The Sicilian's Mistress (19 page)

‘You'll what?' Milly whispered in breathless interruption as she moved towards the door.

‘You'll find out tonight,' he promised, in a roughened
sexy undertone that made her heartbeat accelerate at the most astonishing rate.

‘I'm going to be awfully late, Gianni…'

‘I won't wait.'

‘You will,' she muttered, smiling, and finished the call.

On her way down the stairs, she was amazed by the number of staff bustling in and out of the ballroom, and she was about to ask what was happening when Robin Jennings strolled out of the drawing room to extend his arm to her with a broad grin.

‘Gianni wanted me to surprise you.'

Milly gave the older man a delighted smile and a welcoming hug. ‘I'm so glad you're here to share this day with me.'

After that first surprise, the surprises simply got larger. The church car park and the road outside were packed with luxury cars. As Robin helped her out of the limo Gianni's security men surged forward to shield her from a pack of eager photographers and journalists shouting questions.

‘What's going on?' Milly voiced her bewilderment in the church porch.

‘Gianni did mention that he wanted to show you off to the whole world,' Robin Jennings confided then. ‘Only I didn't realise he meant it so literally.'

There wasn't even standing room left in the church.

Gianni watched Milly walk down the aisle with glittering dark eyes of appreciation.

The simple ceremony filled her with emotion and optimism. Some day soon, she swore, she would be able to tell Gianni how much she loved him without him acting as if it was verbal abuse of the most offensive kind.

‘Why didn't you tell me you were inviting all these people?' Milly squealed, the minute she got him on his own in the limo. ‘We'll be in all the newspapers tomorrow, and you know how you hate that sort of stuff! Everything that's happened to me will come out as well.'

Gianni's dark, deep flashing eyes shimmered with amuse
ment. ‘In the words of one of my PR team…“just like a fairytale”. Less than cool, but romantic. You're a living cross between the Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. I'm still working on being a prince.'

‘Did you really say you wanted to show me off to the whole world?'

Slight colour burnished his stunning cheekbones. ‘I don't remember.'

Plunged into a reception for five hundred guests back at Heywood House, Milly found her wedding day an increasingly breathless whirl.

Around three that afternoon she slid away to speak privately to Davina Jennings. After the older woman had listened to Connor's excited chatter and cuddled him, she explained that Edward had now become a junior partner in Jennings Engineering.

‘He's bearing up very well to having lost you, I have to admit,' Davina confided ruefully. ‘With hindsight, I can see that Edward
was
rather more interested in the partnership than he was in you. You made the right decision.'

Davina pressed a very familiar item of jewellery into Milly's hand. ‘The bracelet. You left it behind in your room.'

‘But I can't keep it. It belonged to your grandmother,' Milly protested.

‘You're always going to be part of our family, Milly,' the older woman told her gently. ‘But now that you've got your memory back, I'd love to know how you acquired the bracelet in the first place.'

‘A couple of days before the accident, I bought it off a market stall.' Milly had turned the silver bracelet over and noticed the word ‘Faith' inscribed on the back. It hadn't occurred to her that it might be a name. She had seen it in the light of a message to have faith, keep faith no matter how difficult things might seem. She had clasped it round her wrist like a talisman the same day she'd boarded the train to Cornwall.

‘The bracelet belongs with you now. At least you liked it enough to buy it,' Davina remarked wryly. ‘Enough of that. Have the police been in touch with you about the accident?'

‘Gianni suggested that I get in touch with them, so I made a fresh statement the day before yesterday,' Milly admitted with a rueful twist of her lips. ‘I'm afraid that even with my memory back I still didn't have any useful facts to offer them.'

‘That can't be helped. By the way, Gianni mentioned the enquiries he's having made on our behalf. If our long-lost daughter
can
be traced, I've no doubt he's the man to do it. Yet that awful day he made us tell you the truth I didn't trust him an inch.' The older woman grimaced. ‘I should've recognised that, having found you, he was simply
terrified
of losing you again!'

Milly laughed at that idea. ‘Gianni has nerves of steel!'

‘Not where you're concerned,' the older woman replied with quiet conviction.

After a light supper was served at seven, Connor fell asleep on Milly's lap. Gianni lifted his slumbering son gently from her. ‘It's time he went to bed.'

Barbara Withers was dancing, and very much preoccupied with her partner. Gianni was ready to intervene, but Milly scolded him with reproachful eyes and gave him a little lecture on the need to consider the feelings and the needs of his employees.

‘How many employees have you had?' Gianni enquired as he carried Connor upstairs.

‘None…but I know what's right,' Milly retorted, not one whit deflated. ‘And sometimes you're just a bit too bossy and demanding.'

Gianni met her look of fearless challenge and threw back his head to laugh. ‘
Dio mio
…how I have missed you in my life!'

At that admission, her breath caught in her throat. “Sometimes I wonder if I lost my memory because I couldn't handle remembering the pain,' she confided shakily.

The sudden silence that fell seemed to hang on a knife-edge. Aware that she had breached forbidden barriers, Milly scooped Connor out of Gianni's arms and got on with putting him to bed. By the time she had finished their exhausted toddler was no longer fast asleep.

‘Play cars?' he mumbled drowsily to Gianni.

Hoping to distract their son until he went off again, Milly picked up a toy car and ran it along the top of his duvet. ‘I can give you ten minutes.'

‘Boys play cars,' Connor muttered dismissively.

‘I wonder where he picks up these sexist ideas,' Gianni remarked, with sudden vibrant amusement.

‘It's the Sicilian blood, Gianni. It's in his genes,' Milly teased, highly relieved that the awkward moment had been successfully bridged.

But it wasn't to be the last awkward moment. A pretty brunette teenager hurried up to speak to Gianni when they returned to the ballroom. ‘Why's Stefano not here?' she asked baldly.

Gianni's long fingers tensed on Milly's spine. ‘He's not well.'

‘Gosh, is it serious?'

‘I shouldn't think so,' Gianni countered.

‘Poor Stefano,' the girl groaned sympathetically. ‘He never seems to have much luck these days, and yet he used to be so much fun.'

‘Maybe he just grew up,' Gianni suggested flatly.

He whirled Milly fluidly away onto the dance floor. It was some minutes before she could breath normally again, and even longer before she felt the worst of the tension ease in Gianni's big powerful frame.
Had
he invited Stefano to their wedding? Or had she just heard a social excuse to cover the absence of his one and only brother?

‘I wanted this to be a wonderful day,' Gianni breathed harshly.

‘It
has
been,' Milly argued. ‘Don't you ever dare think otherwise! I've met hundreds of people, who have all been
incredibly nice to me. I've got to be the centre of attention without anybody thinking I was a show-off! And for the first time in our entire relationship you have switched off your mobile phone!'

His dark, deep flashing eyes roamed over her animated face with an intensity that made her heart sing. Easing her closer, he complained about the frustrating difference in their heights and then, with a growl of very male impatience, he just lifted her high off her startled feet. He kissed her with such desperately hungry need she was trembling when he finally lowered her back to solid earth again.

‘I need to be alone with you. I want you all to myself,
cara mia
,' Gianni growled in the circle of her arms.

‘Well, you're just going to have to wait.'

‘If we'd been able to take a honeymoon, we could have been out of here hours ago!' Gianni ground out in frustration.

‘Why weren't we able?'

‘Because we couldn't have taken Connor abroad with us. He has no documentation right now—'

Milly frowned. ‘What do you mean?'

Gianni sighed. ‘Milly, you slipped right back into your true identity because it was already established. Our son, however, was registered at birth as the child of Faith Jennings. That has to be legally sorted out before he can be issued with a new birth certificate.'

‘My goodness, I never even thought about that!'

‘It's in hand. Don't worry about it. But as soon as Christmas is over I have every intention of finding a hot, deserted beach and bringing in the New Year—'

‘With Connor and a bucket and spade?'

‘I'm not listening. Fantasy is all I've got right now,' Gianni muttered raggedly, whisking her deftly behind one of the marble pillars that edged the dance floor and hauling her up to his level again to repossess her soft mouth with hot, driven urgency.

Milly caught fire. ‘Gianni—'

‘You're like too much champagne in my blood.' He bowed his arrogant dark head over hers and snatched in a fracturing breath. ‘You push me to the edge. Sometimes I need you so much it
hurts
.'

Already dizzy with desire, Milly experienced a joyous flare of sheer happiness. Had he noticed what he had said? Not want but
need
. Gianni, who prided himself on never needing anybody or anything, whose belief in self-sufficiency was legendary, had admitted that he needed her.

And yet a few hours later, when they were finally in the privacy of their own bedroom, surprisingly Gianni was patience personified. He removed her wedding dress with gentle, almost regretful hands. He told her how gorgeous she had looked all day. He made sweet, tender love to every sensitised, shivering inch of her he uncovered. He took his time—oh, yes, he took his time—until she was twisting and begging, lost in incoherent urgency. And when he at last sealed his lean, bronzed body to hers, and possessed her with aching sensuality, it was the most sensational experience they had ever shared.

 

Two weeks later, Gianni watched Milly turn on the lights on the big Christmas tree she had sited in the drawing room of Heywood House.

She smiled like a happy child when the lights worked first time. But then she'd had plenty of practice, Gianni conceded. This was the third tree she had dressed within as many days. Several shopping trips to Harrods and other well-known retail outlets had yielded a huge collection of ornaments and other necessities. It was a very big house, she had pointed out, in an apparent attempt to convince him that she was just doing what had to be done. But the truth was that Milly adored the festive season, gloried in every single tradition, no matter how naff, and still left out refreshment for Santa Claus as an adult.

‘What do you think?' she prompted expectantly.

‘Spectacular.' Gianni looked past the glimmering lights to
Milly, her fantastic hair tumbling round her shoulders, eyes bright as sapphires in her beautiful smiling face. ‘Christmas just wasn't the same without you,
cara mia
.'

Milly stilled, veiling her eyes, not wanting to seem too conscious of that easy reference to the past. ‘Wasn't it?'

‘Like Scrooge, I stopped celebrating it,' Gianni admitted.

‘Oh, Gianni!' Milly groaned, troubled by the imagery summoned up by that confession and heading towards him like a homing pigeon.

‘And, like grumpy old Ebenezer, I took particular pleasure in doing it.'

Milly linked her arms tightly round his narrow waist. ‘We're about to have the most wonderful Christmas ever!'

And it would be, Milly thought with warm confidence. They had spent every hour of the past two weeks together, loving and laughing. She had never been as happy as she was now. She had never known Gianni so relaxed or so content. She loved watching him with Connor, revelling in the rough-housing that little boys enjoy, but she loved him most of all for his acceptance of their son's occasional tantrums.

In fact, from that morning in Paris Gianni had been fantastic in every possible way. He had changed over their three years apart, she now acknowledged. He was more tolerant, more kind, less volatile, less driven. For Milly, it was deeply ironic that Gianni should be capable of showing her more caring tenderness now than he had shown her
before
he'd seen her wrestling on a bed with Stefano! And, unfortunately, that presented Milly with a major problem.

Every hour, on the hour, Gianni was proving that he could successfully put that sordid little scene behind him. As long as the subject was never broached, as long as it was left buried. She still couldn't really understand how he could contrive to achieve that miracle. Could it be because he knew that sexually nothing had really happened that night? Gianni had accepted his brother's lying explanation in its entirety. That
she
had been lonely and
he
had been drunk,
that just for a few foolish minutes desire had overwhelmed decent boundaries.

Certainly Gianni had never doubted her guilt. She had been condemned for playing the temptress and punished much more heavily than Stefano. She was still very angry and bitter about that fact. But now she feared the risk she would be taking in challenging Gianni again. She might destroy everything they had recently regained; she might wreck their marriage.