Her Roman Holiday (23 page)

But Calia shook her head.
 
“He told me to be gone by the time he returned and I intend to keep to that.”

Despite Larissa’s further attempts to dissuade her, she refused to be budged.

She spent a restless night on a creaky, uncomfortable bed
—
nor were her attempts to sleep aided by the mutterings and snores of the five other occupants of the room.

The next day, she dressed for war.
 
She chose her outfit carefully
—
a clingy summer dress that showed off her curvy figure to perfection.
 
She needed to be bold and confident
—
and looking her absolute best would bolster her attitude.

After a meticulous application of makeup
—
she had no intention of allowing him to see the darkened shadows under her eyes
—
she stood back and surveyed the results.
 
One of her roommates, a pretty redhead who looked like she was barely out of school, threw her an envious glance.

“You look hot!
 
All the Italian guys are totally gonna flip.”
 
She grinned ruefully.
 
“I just wish I had packed a few nicer outfits
—
you never know who you might run into!”

Her self-esteem thus bolstered, Calia made her way to Gio’s office.
 
Upon learning her name, the front receptionist disconcerted Calia by telling her that she was expected and should go right in.
 
As she rode the elevator to the executive floor, Calia frowned, wondering what was going on.
 
She had expected to fight her way in to see Gio, and instead was getting an open sesame.

Daria, Gio’s assistant, smiled at Calia’s approach.
 
“Go ahead in,” she commented, nodding towards the closed door of Gio’s office.

But Calia paused, frowning.
 
What was he up to?
 
Suddenly, she was uncertain.
 
It was one thing to force her way into hostile territory, guns blazing and ready to do battle.
 
It was quite another to pass through that same landscape without resistance.
 
It made her suspect a trap.

“He is expecting you,” Daria added encouragingly, as she observed Calia’s hesitation.

“I was actually just stopping by to pick up some papers.
 
He was supposed to leave them for me at the front desk.”

Daria shook her head.
 
“You will have to ask him
—
he told me nothing of these papers.
 
I am sorry.”

And so, after squaring her shoulders, Calia let herself into his office and closed the door behind her.
 
Things could get messy, after all.
 
Best to contain the fallout as best she could.

Gio looked up as she entered, his scowl relaxing into a smile.
 
“Where did you go, yesterday?
 
Why did you not wait for me to come back?”

She frowned at him.
 
“You made yourself quite clear.
 
I had no intention of outstaying my welcome.”

“I spoke to Paolo.”

“Right.”
 
But seeing him brought back all the hurt and anger at his unfounded accusations.
 
She wasn’t going to make things easy for him.
 
She smoothed the glare out of her expression, and forced a casual tone.
 
“I guess that makes sense, then.”

“What makes sense?”

“I planned to have my say with you today, whether you wanted to believe me or not.
 
After what you told me last night about not wanting to hear anything more from me, I figured I’d have to fight my way in.”
 
She shrugged, as if it were a matter of indifference to her.
 
Which it was, she decided, as she felt an aching fury at the ease with which this man had hurt her
—
and could do so again, if she allowed it.
 
“So I imagine Paolo set the record straight, then.”

“He did.
 
He also made it quite clear what he thought of my behaviour
—
towards him, yes, but also towards you, when he learned of it.”

“Paolo is a good man.”

“He is my brother, in spirit if not in blood.”

“I gather you two are reconciled, then?”

“Of course.
 
He has taken the morning off in order to meet with a divorce lawyer.”

“I’m glad to hear it.
 
So, may I have my contract, please?
 
Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“You can stop this pretense of yours, Calia.
 
We both know that you came to patch things up between us.
 
So, I apologise for my hasty words yesterday.
 
I am sorry.
 
I misjudged you,” he said, his tone indulgent, as if he were placating a child.
 
He sat back, allowing his gaze to linger over her, his expression betraying a combination of amusement and lust.
 
“Tell me where you are staying and I will come by to pick up your things.”

He really thought it was going to be that easy.
 
She shook her head, disbelief briefly eclipsing her anger.
 
“If you don’t have the contract, just say so.
 
I’ll go get it printed elsewhere and fax it over myself.”

“Calia.”
 
His rich, lightly accented voice caressed her name.
 
In spite of herself, she felt a shiver of hot, yearning lust.
 
Her body wanted to be caressed in just the same way.
 
“Stop being stubborn.
 
I have said I am sorry.”
 
He was watching her with an open warmth in his expression.
 
But mixed with that was a patronizing confidence that added fuel to Calia’s burgeoning hostility.

“Right,” she snapped.
 
“Sorry until the next time.
 
You didn’t even give me a hearing yesterday
—
just jumped to conclusions, based on your own prejudices, I might add, and flung accusations at me.”

The smile slipped from his face, to be replaced by the beginnings of annoyance.
 
“So, what do you want me to do?
 
Plead for your indulgence and beg you to return to my bed?”

“You really don’t get it, do you?
 
You’re so swamped by your own biases that you can’t even see how destructive they are.”

“This again?
 
You are nothing if not persistent.
 
So what are you demanding, then?”
 
Derision had crept into his tone.
 
“That I go to a… what is it you call it?
 
Head shrinker?… before you will deign to accept my apologies?”

She shook her head.
 
“Even now, you’re not listening to me.
 
Okay.
 
I’m going to spell it out for you.”

She came forward into the office, glaring at him.
 
“Here’s the deal, Gio.
 
I was starting to care about you.
 
Like it or not
—
and believe me, I didn’t like it at all
—
I was actually falling in love with you.
 
But yesterday, it was like we were back to square one.
 
You were angry and upset about Paolo.
 
And when you looked at me, I was no longer me, Calia.
 
I was your mother
—
and every woman since who behaved in a way that reinforced the mistrust she had engendered.”

She placed her hands on her desk and met his gaze head on.
 
“Facile or not, my opinion is that you’ve got some major issues to work through.
 
You really hurt me yesterday.
 
I was devastated.
 
While I had been falling in love, it was like you had never seen me as a person at all.
 
I was just some woman you slept with and all those moments we had, when I believed we were building some rapport
—
illusory.
 
Total self-deception.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand.
 
“No.
 
You didn’t let me have my say yesterday.
 
I’m having it now.”
 
She swung away from him and paced across his office, then turned back to face him.
 
“I’m walking away, Gio.
 
I’m not a lapdog, to come at your call.
 
You can’t just smile and apologize and make it okay.
 
You betrayed my trust with your unjustified assumptions.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“I have no reason to believe you won’t do that again, the next time you get angry.
 
So I’m not going to risk it.
 
I’m not going to give you another chance to hurt me.”

She gave him a tight smile.
 
“And it suddenly occurs to me how that’s rather like what you did to me, isn’t it?
 
Assumed that because your trust had been betrayed in the past, it would happen again in the future.
 
Only it wasn’t me who destroyed your trust in the first place.

“Have a nice life, Gio.
 
I wish you the best.”
 
She placed her hand on the doorknob and was about to pull the door open, when his voice stopped her.

“Calia.”

She turned.
 
He was standing, watching her, his eyes dark and his expression grim.
 
As she watched, his lips curled into a sneer.
 
“This is your last chance.
 
I will not come to you, you know.”

Her shoulders slumped.
 
What had she been hoping for?
 
“I know.”

She opened the door.

“You will be back,” he said.

“Goodbye, Gio.”
 
She let herself out and quietly closed the door behind her.

Wasn’t time supposed to fly when you had too much to do and too little time in which to do it?
 
Yet, somehow, even though she was frantically busy, the days and the hours hung heavy on Calia’s hands.
 

It had been a month since she last saw Gio.
 
She had been in Canada for two weeks, clearing out her apartment and tying up loose ends.
 
She had packed the general necessities she’d need in Frankfurt, put her larger pieces of furniture in storage and sold or given away everything else.

For the last two weeks, she had been busy settling into her new place, getting a feel for the city and adjusting to the challenges of her new job, which had taken up the bulk of her time.
 
She was still adjusting to the language change
—
though her German was fluent, speaking it all day, every day, could sometimes be exhausting.
 
In addition, she had a big learning curve to negotiate.
 
Most days, she didn’t get back to her place before nine or nine-thirty at night, at which point, she would be too exhausted to even think of unpacking.
 
Dinner usually consisted of some toast with cheese, eaten while poring over quarterly reports.
 
Then, she’d fall into bed.

Her apartment still had that vacant, impersonal feel to it and she was in no better shape, herself.
 
She had lost weight and her eyes had acquired permanent shadows under them, which she concealed under makeup so that her co-workers wouldn’t comment.
 
They were a friendly group, and she had even gone out for beers with them on a few occasions.
 
But often as not, as they headed on home, she would return to the office for a few hours, telling herself that she still had lots of catching up to do before she would be up to speed.

Nor was she alone in her process of transition.
 
It seemed that there had been some sort of takeover bid on the firm while Calia had been caught up in the whirl of relocating to Germany.
 
Ownership of the company had changed hands, and though Calia remained murky on the details
—
not much caring who owned the company, so long as she still had a job
—
she also told herself that she wanted to reach the point where she was truly earning her keep as soon as possible.
 
She didn’t want the new owners to conclude she was a dead weight.

And, truth be told, she was glad to keep busy
—
glad that she was so exhausted by the time she went to sleep that she usually couldn’t remember any dreams she had when she awoke the next morning.
 
Because on those few occasions when she did recall certain fleeting images, they all seemed to involve Gio.

And, even after all these weeks, when she didn’t keep her mind engaged with figures, stats and analyses, she found her thoughts straying to him.
 
Though she had resolved, upon leaving his office, that she wasn’t going to waste even a moment pining over him, she also knew that there were different ways to pine.
 
And working herself sick with exhaustion definitely qualified.

But that seemed a better alternative to becoming weepy and maudlin over how much she missed him
—
both in and out of bed.
 
He had been surprisingly good company, when they hadn’t been arguing.
 
Now, it had reached the point where she had even begun to miss their arguments.
 

As she let herself into the office
—
as usual, she was one of the first to arrive in the morning
—
she shoved such reflections aside.
 
She would not weaken.
 
She had said her goodbyes to him, and under no circumstances would she go crawling back, just to be hurt again and again by his mistrust.