Mediterranean Millionaires. LYNNE GRAHAM
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she had been sailing, windsurfing and scuba-diving, not to mention dancing all night at a couple of exclusive clubs and at a much less exclusive street carnival. She had cheered at a horse race and had got embarrassingly tipsy at a peach festival, an instant of mistaken judgement that Angelo was prone to mentioning more than she liked. They had eaten out in tiny restaurants in inland villages where tourists were still rare and she had fallen madly in love with cheese and honey pastries. Occasionally, however, they had gone no further than their bedroom or the beach, and she had fallen asleep in his arms and wakened still in them for Angelo no longer left her to sleep in a bed of his own.
Slowly but surely she had come to recognise that he was truly making an effort to please and entertain her. He seemed gloriously unaware of the reality that she found just being with him a joy. He gave her flowers. He bestowed a jewelled collar and toys on Piglet. He ordered the food she liked best when they stayed in. He had said, rather touchingly, that he hoped it would be all right to buy her diamonds for her birthday. As that was still two months away she had been secretly overjoyed by that evidence of forward planning and stability…
The newspapers had been delivered at nine and, from the instant that Angelo saw the first headline, he was flooded by negative uneasy feelings. Blanking them out, he finally threw the papers aside and went outside to take some much-needed fresh air. He used binoculars to locate Gwenna, checking the shrubberies first and smiling at the reflection that his gardeners had been very more active since her arrival.
On this occasion, however, she was on the beach larking about with Piglet like a kid. Dressed in blue polka-dot shorts and a lemon sun top, she looked delectable. His shapely mouth compressed. She was solid gold. Unspoilt, honest and kind, as well as being the first woman to value him more than his wealth. Of course there was that guy, Toby, but Angelo had noticed that references to him had become a rarity. In any case he resolutely avoided recalling that awkward angle because, in every way that mattered, Gwenna Massey Hamilton was his. Possession was nine-tenths of the law, he reminded himself staunchly.
But sometimes as now, when disquiet put him into a more contemplative mood, Angelo was seriously spooked by what he had done to Gwenna. Once or twice he had endeavoured to get himself to the point of discussing his attitude to her when they had first met, but he had not known what he could possibly say. He knew that what he had done was unpardonable and he was just as aware that she had a lot of heart and not a spiteful bone in her beautiful body. Unfortunately, he was equally conscious of her principles, her outlook on the world, her essential trusting innocence. How could she forgive betrayal? Or cruelty? How could she ever understand a desire for revenge that had got out of hand?
He couldn’t possibly tell her the truth. It wasn’t his fault that his family tree was full of gangsters. But it was his fault that he had acted like one. He did not feel it would be wise to admit that he was haunted by the fear that there was such a thing as bad blood and that he had inherited it in his genes. After all, he had treated her badly and, put in possession of those facts, might she not understandably decide that he was a total bastard? And even if he was a total bastard, he reasoned fiercely, there was no reason why she should ever have to know. A leopard could change his spots—at least into the stripes of a tiger.
Gwenna noticed that Angelo was unusually quiet over dinner. There was a distant aspect to his lustrous dark eyes. Although he rarely touched alcohol, he took a brandy out onto the veranda without inviting her to join him. So, he was having an off-day, acting human, maybe even keen to escape the incessant chatter she occasionally directed at him, she reasoned ruefully. She was annoyed that she was being so over-sensitive and when he went down to the beach she resisted the urge to follow him. To occupy herself she lifted the newspaper he had been studying. It was a lengthy article about the life of a Mafia don who had died in South America. She took it to bed with her and ended up reading every word of the ghastly riveting stuff.
‘What are you reading?’
Startled, Gwenna looked up and focused on the tall dark male poised beyond the circle of the lamplight. ‘Angelo…where have you been?’
‘You sound like a wife.’ His dark voice was slightly slurred.
‘If I was your wife, I’d have phoned you and asked you where you were and exactly when you would be back,’ Gwenna admitted without hesitation.
Angelo flung back his cropped dark head and laughed with raw amusement. ‘I like your candour, cara mia.’
In a black designer shirt and jeans, with his masculine beauty enhanced by stubble, Angelo looked mean, moody and magnificent. Her heartbeat speeded up. He threw himself down on the bed beside her and tapped the paper she had cast down. ‘So, you’re reading about Carmelo Zanetti…’
‘He was so wicked and yet he never went to prison for his crimes—’
‘But he died in exile, alone and sick and despised.’
Gwenna blinked because she wasn’t accustomed to Angelo showing a more sensitive side unless he could make a joke of it. ‘There is that…’ Glancing back at the article, she pulled a face. ‘He was very good-looking when he was young, which is deeply creepy. Did you know he was originally from Sardinia?’
Angelo scrunched up the newspaper and thrust it clumsily off the bed.
‘What on earth—?’ Gwenna began.
He reached up and hauled her down to him, kissing her breathless with a hunger that could have burned out a bonfire. ‘I need you,’he confided hoarsely. ‘I really need you with me tonight, bellezza mia.’
Although he was far from sober, there was something in that appeal and the almost clumsy way he was holding her prisoner that melted Gwenna down deep inside. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she whispered, tracing one bronzed cheekbone with tender fingers.
He made love to her first with blazing power and potency, and then with a piercing sweetness that brought tears of gladness to her eyes in the aftermath.
‘Even when you’re drunk, you’re amazing,’ she muttered gently, wishing she knew what was wrong with him—because there was very definitely something wrong.
‘I’m not drunk,’ Angelo groaned, and even though it was a very warm night he kept hold of her until he slid into a restless sleep.
Before dawn, she wakened to see him emerging from the bathroom towelling dry his hair and she switched on the lights to study him with troubled blue eyes. ‘Can’t you sleep?’
His lean, darkly handsome face tightened. ‘I have something to tell you,’ he breathed abruptly. ‘I’ve done some stuff you know nothing about…’
Gwenna went rigid and suddenly she didn’t want to know what was wrong; she was afraid that any confession he made would haunt her for ever. She wanted to shove a brick in his mouth. Had he been with another woman? But, in the space of a month he had left her side for a total of just three nights and he had spent a lot of time on the phone to her those evenings.
Angelo had slammed the door shut on the secret room of sins concerning her inside his head. He was convinced there would be no profit and only loss if he risked walking the true confessions route. Instead he presented her with what he saw as good news, designed to alleviate her worries, protect her reputation and make her happy.
‘I’ve paid off your father’s debt to the garden restoration fund.’
Astounded by that announcement, Gwenna gazed at him with wide blue eyes. ‘That’s not possible. I thought he was being prosecuted—’
‘Prosecuting him wouldn’t be a good idea. Your father has made a full statement confessing to the forgery of your mother’s will. That’s to protect you and I from any future claim he might try to bring. I’ve also signed over ownership of the Massey estate to you. This way the dirty linen stays hidden and nobody need ever know. The garden committee is delighted—’
‘Obviously, but—’
Angelo sank down on the bed beside her. ‘If your father goes to prison now that you own the estate, some people will suspect that you were