who loves and one who lets themselves be loved. He’s the one who loves.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ Francesco said thoughtfully. ‘I’d never realised it before, but I often see his eyes follow her around the room. With her it happens less.’

  She didn’t answer this, and when he stole a brief glance at her he saw that she was leaning back with her eyes closed, perhaps dozing.

  At her apartment he opened the car door, handed her out, then did the same for Jacko, and watched as the dog took her to the front door.

  ‘Can I come in for a moment?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  He forced himself to stay back as she allowed Jacko to take her inside and knelt down to remove his harness. He immediately went to drink from his bowl, then flopped onto his bed.

  ‘He looks a bit dispirited,’ Francesco observed, ‘not lively as Wicksy used to.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I sense it. He works hard, but he’s not happy.’

  ‘You said he was with his last owner a long time?’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And then he got told to go?’ Francesco mused.

  ‘Well, not quite like that.’

  ‘It probably felt like that to him. He doesn’t understand the reasons. Everything he thought was secure was suddenly snatched away.’

  ‘But the same thing happened to Wicksy, and he adjusted to his new owners,’ Celia pointed out. ‘When he was playing with those children he had that special note in his bark that means a dog’s having the time of his life.’

  ‘I suppose dogs have different personalities, like people. Wicksy got lucky, but it hasn’t worked out so well with Jacko. How does he come to terms with his loss if nobody can explain it to him?’

  Celia turned her head towards him, frowning at something she’d heard in his voice.

  ‘What did you mean by that?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘Nothing special.’

  ‘Yes, you did. Tell me. Francesco, please, it’s important. Tell me what you meant.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I know. Just that it’s something I seem to sense in my bones: being safe, and then not being safe and not understanding—’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said again, urgently.

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know the words.’

  Even as he spoke he felt the mood drain away from him, leaving him empty inside.

  ‘I only meant—about Jacko,’ he said heavily.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Celia dropped to her knees and fondled Jacko, kissing and caressing his ears. ‘Poor old boy,’ she crooned. ‘It’s hard for you, isn’t it?’

  The animal responded by gazing up at her from gentle, yearning eyes. Francesco watched her hands moving over him, offering comfort, and suddenly he was back in another time.

  The details were vague, but he recalled that he’d missed a contract he’d badly wanted and come home in a foul mood. She’d come up behind him as he’d sat glowering into a whisky, slipped her arms about him from behind, and dropped a kiss on top of his head.

  ‘Don’t let it get you down,’ she’d murmured. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘Right now it feels like it,’ he’d growled.

  ‘Nonsense. Other things matter far more.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like this,’ she’d said, proceeding to demonstrate.

  In a few minutes they’d been in bed and the contract had been forgotten.

  Now her caresses were wasted on a dog.

  ‘Is Jacko looking any happier?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, he only wanted you to show you love him. You can leave him now. He’s all right.’

  To his relief she did so, rising to her feet and turning in his direction. He reached out his hand and took hold of hers gently.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘All evening I couldn’t take my—my eyes off you.’

  She smiled and moved closer to him. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘At one time you’d never have said that. You’re learning fast.’

  ‘You once said I’d never learn.’

  ‘I underestimated you.’

  ‘Sure, I’m a quick learner. If you bash me over the head a few times I get the point—even if it’s too late.’

  ‘Yes,’ she echoed. ‘That can be the worst of all. You look back and think—’

  ‘If only,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes—if only. If only I’d known then what I know now I’d have made better use of it. If only I was wiser and cleverer than I am—’

  ‘I thought I was the one who wasn’t wise or clever,’ he said wryly.

  ‘I wasn’t so bright. I could have handled a lot of things better than I did.’

  There was a melancholy in her voice that made his heart ache. So much between them. So much anger and misunderstanding, resentment, grief, yet so much warmth, so much joy and love. Where had it gone?

  ‘Could you have done anything differently?’ he asked. ‘Could I? We are as we are. I think we were made to hurt each other—’

  ‘And miss each other in the dark,’ she said wistfully.

  ‘But you’re not afraid of the dark,’ he reminded her.

  Celia was standing very close to him, and it was natural to lay his hands on her bare shoulders, so that she turned her head up, almost as if she were looking at him, and spoke softly.

  ‘No, but there are other things to be afraid of.’

  ‘Not you,’ he said at once. ‘You were never afraid of anything.’

  ‘I don’t do so well with people, though, do I?’ she whispered.

  ‘Some people are beyond help,’ he said heavily.

  ‘Nobody is beyond help, if only—’

  ‘Yes?’ he murmured. ‘If only—but it’s a big “if only.”’

  ‘Francesco—’

  She shook her head in a way that was almost helpless. It was so rare for her to be at a loss that it hurt him obscurely. His head seemed to lower itself without his will, until his cheek lay against hers.

  He felt her tremble, but she didn’t push him away, and he was emboldened to turn so that his lips brushed her face. She raised her hands and laid them on his shoulders, letting them drift inwards until they touched his neck. He drew back an inch so that he could look down into her face, trying to read her expression.

  There was a gentleness in her face that he hadn’t seen since she’d arrived in Naples, but more than that, a sort of wonder, as though she hadn’t believed that this could still happen.

  Francesco held his breath while she began to run her fingers over his face, tracing the shape of his jaw, his lean cheeks, the outline of his lips, making it hard for him to keep his rising feelings under control. If he’d dared yield to them he would have seized her up in his arms, kissed her until they were half out of their minds, then carried her to bed. It was what he’d done many times before. But now he forced himself to stay still, waiting to see if she would move so that her lips could meet his, and at last she did.

  It was as though time had vanished. The kiss she gave him now was the kiss she had always given him, the one he wanted from her all his life.

  He should be strong and resist it, but he had no strength where she was concerned.

  Her lips teased his seductively, reminding him of things best forgotten. A man could lose his sanity with a woman like this. But while his min
d worked his mouth was caressing hers in return, taking over the kiss, becoming the tender aggressor.

  All was well again. They had never been apart, and never would be, because this was the only thing that mattered.

  The shrill of the phone startled them. Francesco muttered a curse.

  ‘I thought you turned it off.’

  ‘That’s the landline,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I’ll have to answer it.’

  She was shaking, but not as much as he was. Through her hands and her whole body she could sense the disturbance that racked him. She didn’t want to answer the phone, but it would just ring until she did.

  Francesco pulled away and snatched up the phone, barking, ‘Hallo? No, she can’t come to the phone right now…I don’t care how urgent it is, you’ll have to try later—’

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Sandro. Here!’ He handed her the receiver. ‘Get rid of him.’

  His curt command acted like a burst of cold water cascading over her. He was trying to control her again.

  ‘Sandro? I told you I’d call you back. Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No, we’re about to lose our best chance of a really big customer,’ came the voice down the phone, naming a man they’d been cultivating for days. ‘He’s about to leave town, but he wants to talk to you before he goes. Please, Celia, we really need this one.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ she admitted. ‘All right, I’ll call him at once. I’ve got his number. Good night.’ She hung up.

  ‘So that’s that?’ Francesco said coldly. ‘He says jump and you do.’

  ‘I jump when the business needs me,’ she said, equally coldly. ‘Not Sandro.’

  ‘To hell with business!’

  ‘There’s a thing I never thought to hear you say.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have put us first and work second?’

  ‘I was going to,’ she cried. ‘Can’t you understand that? I was going to put him off, but then you had to charge in like a steamroller, giving your orders, telling me what I could and couldn’t do. Haven’t you learned by now that I won’t stand for that?’

  ‘I’d better leave,’ he snapped. ‘You have a phone call to make.’

  ‘You’re right. Good night.’

  As he departed she was already lifting the phone.

  The conversation that followed was long, complex, and took all her skill to bring to a successful conclusion. She was left with a sense of triumph in her achievement, but also a sad awareness of the price she’d paid.

  When she’d hung up the apartment seemed suddenly empty. It wasn’t just the fact that she was alone. She was used to that. But there was a special quality to this aloneness, as though Francesco’s anger was still imprinted on the air, still reproaching her with his absence.

  It might have been so different, she thought despondently.

  She undressed, settled Jacko down and got into bed, still aching with the yearning for what had nearly happened. She lay for a long time, wondering if nothing was truly all there would ever be.

  A sound from the floor reminded her that she wasn’t truly alone after all.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked Jacko, reaching down to touch him. ‘You sound sad, poor old boy. Come up and join me, and we can be sad together.’

  He nuzzled her hand, but otherwise didn’t move.

  ‘Come on,’ she urged. ‘Jump up on the bed with me. Never mind what they said at Guide Dog School about not getting on the furniture. I want you up here, where I can cuddle you.’

  His mind relieved, he hopped onto the bed and snuggled against her. Celia buried her face against his warm fur.

  ‘What would I do without you?’ she murmured. ‘You’re the only real friend I have. You don’t talk nonsense like him—or like me. You don’t give me orders or try to control me and you understand everything without being told.’

  His tongue flickered against her cheek and she smiled.

  ‘Mmm! Do that again! That’s nice. Thank you. You’re beautiful. Everyone says so, and I know you are.’

  They lay awhile in companionable silence while she stroked him.

  ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ she asked after a while. ‘I couldn’t do it without my dogs. First Max, when I was a little girl, then Wicksy, now you. I go on a lot about my independence, but the truth is that it all depends on my furry friends. Don’t tell on me, will you?’

  He nudged her with his nose.

  ‘Thanks. I knew I could rely on you. You see, without you I’d fall into the hands of a control freak like Francesco. I can only fight him by being as awkward as possible—and if there’s one thing I do know about it’s being awkward—but I can’t do that without you there to prop up the illusion.’

  She sighed despondently.

  ‘Listen to me, talking about fighting him. I don’t want to fight him. I want to love him. I call him a control freak, but he isn’t really. It’s just something that makes him act that way. I don’t understand it, and I don’t think he does. I still love him. I wish I didn’t, but you can’t just turn it off, can you?’

  He gave a sad whine of agreement.

  ‘Was I very stupid to come here?’ she asked him. ‘It seemed so easy when I planned it. If I could only meet him on his own ground we might start again and get it right this time. Now I wonder if that can ever happen. Tonight I even hoped—It was going so well. I was remembering how much I love him, and why. When he kissed me it was just like before, and I wanted him so much. Suddenly it seemed a hundred years since we last made love, and I couldn’t wait for it to happen again. All the things that came between us didn’t matter any more, as long as I could belong to him and know that he belonged to me. Oh, Jacko, we were that close—that close—If only—’

  She sighed, forcing herself down to earth.

  ‘But then Sandro phoned and it was like time had rolled back. Francesco became the man I hate, taking control, barking orders. Everything has to be done his way, and I can’t bear that. And then I was glad that the call came in time to stop us making love. Yes, I was. I was glad—really, really glad.’

  Jacko pressed closer, giving her cheek a soft nudge of sympathy. He knew a lie when he heard one.

  Francesco didn’t contact Celia next day, but Olympia did. She spent the afternoon being escorted around the factory, making verbal notes, and was then swept off to the apartment where Olympia lived with her husband, Primo Rinucci.

  As she was working on the evening meal and chatting to Celia in the kitchen, the phone rang.

  ‘Ciao?’ she sang into the receiver. ‘Yes, everything went well.’ To Celia she said, ‘It’s Francesco. He wants to know how your visit went.’ She turned back to the receiver. ‘We’ve got lots of ideas to talk about.’

  ‘Tell him to come over here,’ Primo said from the doorway. ‘We’ll mull the ideas over together.’

  Then Olympia, talking into the phone, ‘Come and join us for supper—Oh, nonsense! You can’t have that much to do—’

  Celia deciphered this without trouble. After last night, Francesco didn’t want to come where he would meet her. And he was right, she told herself firmly. Everything was falling apart again and he was wise to avoid her.

  ‘Besides,’ Olympia was saying, ‘you introduced us to Celia, so you must come and hear how your protégée is doing. I’ll lay another place. No argument. Get moving.’

  She hung up.

  ‘Does your brother ever stop working?’ she complained to Primo.

  ‘He took yesterday evening off for the party,’ Celia said lightly. ‘You can’t expect him to rest for two evenings in a row. You know how driven he is about business.’

  ‘Not really,’ Primo said. ‘He went abroad ten years ago, and stayed there until recently. None of us knows him really well.’

  ‘Why did he go?’ Celia asked.

  ‘I’m not sure, but he was never at home much even before that. He travelled all over Italy, working a year here, a year there, always making money. He has the devil’s touch
about that. Then he’d get fed up and come back, only to leave again. At last he went to America, stayed there until three years ago, then went to England. I don’t know why he wanders so much—what he’s looking for. But maybe you can tell. You must know him better than anyone.’

  ‘No,’ Celia said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t really know him at all.’

  Half an hour later there was a ring on the bell and Primo went to answer, returning with Francesco and Carlo.

  ‘We met in the street,’ Francesco announced.

  ‘I just came to say hallo,’ Carlo said, giving Celia a peck on the cheek.

  ‘Stay for supper,’ Olympia said.

  ‘I can’t. Della will be home soon,’ Carlo explained, naming his wife, a television producer, who’d been forced to take a long rest owing to poor health.

  ‘She’s trying to take up the reins again,’ he said, ‘and she’s gone to look at a place with a history that’s given her an idea for a programme. She’ll be expecting to find me at home.’

  ‘Call her,’ Primo said. ‘Tell her to come here instead.’

  While they argued about it Francesco sat beside Celia and said quietly, ‘I gather things went well today?’

  ‘Yes, I drummed up lots of business. There was a man there who’d come to sign a contract from another firm. He’s booked me for an assessment visit, too, and he says he knows several other people who’d be interested. I’m going great guns.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re a success. Is Sandro pleased?’

  ‘This has nothing to do with Sandro. Giving advice in the workplace is exclusively mine. Follia Per Sempre is another firm. I told you, Sandro and I don’t do sensible.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Sandro and you!’ he said wryly.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means what it sounds as though it means. It means that when he called last night you abandoned everything else. Mio Dio, you forgot me easily.’

  ‘Some men are easy to forget.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And some are impossible to forget,’ she murmured.

  Silence. Hell would freeze over before he asked her into which category she had assigned him.

  Now they could clearly hear Carlo talking to Della, explaining the change of plan.