Venetian Masquerade (2 page)

“I work as an interpreter for Blake and Johnson’s…the lawyers I believe you employed today to represent you. But don’t worry. With your linguistic skills, you won’t need my services, so there will be no need for us to be in contact after today. Now, if you could give me the details…”

“Wait a minute. I need to catch my breath… After six years, you appear in front me like a ghost from the past, and all you want is the number of my insurance company?”

“That’s right.” She wished her heart rate would calm down—it was almost painful.

“Amy, I don’t believe this! Can’t we at least have dinner?”

“No.”

“Coffee—there’s a coffee shop across the road?”

“No. The number, please…”

“Where did you run away to? Why did you go?”

“That has nothing to do with you.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Here she was, facing James’s father after almost six long years and the pain was as acute as on the day she had left.

“On the contrary, I think it has everything to do with me,” he said, taking her arm.

“Let me go.” She stepped away from him, shaking from head to foot. “Please give me the number, Alessandro, or leave it with my assistant. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go. I have a plane to catch.”

“Where are you going?”

“Timbuktu.”

“Why are you so angry? It’s my car with broken headlights. You’ve only got a crack in your reversing light.” He touched her face—the merest whisper of a caress—and a million volt shock went through her. The same sensual cologne wafted past her nostrils, the same tension flooded hotly to her loins, the same urge to pull his mouth down on hers.

“No, don’t touch me.” Roughly, she pushed him away and scrabbled for her ignition key, which had sunk to the bottom of her bag. Somehow, in her anxiety to get away, the contents tipped onto the pavement. In despair, she crouched to pick up her makeup, purse, and a photo of James, which she palmed into her pocket. Alessandro took her hand, pulled her to her feet, and inspected her fingers.

“Not married?”

“None of your business,” she gasped, tugging her fingers away. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m running late.”

“I think you and I are running late, Amy, by about six years. Don’t imagine I am going to let you escape again, at least until I find out what the hell happened.”

His gaze blazed down at her, and something between raw terror and raw desire made her heart leap in her chest.

“Get in the car.”

“No.”

“Unless you want me to make the most embarrassing scene here in the street, outside your office with a dozen people almost leaning out of the window to listen, you will do as I say. I can’t kidnap you—you’ve blocked in my car.”

Glaring at him, she permitted him to open the car door and slid inside.

He climbed in the other side and sat staring at her. “I don’t believe this.”

“Neither do I.” Close proximity to him made her feel faint. It was like being in a time warp, which was why, when he reached across and pulled her violently to him, she barely resisted.

“How could you throw away what we had? Have you forgotten the love, the passion?” he demanded.

“No, nor the pain, the betrayal. You’ll never hurt me like that again. Now let me go. Whatever we had is long gone, and I really do have a plane to catch.”

“Not quite yet.” He brought his mouth down on hers in a crushing kiss, and his hand slid between her legs, stopping halfway up her thigh. She was horrified at the shudder of anticipation passing through her and knew he felt it too. His kiss became deeper, and it was several seconds before she was able to gather the strength to push him away.

“No! How dare you presume to touch me like that? I have nothing to say to you. Haven’t you done enough damage?” She turned and began to open the car door, but he caught her hand and pulled her round to face him.

“Damage? What happened, Amy? We had so much. You have to tell me why you ran away when I know you were as much in love with me as I was with you.”

“No!” Somehow, she wriggled free, opened the car door, and fled to her own black BMW. She managed to lock herself in before he reached her side.

“I’ll call you,” he shouted through the closed window.

“Please don’t.”

“Amy, you ran out of my life with no explanation, and I searched for you for a year after that. We’ve unfinished business, and I will pursue you until it’s resolved. I now know your number and where you work.”

“You finished any business between us a long time ago, you arrogant pig. Go to Hell, Alessandro. I hate you.” And she drove off into the lunchtime traffic and headed out of London to the relative peace of the Hertfordshire countryside.

The drive home seemed interminable. Even at mid-morning, traffic on the motorway was at a standstill and it was steamily hot. Frustrated, she switched on her phone and called her mother. “I’m on my way home. I’m taking two weeks leave, and Mama, I want to be on a plane tonight—this afternoon, if possible. Could you book for James and me to go to Venice? I have an account with BA, and they have my credit card numbers. Will you call me back when you’ve confirmed the flight? Thanks. I should be with you in an hour if the traffic moves.” A few minutes later, the phone rang and she answered quickly, anticipating her mother.

“Amy, where are you? Please, can we meet this evening?”

“No, we can’t, Alessandro. I told you, I’m going away.”

“Where are you going?”

“None of your business. Leave me alone.” She switched her phone off and flung it on the floor of the car. To her relief, the traffic began to move, and she gave all her concentration to her driving. One accident a day was enough…no, make that two, because meeting up with Alessandro di Benedetto could be a far worse catastrophe than a broken reversing light.

Chapter Two

W
hen Amy finally reached home, her mother told her she had a flight for five thirty from Heathrow, which just gave Amy time to pack.

“I’ll drive you to the airport so you don’t need a taxi. You’re very pale and stressed... Are you all right?”

“Yes and no. Apart from feeling so sad about Maria, I had a terrible shock today; I backed into another car and it belonged to Alessandro.”

Her mother sat down abruptly and stared at her. “Oh, how very unfortunate.”

“Putting it mildly. What’s worse, before I knew who my victim was, I left my mobile phone number on his car, so now he will keep calling me and he knows where I work.”

“Well, at least you will be away for two weeks and you can turn your phone off now.”

“Yes. Where’s James?”

“Relax,” her mother soothed her. “He’s next door, playing with Beth. I decided not to tell him you’re taking him away; he would have got over-excited. Amy, what did you feel, seeing Alessandro again?”

“Nothing, Mama. Absolutely nothing,” Amy lied.

“I don’t believe you. Be careful,
cherie
.”

Amy and James stepped out of the plane at Marco Polo airport into late evening sunshine. She dragged their cases to where the
vaporetti
bobbed in the choppy water, their owners chatting over cappuccinos at the quayside bar. She was about to buy a ticket when a voice behind her inquired,
“Signorina
Amy Hamilton?”

Startled, she turned, almost into the arms of a man who towered over her.

“Si, Signor,”
she said, stepping back from him and looking up at a ruggedly handsome, vaguely familiar face. Brown eyes twinkled flirtatiously down at her, and a generous and very sexy mouth widened to a broad and infectious smile.

“Maria asked that I meet you with the boat and bring you to the villa. It’s over here.” He indicated a launch a few yards away.

He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him. “Wait a minute…who are you?” she asked in Italian, standing her ground and hanging onto her case as he tried to take it from her.

James craned his neck to stare at the man and was rewarded with a salute and a handshake, which made the child laugh aloud.

“You don’t recognize me, Amy? Well, I recognized you, even after so long. I’m Gabriel, Maria’s nephew.”

For a second, she stared at him in astonishment, remembering the little boy she had played with on visits to Venice with her parents: a little boy who turned into a lanky teenager, who had taunted her unmercifully when she was fifteen and with whom she had had many a quarrel. “Gabriel? Yes, yes, of course I remember you. You were horrid to me, and I think I still owe you a ducking in the pond at the villa.”

With a smile, she held out her hand, which he took and raised to his lips. Amy was amused at his gallantry.

“And who is this young man?” he asked.

“My son, James.”

“Hello, James. Welcome to Venice.”

“I’m nearly five,” replied James in perfect Italian.

“So grown up. I shall take you fishing; would you like that?”

“Really? Oh, yes, please. Is that your boat?” he asked, brown eyes wide with excitement.

“Yes. Come along. I’ll lift you in.” With an easy movement, he placed the small boy safely in the boat and turned to help Amy, who, with a smile, stepped into the small launch unaided. As he lifted in her heavy case, the boat rocked alarmingly, and he steadied her by holding her round the waist, lowering her into a seat, his hands lingering a second longer than was necessary.

“Thank you,” she stammered, and he chuckled, started the boat, and turned it towards the marked boat lanes heading for Venice. “It was very kind of you to collect me. I could have taken a
vaporetto
to the Lido.”

“No problem.” He turned and studied her frankly.

Irritated, she flushed at his scrutiny.

“Do you approve?” she asked frostily, and he turned away, laughing.

“You should be flattered.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“It seems we are destined to fight as much now as we did as children. It will be fun.”

“Gabriel, I came here to spend time with Maria. I don’t want to fight with you or anyone else.”

“So, you are now a housewife?”

“No, I’m an interpreter with a law firm in the City of London.”

“So, who cares for your son? His father?”

“No, my mother.”

“I see.” He fell silent for a moment, and she felt his disapproval.

“I need to make a living for us both,” she said defensively. “James is very well cared for…”

“And he will be here in Venice. This will be a new life for you both.”

It was a statement, rather than a question, and she was puzzled. “I’m only here for a visit. Two weeks. Only two weeks.”

“I see…obviously nobody told you…well, never mind. I presume you don’t have a lover in England, someone to go back to?”

“No,” she snapped, “and anyway, that’s none of your—”

“Was his father an Englishman? He has an English name, but the boy looks more Italian than I do.”

“Will you mind your own business? He’s named after a Scottish great-grandfather,” she retorted, thinking how little that irritating teenager had changed in the fourteen years since she had last seen him.

“I apologize.” He steered the boat towards the glorious city, sitting like a jewel in the Adriatic. The setting sun turned the water to fire with the Doges Palace and bell tower, a floating apparition, shimmering before them.

“I’d forgotten how beautiful it is,” Amy murmured. “Look, James…” But the little boy had fallen asleep, his head on her lap.

“He‘s a fine boy, and already he speaks Italian.”

“And French. You may remember that my mother is French, and she’s with him during the day. My father was half Italian, so I speak to him in English and Italian at home.”

The little boat picked up speed and headed for her godmother’s house on the Lido, the long narrow island separating the Venetian lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Twenty minutes later, they veered out of the boat lane into a little canal, passing under some low bridges, and Gabriel moored the boat outside Maria’s villa. He helped Amy, carrying the sleeping James, up a flight of steps onto the road and brought their case from the boat.

She stood gazing up at the large villa, saddened to see the almost derelict state of it. The garden was overgrown and the paintwork peeling. Clearly, the elderly lady she remembered as a robust and feisty person, so full of life, was in decline.

Gabriel came to stand beside her. “I wanted her to move somewhere smaller, where she could be looked after, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Neither will she consent to an army of servants running around after her. There’s only Carmela and Antonio, who are quite elderly themselves. They live here and shop, cook, and tidy for her, but the house is in a sad state.”

The front door opened, and with a cry of welcome, Carmela beckoned them in.

“
Signorina
Amy, come in…I’m so glad you are here…Oh, what a beautiful boy.”

“I’m so happy to see you too, Carmela.” Amy hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks.

“You have grown into a beauty.” The elderly lady smiled. “So like your dear mother, the same curly dark hair, blue eyes, and yes, a very similar mouth.”

She could feel Gabriel’s eyes on her mouth, and when she glanced sharply at him, he ran a tongue round his own lips and smiled, his eyes narrowing. She knew what he was thinking and glowered at him. Italian men, she thought, were born with a whole section of brain dedicated to bottom pinching and the seduction of any woman under fifty. No, more like sixty. And Gabriel was, without doubt, a past master, with his good looks and easy smile.
I bet there’s a different girl in his bed every night,
she thought contemptuously.
Well, he’s not having me!