A Passionate Deceit. Kate Proctor
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was just enquiring after Umberto,’ he said. ‘Did you manage to get through to him last night?’
‘I did, and I’ve lots of messages for you from him—but I can tell you all that later,’ replied Angelica, then turned to Tessa. ‘You’re one of the few friends of my brother’s I haven’t met.’
‘Oh, I don’t know him!’ exclaimed Tessa. ‘It’s just that my cousin told me about the accident he had. I do hope he’s better.’
‘He’s recovering nicely,’ murmured the woman, her eyes returning once more to the man beside them. ‘Darling, isn’t it time you had a break? You look frozen,’ she chided softly.
‘I’m fine,’ he stated abruptly, then glanced at Tessa who was attempting to distract herself by trying to remember what it was like to have feeling in her legs. ‘But you’re not—are you, little one?’ He took her gently by the shoulder and turned her to face him, frowning as he examined her bedraggled appearance. ‘I think it’s about time you returned to the hotel and got yourself thawed out. I shan’t be needing you this afternoon; I’ve a meeting lined up with the actors we’re using.’
‘But I’m fine—honestly,’ protested Tessa, not in the least happy with the idea of being given special treatment. ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t stay on till the rest of you have finished.’
‘I’ve just given you a reason,’ snapped Sandro, ‘so do as you’re told.’
Annoyed by his tone, Tessa was about to make an angry retort when it suddenly hit her how obtuse she was being. Special treatment didn’t come into it—he wanted her out of the way now that Angelica had arrived, and she had been too stupid to take the hint.
‘I…well, this afternoon I’ll go into town and get some notepads and pencils,’ she muttered lamely, then turned to Angelica. ‘It was nice meeting you.’
‘We’ll be running into one another all the time now,’ smiled Angelica. ‘We could have tea later.’
Still smarting from her own stupidity and ignoring the protests coming from her numbed limbs, Tessa changed her mind about going straight back to the hotel and made her way along the beach towards the town.
Only the day before, her first sight of the small town of Rathmullan, nestling sleepily on the shores of Lough Swilly with its magnificent backdrop of heather-hued mountains, had taken her breath away and filled her with an inexpressible joy. Today, feeling miserable and confused as she did, the mist-laden beauty of her surroundings only served to make her feel worse.
There wasn’t anything wrong with what she was doing, she argued with herself; if someone in the public eye chose not to co-operate with the Press, it was common knowledge that slightly underhand methods were often used to satisfy the public’s interest. And by interest she didn’t mean scurrilous curiosity about his private life, she meant the sort of balanced article she intended compiling on his professional life. All right, so she wasn’t yet a bona fide journalist, but she had to start somewhere!
She entered one of the shops in a terrace of small, stone-fronted cottages lining the rain-washed main street and bought notepads, pencils and an English newspaper. Further along she got herself a heavyweight tracksuit that looked as though it might keep her reasonably warm on days as bitterly cold as this particular one.
But as she made her way back to the hotel, along a heavily wooded path running parallel to the shoreline below, she began asking herself why, if she was so sure she was doing nothing wrong, she was still feeling so confused and dejected.
Probably because she still wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced she was right, she answered herself gloomily. Or was she being completely honest with herself? Because she might as well face up to it that, true to form, she was yet again attracted to a man who was completely unsuitable—though unsuitable was hardly the word, she informed herself grimly. Sandro Lambert wasn’t unsuitable in the relatively mundane way one or two other men had been. This time she was way out of her depth; up against a man who not only had looks that many a woman would be reduced to drooling over, but who was also an international celebrity—the sort of man who had women such as the stunning Angelica Bellini virtually at his beck and call!
She felt shame burn through her when she remembered how her juvenile gawping had irritated him. And the only reason he had kissed her was because, as he had so quickly pointed out, she had flung herself into his arms—the fact that she had done so accidentally being neither here nor there.
She walked through the grounds of the hotel, darting round to the back entrance when she saw Sandro in a group of men emerging from the path leading from the beach…he was the last person she felt like facing at that moment.
She was behaving like a lunatic, she remonstrated angrily with herself when she reached her room and began shedding her damp clothing. Spending half the night agonising over the fact that a man she barely knew had kissed her was bad enough; becoming reduced to sneaking round corners to avoid that same man was downright lunacy!
She kept her mind occupied by running over Babs’s wardrobe instructions as she took a long, hot bath and then washed her hair. Later, her hair wrapped in a towel and her body in a snowy white bathrobe, she flopped down on the bed and began glancing through the newspaper she had bought earlier. In its centre pages she came across a light-heartedly written article entitled ‘Unfaithful Heart-Throbs Given their Marching Orders’. The subject matter—women who had broken off their engagements to straying famous men—was of no particular interest to her. It was the apparently effortless, almost throw-away style of the writing that caught her attention and thoroughly depressed her as she realised just how limited her own writing skills were by comparison. It was only at the very end of the article, in a list citing a number of other men in the public eye whose fiancées had abandoned them because of their constant womanising, that she spotted a familiar name.
Rising from the bed, she flung aside the paper and went over to the dressing-table. So Sandro had been engaged to a childhood sweetheart who had decided enough was enough only a few weeks ago, she thought as she switched on the drier and began drying her hair—so what? It was all no doubt covered in those articles on him she had hastily got together before leaving London but hadn’t yet found time to read, she told herself, then gave her entire attention to the drying of her hair when it crossed her mind that she had had plenty of time to read them, including last night…or even right now.
She switched off the drier and was vigorously brushing her gleaming, shoulder-length hair when a tap on the door made her turn.
The door was half-open and Sandro was lounging against its frame with the air of one who had been doing so for some time.
‘I knocked a couple of times, but you probably couldn’t hear me over the noise of your hairdrier,’ he said, closing the door behind him and strolling over to where she sat at the dressing-table. ‘You’ve missed lunch,’ he informed her, stooping to pick up the tortoiseshell-backed brush that had slipped from her hand and placing it on the dressing-table top.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘But you couldn’t have had much in the way of break-fast either.’
‘I’ll eat tonight,’ she muttered, tensing with consternation at the sudden pounding of her heart.
‘Why did you go tearing off into town instead of back to the hotel earlier?’
‘Because I—’ She broke off, furious to find herself actually embarking on answering him. ‘What business is it of yours? Anyone would think you were my father—going on about my skipping meals and not doing as I’m told!’
He leaned over and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze.
‘That’s probably because I’m not sure whether you’re twelve or twenty,’ he replied, both his voice and face confusingly devoid of expression.
‘Which age did you think I was last night?’ she demanded angrily as she twisted free from his hold, and could have bitten