The Italian Millionaire’s Marriage

CHAPTER EIGHT

MARCO had said Harriet had an international reputation and she was discovering how true it was. The news that she had broken ‘the Manelli barrier’ was soon all over Rome, and her services began to be much in demand.

‘I’m here as an emissary,’ Marco said to her one evening. ‘Two of my colleagues at work want to consult you and they say you’re putting them off. I’ve promised to use my influence. They seem to think I have some,’ he added drily.

‘I was being tactful,’ Harriet said. ‘Precisely because they’re your colleagues it seemed better for me to stay clear. Suppose I give them wrong advice?’

‘Is that possible?’ he murmured slyly.

‘Tell them about the necklace,’ she challenged him.

‘The less said about that necklace the better,’ he said, almost teasing. ‘May I inform my associates that my influence has been successful?’

‘I’ll bet you’ve already done so.’

He grinned and didn’t deny it.

On this level they were easy with each other, but Harriet had learned that any attempt to draw closer to him was fruitless. After that one time in the garden he’d retreated into his shell, perhaps further back than before, wary, mistrustful of her and himself. Above all, mistrustful of what might happen between them.

It was lucky that she hadn’t fallen in love with him, as she’d briefly feared. The moment when she’d sensed approaching disaster had been a warning which ‘sensible Harriet’, now in the ascendant again, had heeded. Soon the time would come for them to go their separate ways, him to find a suitable bride elsewhere, and herself into an apartment in the city.

For she’d decided to stay here. With Marco’s help she’d reclaimed her Italian heritage, and she would always be grateful to him for that. But as more people sought her expertise she realised that she was laying the groundwork for a life here that didn’t include him.

So when he asked her to accompany him on a trip to visit a client, who lived in Corzena, about two hundred miles to the north of Rome, she had no trouble in claiming that her time was occupied.

‘You can surely spare a couple of days for me,’ he said impatiently.

‘I’m busy.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘It can’t be that important.’

‘That’s for me to say,’ she insisted, riled by his tone. ‘Give me that!’

He’d snatched up the pad on which she’d scribbled notes on her current work.

‘The Vatican Museum,’ he read.

‘Signor Carelli has asked me to check some references for him.’ This should have been the killer fact, since Carelli was one of the banking colleagues for whom Marco had interceded. But he wasn’t impressed.

‘He won’t mind waiting,’ he said.

She knew it was true. She was finding excuses, and she wasn’t sure exactly why, except that she felt herself subtly moving away from him, and perhaps it was best to keep it that way.

‘I’m not going to ask him to wait,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ve made my plans and I’d prefer to stick to them.’

‘Fine,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘I won’t ask again. Please tell my mother I called, and that I’ll be away for the rest of the week.’

And when he’d gone it all seemed so stupid. Why had she taken such a stubborn line? Why refuse to spend a couple of days in his company?

Because the prospect was far too agreeable, that was the answer. It was a relief that he’d left, making it too late to change her mind. Not that she wanted to change her mind.

Lucia slept late next day and Harriet breakfasted alone. She was just finishing her coffee when Marco walked in. Her heart’s flicker of delight was too intense to be ignored, but she concealed it.

‘I thought you’d be on your way by now,’ she exclaimed. ‘Weren’t you leaving early?’

He’d left in the dawn and driven for twenty miles before stopping the car and getting out to stand looking over the countryside. He’d stayed there for half an hour before getting back into the car and turning it around.

‘I’ve come back because I want you to be honest with me,’ he said quietly. ‘I want the real reason you won’t come to Corzena.’

‘I’ve already told you-’

‘Yes, you have, and it’s bull. You know it and I know it. I want the other reason-’ he faced her ‘-the one you can’t bring yourself to tell me.’

Alarm and pleasure seized her equally. Had he really guessed that she’d turned coward, backing off because she feared the growing strength of her own feelings for a man who was incapable of returning them? Or did he return them, and this was his way of creating the mood for a declaration?

‘Marco-’

‘Harriet,’ he said desperately, ‘I know. Did you really think I wouldn’t guess?’

‘You’ve guessed-?’ she whispered, not daring to hope.

‘When I started to think hard it became obvious-especially after what happened the night of the party-Harriet, I may not be the most sensitive man in the world, but I think I’m sensitive enough to see this. We’ve been honest with each other from the start, why didn’t you just tell me-? No, that’s stupid, isn’t it? How could you speak bluntly about such a delicate matter?’

‘Marco, are you saying-?’

‘I’ll make it easy for you by saying it myself.’ He took a deep breath, evidently having difficulty, and she waited, her heart beating eagerly. At last he said, ‘You don’t want to be alone with me. You’re afraid of what I’ll do.’

‘Wh-what?’

‘That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t trust me, to behave decently. But you can, I swear it.’

She was coming out of her happy daze to a chilly reality. ‘I see,’ she managed to say, hoping desperately that her face didn’t show her cruel disappointment.

‘This is business,’ he went on, ‘and my client is an important one. The bank tends to indulge his wishes, and his present wish is to meet you.’

‘That’s blackmail!’

‘Yes, I suppose it is, and that’s just why you can trust me. Having more or less coerced you into this trip the last thing I’d do would be put you in an awkward situation.’ He regarded her steadily. ‘I hope you understand me.’

She wanted to laugh, perhaps hysterically. ‘I think I do. You’re promising to be the perfect gentleman, no midnight taps on my door-’

‘I doubt our rooms will even be on the same floor. Our host is very old-fashioned. Nothing will happen, Harriet, you have my word of honour.’

She wanted to throw something at him and scream, I don’t want your word of honour. I don’t want you to be the perfect gentleman. I want you to kiss me as you did that night, and this time I don’t want you to stop. Oh, you idiot!

But instead she said coolly, ‘I suppose, that makes everything all right.’

‘I hoped it would. This is really important, he’s a very big client-’

‘Then we must keep him happy,’ she said brightly. ‘Business comes first, after all.’

He smiled at her. ‘You say that to the manner born.’

‘You think I might be a credit to you?’

He put his hands on her shoulders, smiling into her eyes in a way that made her hold her breath. If only-

‘You already are a credit to me,’ he said warmly. ‘I’m proud of you and I want to show you off. Get some clothes together quickly, while I go and see if my mother’s awake.’

As she packed she heard murmurs coming from Lucia’s room, and went in to bid her goodbye. ‘I’m sorry to rush off without notice-’

‘Nonsense. Go on and have a wonderful time, cara.’

It was a lovely day and their drive lay through beautiful countryside. Gradually her mood improved from the sheer pleasure of being with him. Marco drove fast but easily and with confidence, as he did everything.

‘Tell me about this man,’ she said.

‘Elvino Lucci is one of the richest men in Italy. He started with nothing and he’s built up to where he is through sheer hard work and brilliance. He’s been my mentor for years.’

‘I can’t picture you with a mentor, somehow. I don’t think you’d let him get a word in edgeways.’

‘Everyone needs a mentor,’ he said seriously. ‘Not just at the start but maybe for always, to give you a sense of perspective. I learned a lot from him when I was just starting, and he still has things to teach me.’

‘A great financial brain, then?’

‘The greatest. He believed in keeping his attention focused and never taking his eye off the ball.’

‘You mean there’s been nothing in his life but financial wheeling and dealing?’

‘He married and has a family, but he’s been a widower for ten years.’

‘I’ll bet he married an heiress.’

‘No, his own secretary.’

‘Oh, well, nothing like securing cheap labour.’

Marco laughed. ‘You may find him a little stiff and puritanical, but you’ll like him when you get to know each other.’

‘But why does he want to meet me?’ she asked lightly. ‘Am I being tested for suitability? If he gives me the thumbs down, am I out?’

‘Don’t be absurd. I think he’s just lonely.’

‘Lonely? With all that money?’

‘Harriet please don’t say that kind of thing in front him? I know it’s a joke, but he wouldn’t understand.’

‘Hey, you recognised a joke. Better not let him suspect that, or you might not be his white-headed boy any more.’

Diplomatically he didn’t answer this.

When they stopped for lunch Marco called Elvino Lucci to apologise for being late. Harriet could just make out the man’s voice.

‘You, late? That must be a first! Only something special would make Marco Calvani break the habits of a lifetime!’

‘It was,’ Marco said.

‘Well, I’m longing to meet her. I’m storing up a little surprise myself.’

They reached Corzena in the late afternoon. It was an old town built on a hill at the edge of a lake, with the villa on the lower part, near the shore. Huge wrought-iron gates swung open at their approach, and soon the house was in sight. There on the steps, waiting to greet them, was a tall man with white hair and a distinguished face. Beside him stood a very young woman who bore a strong resemblance to a sugar-coated doll. She had a mass of blonde hair, dressed high and wide, and sprayed into a confection like candyfloss. Her eyes were large and ingenuous.

‘Good grief!’ Marco murmured. ‘What-’

Lucci advanced to greet them with outstretched arms. After kissing Harriet on both cheeks, he sprang his surprise.

‘Meet Ginetta, my wife,’ he said. ‘We married on impulse, and you’re the first to know.’

Marco maintained his composure, greeting the new Signora Lucci with perfect courtesy, but Harriet could imagine his thoughts. Elvino was at least thirty years older than his bride, and clearly took pleasure in buying her jewels. She was loaded down with them.

There was another shock awaiting. Marco had described Lucci as a man of old-fashioned values, but now Ginetta gave the orders, and her idea of how to accommodate an engaged couple was modern. While not going so far as to put them in the same room she’d given them adjoining rooms with a connecting door.

‘We’ll be waiting downstairs when you’ve freshened up,’ she cooed, tripping daintily away.

When she’d gone Marco knocked on Harriet’s door before entering.

‘I hope you realise that I had no idea of this,’ he said. ‘I never meant to break my word to you.’

‘I know that. You’re not responsible for them putting us together.’

‘Whatever is Lucci thinking of?’

‘He’s in love with her, that’s obvious.’

‘To think of him springing it on me! This visit is going to be an ordeal.’

At first Harriet thought the same, but it wasn’t long before she began to like Ginetta, who seemed genuinely fond of her elderly husband, if not as besotted by him as he was by her. She also had a habit of making apparently naïve remarks that turned out, on examination, to be shrewd and witty. Several times over dinner Harriet found herself laughing.

After the meal Ginetta insisted on showing her over the villa, innocently proud of its luxury and her own good fortune in securing a husband who could lavish gifts on her. Even so, her happiness had a cloud.

‘I’m really glad you came,’ she confided. ‘I made Vinni absolutely promise to get you here. Lots of wives don’t want to know me.’

‘I can’t think why,’ Harriet said warmly. ‘I think you’re great fun. But I’m not Marco’s wife, you know.’

‘But you soon will be. He’s nuts about you, anyone can see that.’

Harriet gave a little laugh that sounded odd to herself. ‘It’s not Marco’s way to be “nuts”. And if he was he’d die rather than admit it.’

‘It’s just there in the way he looks at you, when you’re not looking back. He does it all the time. He can’t stop himself.’

‘Nonsense,’ Harriet said, colouring.

‘It’s true. And you do it, too.’

‘I-’

‘Yes, you do. You two fancy each other like crazy. It’s a good thing I gave you connecting rooms.’

It was fortunate that she tripped away, calling back, ‘Come on, let’s find the men,’ because Harriet wouldn’t have known how to answer.

The men were sitting on the broad terrace that overlooked the lake, drinking brandy and deep in discussion. Harriet could see that Marco was displeased, although controlling it beneath a courteous front. Both men rose to greet them. Elvino ordered more champagne and they all strolled along the terrace, watching the moonlight on the water.

This joyful man bore no relation at all to the severe, practical ‘brain’ Marco had described, and which he clearly admired. He was triumphant in his happiness, wanting everyone to share it, laughing and kissing Ginetta repeatedly.

‘This is truly a house of love,’ he declared exuberantly, ‘since it houses two pairs of lovers. I drink to your coming wedding, I drink to your wedding night, I drink to all the pleasure you will take in each other-’

‘Caro,’ Ginetta giggled.

‘Oh, they don’t mind. They’re lovers, as we are.’ He was becoming jollier with every glass, and there was no stopping him now. ‘Come Marco, drink with me to the woman you love.’

Harriet could hardly look at Marco, guessing how he would regard such a boisterous display. But he said quietly, ‘You are right, my friend. Let us drink.’

He raised his glass in Harriet’s direction, she raised hers, and they clinked.

‘Don’t just drink to the girl,’ Elvino bawled. ‘Kiss her, and then kiss her again. And let your kisses be a pledge of the passion to come.’

To demonstrate his point he tightened the arm that was about Ginetta’s shoulders, and gave her a smacking kiss. Marco responded by drawing Harriet close and laying his lips on hers. For a moment she raised her hands against him. She didn’t want to kiss him like this, knowing he’d been forced by politeness, and when he’d been at such pains to assure her that he would keep his distance.

His lips lay lightly on hers, but that was somehow more unnerving than the night she’d sensed his fierce desire. He took her hand, still raised in an instinctive gesture of resistance.

‘Kiss me back,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘Make it look good.’

Make it look good for the client, she thought angrily. But her hand was already reaching up to touch his face, while the other arm wound its way around him. His own arms tightened, drawing her very close. His lips moved across hers, subtly enticing, almost the ghost of a kiss, but a ghost that was enfolding her in a mysterious spell. She let herself slip into that spell easily, for now it was all right to caress his face and press against him, putting her whole heart and soul into what she was doing. He need never know. She was merely helping him keep a client happy.

Marco too played his part with conviction, slipping an arm beneath her neck and kissing her with a kind of dreamy absorption that she thought must delude anybody. Except her. The slow movement of his lips over hers was sweet, blissful, and the temptation to believe in it was overpowering. She opened her eyes to find his face hovering close, his eyes fixed on her with a kind of astonishment. He was breathing unevenly.

From Elvino came another burst of delight. ‘That’s the spirit,’ he bawled. ‘And now there’s only one thing to do-carry the lady upstairs.’

On the word he lifted Ginetta and began to walk along the terrace, calling, ‘Time for lovers to go to bed,’ over his shoulder.

Marco didn’t hesitate, and the next moment Harriet found herself lifted against his chest. She clung to him dizzily, confused as to how to get her bearings, but not really wanting to.

Elvino reached the top of the stairs first and stopped to wait for them.

‘This is the way to live,’ he said blissfully. ‘Oh, I know that’s not what I used to say, but I’m wiser now. So are you, eh, my boy?’

‘You were always a wise man, Lucci,’ Marco murmured diplomatically.

‘Goodnight, goodnight-’ His voice drifted away along the corridor.

But at the last minute he turned, just as Marco reached Harriet’s bedroom door. The old man’s eyes glinted with fun as Harriet turned the handle and Marco carried her in. She could feel him trembling, as she was herself.

Once inside he set her down and closed the door.

‘You’d better lock it,’ she said in a shaking voice that was half-laughter and half-excitement. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to bounce in to see if we’re living up to his expectations.’

‘Harriet, please-let me apologise for-everything. I never meant to embarrass you like this-’

‘I’m not embarrassed. I like him. Don’t you?’

‘I don’t know any more. I used to respect him. There wasn’t a shrewder brain anywhere-now I can’t think what’s gotten into him.’

‘No,’ she said wryly. ‘I don’t suppose you can.’

‘He’s always been so sane and level-headed.’

‘Well, maybe he thinks being sane and level-headed is overrated. Marco, he’s happy. Don’t you realise that?’

She smiled, willing him to lighten up.

‘Happy!’ Marco said scathingly.

‘It’s generally considered a good thing to be.’

He began to stride about the room. ‘And what happens when she betrays him?’

‘Maybe she never will. Yes, I’m sure she married for security, but I think she’s got a kind heart. She’s nice to him.’

‘She leads him by the nose, makes him her slave-’

‘No, he makes himself her slave, because he loves her.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘You don’t think much of love, do you, Marco?’

‘You’re unjust to me,’ he said after a moment. ‘I think love has its place, but I don’t like the kind of infatuation that makes a man behave like an imbecile.’

‘Or woman?’

‘Oh, no! Women are always one jump ahead, as Signora Lucci more than proves.’

‘That’s the most disgusting prejudice I ever heard. Women do make idiots of themselves over men-’

‘You never felt it necessary. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you. Your level head. Even that tomfool performance we had to put on out there didn’t faze you.’

‘Shut up!’ she breathed. ‘Shut up, shut up!’ If she had to hear any more of this she would go mad.

‘I apologise if I was being rude-’

‘And stop apologising!’ She took a long breath and pulled herself together. ‘We’re getting off the subject. There’s nothing wrong with acting like an imbecile for the right person. If people really love, they don’t care about that-’

‘God help them then!’ he said violently. ‘And God help Lucci for acting like a fool!’

‘But he’s a happy fool.’

Marco stopped pacing and gave her a strange look. ‘That’s just sentimental talk, Harriet. It sounds good but it means nothing. No fool is really happy, because sooner or later he sees his folly and is ashamed of it. Then he wishes he’d never met her.’

‘You’re wrong about Elvino,’ Harriet said fervently. ‘He’ll never be sorry he met Ginetta because even if he loses his happiness he’ll still have had it. If he was wise, like you think he should be, he’d end up with nothing at all.’

His face was bleak. ‘Better to have nothing than shame and bitterness.’

She sighed. ‘Well, how do you choose between them? The man who believes in someone he loves, even if it makes him a little absurd, or the man who won’t let himself believe in anyone? Who’s the real fool, I wonder?’

He gave a hard little laugh. ‘You mean me, don’t you? Stop trying to analyse me, Harriet, you don’t know enough.’

‘Then tell me the rest,’ she pleaded.

‘It’s not important,’ he said impatiently. ‘I am as I am. I can’t change now.’

‘That’s the sad part. You have just so much to give, and no more.’

He went a little pale. ‘I give all I can.’

‘I know. But it isn’t very much, is it?’

He was silent for a long moment, turning away to the window. When he turned back he said, ‘You think badly of me because I don’t fall over myself to endorse Lucci’s idiocy. Well, consider this. He brought me here to help him hand over half his fortune to that little gold-digger.’

‘She’s his wife and she’s making him happy,’ Harriet said desperately. She felt as if she was banging her head against stone. Like his heart.

‘He has four children who are going to lose half of their inheritance, only they don’t know it yet. The lawyer’s coming tomorrow, and he and I between us are supposed to connive at this disgrace. Plus I’ve broken a professional confidence by telling you.’

‘You can trust me.’

‘I never doubted that for a moment.’

It was lucky he’d turned back to the window or he might have seen the painful look that crossed her face. Her fiancé trusted her with his professional secrets. From a man with such a strong code of ethics it was high praise, but not the kind she longed for.

‘It’s late,’ she said sadly. ‘And I’m tired.’

‘Then I won’t keep you up any longer.’ He opened the connecting door. ‘Don’t forget to lock this behind me,’ he said with an attempt at lightness.

She matched his tone. ‘Do I need to?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past Lucci to send an army in here to make sure I “do my duty”. Goodnight, Harriet.’

She undressed and lay in the darkness, every inch of her aware and aching with longing. Elvino’s romantic insistence on love at all costs had left her fired up, ready for something to happen.

Tonight she and Marco had talked of one thing while seeming to talk about another and the end of it was that she was no closer to him in any way that mattered. Just in one way.

You two fancy each other like crazy.

It was almost funny that Ginetta had spotted the strong physical attraction that she felt for him and that he, she was sure, felt for her. He couldn’t love her but he wanted her. If he had his free choice now he would come to her bed.

But he had no free choice. He’d blocked it off with promises. He was a man of his word, and would resist what he saw as a weakness.

How badly did he want her?

She could hear him walking back and forth on the other side of the door.

Badly enough to break his word?

His footsteps stopped, then resumed again.

Badly enough to risk looking weak in his own eyes?

Silence. The footsteps had stopped right next to the door.

Holding her breath, Harriet kept her eyes fixed on the handle, which she could just see in the moonlight.

Very slowly it moved. There was the faintest noise as the door was opened a fraction, perhaps half an inch. Then it stopped.

She waited for it to move again, to open. She couldn’t breathe. She could almost feel the air vibrating with the tormented indecision of the man on the other side. But he would come to her because she willed it so fiercely.

But then the incredible happened. Instead of opening further the door moved back, closing the tiny gap, and the handle was softly returned into place.

After that there was silence.