The Italian's Secretary Bride (17 page)

For a long moment he studied her with blank, stunned eyes. Then abruptly and with none of his usual natural grace he turned and walked to the window. The lines of his back screamed with tension.

When he turned back his face was wiped clean of emotion. ‘It would seem that I made a mistake.'

‘Not nearly as big a mistake as I made.' I fell in love with you, she nearly said.

His eyes slid from hers. ‘Maybe we can retrieve something from this situation.'

‘Like a lifelong friendship? I don't think so.'

‘Then you wouldn't consider marrying me anyway?' Through the sweep of his lashes his brilliant eyes blazed.

She froze…marry him anyway? This had to be some twisted joke. He had loved her, left her, thought he could buy her, insulted her in every way possible and now this…! She drew a deep breath and fixed him with a look of loathing.

‘Marry
you
? I think you're the most loathsome man I have ever met. I hate you! Marriage isn't about
sacrifice
, it's about
love
and I'm sure your father would agree with that if you asked him.'

Luca inclined his head. His face was like a slate wiped blank. ‘He probably would,' he conceded. ‘But you do things you might not otherwise consider when you love someone.'

‘I appreciate you love your father, but if you need a wife I'm sure you won't have a problem finding someone other than me to say
I do
.' The day that advert appeared they'd be lined up around the block!

‘I don't want anyone else.' The vehemence of his raw revelation made her blink. ‘I want you, Alice.'

Alice closed her eyes. ‘I don't want you,' she lied. He didn't love her.

‘I slept with you when I thought you were carrying another man's child.' She heard his impassioned voice continue. ‘I thought about not smelling your skin, you see, not feeling you quiver when I touch you, and I knew I had to have you one last time.' She heard a sound and imagined him raking his hand through his dark hair. ‘I'm not proud of it. I spent too long successfully not touching you…' If he had touched her then she would have melted but he didn't. ‘And now that I have I can't seem to stop. You're like a drug in my bloodstream.'

Alice opened her eyes to tell him she felt the same way and found she was alone.

A
LICE
couldn't let things stand that way. She had fully intended to contact Luca, and ask him if he had actually meant what he had said.

She rang New York as soon as she got home and discovered that nobody knew where Luca was; he had effectively vanished. Maybe he'd eloped, someone had laughingly suggested and Alice had felt sick…she'd been feeling sick a lot, actually. By the time he resurfaced, unmarried as it happened, she had discovered a complication.

Just a few months after she had told Luca that she wasn't pregnant, and she was. It was sometimes hard to think that the father of her child had a reputation for perception that bordered on the supernatural.

People might have noticed by now if the morning sickness hadn't been so bad, but rather than put on weight in the early weeks Alice had dropped over a stone. To her relief things were looking up and a glass of water no longer made her heave, so she knew it was only a matter of time before she started showing.

The fact she had to tell Luca soon was with her constantly. She didn't even have the excuse that she hadn't had the opportunity—she had. She still worked for Roman and Luca ran half the company; there had been any number of occasions when she had picked up the phone and heard his voice. In fact if anything she was forced to speak to him more often than usual, a circumstance that had made her seek out the bathroom on more than one occasion, not to throw up, but to cry her eyes out.

A couple of times she'd actually begun to tell him, but his curt response had always been so cold and impersonal that she hadn't been able to go through with it. It would have been like telling a total stranger you were carrying his child, especially when you had recently denied you were even pregnant. It sometimes seemed to Alice like another life when he had proposed and she had rejected him.

If Luca had ever been addicted to her it seemed to a miserable Alice that he had discovered the cure. She only wished she knew his secret.

Her normally super-observant boss hadn't picked up on any of the obvious signs, which wasn't like him. But Roman wasn't himself, due mostly, Alice suspected, to a new woman in his life.

She had known for sure that this Scarlet was something special when Roman had said he wouldn't be flying out to Ireland with her on Friday. He would, he'd explained, be on the ferry. When Alice had expressed her surprise at his choice he had explained, somewhat defensively, that Scarlet didn't like to fly.

‘You'll like Scarlet,' he told her abruptly.

‘I'm sure I will.'

‘And Sam.'

‘Her little boy…?'

‘My son, actually.'

Having dropped the bombshell, he calmly walked into a meeting leaving her staring open-mouthed. Maybe this was why Luca was still unmarried? His father had the grandchild and, if she read the signs correctly, the marriage he had wanted too. That let Luca off the hook.

Alice ended up flying out to Ireland first class and alone. She was met at the airport by a chauffeur-driven limo and whisked away in style to the O'Hagan family estate. She had been here a couple of times before with Roman on working weekends but on those occasions she hadn't been carrying the O'Hagans' grandchild!

She was positively racked with guilt when Natalia went out of her way to make her feel welcome. She wondered if the welcome would have been quite so warm if she had known the truth. Mothers were notorious for siding with their sons and Natalia's pride when she spoke of hers was obvious.

‘Make yourself at home, my dear. I know you like to walk and apparently this dry spell is set to last into next week. We're not expecting Roman until later. We're very excited,' she confided, confirming Alice's suspicion that there was a celebratory mood in the air.

Deciding to take her hostess's advice, she put on some walking shoes and a jacket intending to take a walk. She was actually opening the front door when the phone started ringing. Nobody appeared and it stopped, but almost immediately started up again.

Alice picked it up and before she had a chance to identify herself the person on the other end began to speak.

‘Da, is that you?'

Alice almost dropped the phone. She stood there staring at the instrument in her hand for a long moment, shaking so hard that she almost dropped it. She swallowed past the dry constriction in her throat. ‘No, it's me.' She closed her eyes and winced—he wouldn't know who
me
was.

He did.

‘Alice…Alice, is that really you?' There was a crackling on the line and then his voice. ‘Damn thing, it's cutting out and my flight…whatever you do don't…'

‘Luca, I can't hear you. What are you saying?'

‘Just don't do
anything
daft until I get there. I'll be there tonight. Alice,
cara
, promise me you won't do anything.'

‘I promise,' she said without the faintest idea what she was promising.

 

Before the event Alice had been determined not to put a damper on things during dinner. So much for good intentions! She decided afterwards that it was that empty seat that had done it—made her lose it.

She had been wildly ambivalent about the news Luca was arriving, her mood swinging from wild hope to deep depression, but every time she looked at that empty seat where he ought to be sitting her eyes filled. It reached the point where she found it hard to breathe past the knot of misery lodged like a stone behind her breastbone.

After she had applied cold water to her tear-stained face following the short, frustratingly cryptic call she had received earlier from the airport, Alice had told his parents that Luca would be there for dinner.

She had been dreading their questions but beyond a, ‘How lovely, all the family together,' Natalia, being extremely diplomatic, didn't pry further. Neither did her husband, though Alice suspected his silence was more to do with a discreet but well-aimed kick on the shins than diplomacy.

‘I tried him earlier, but there was no answer on his mobile,' Roman said when Luca didn't show. ‘I'll try him again.' He left the dinner table. When he returned he was shaking his head. ‘Still no luck.'

‘Well, there's no point waiting for him,' Finn O'Hagan, who had displayed none of the signs of infirmity Alice had been anticipating, said. ‘I don't know what's got into him. Last night he cut me off right in the middle of a conversation. Cut me dead!' he added, shaking his head incredulously. ‘If he's not got the manners to inform us he'll be late, he doesn't deserve the lovely meal your mother's organised.'

Natalia smiled her charming smile. ‘But don't panic. When Finn says
organise
he doesn't mean I actually touched the food. I organised by nodding when Cook told me what she was making. Experience has taught me that if I do anything else she throws an artistic hissy fit and resigns.'

There was a ripple of amusement across the table.

‘Mother is not renowned for her culinary skills,' Roman explained to the two young female guests. ‘It takes dedication to burn water the way she does.'

As Alice stared at their laughing faces with disbelief, the distracting buzzing in her head got louder. Why was she the only one taking this seriously? The tight feeling in her chest continued to expand until she couldn't restrain herself any longer.

‘Isn't anyone worried about where Luca is?' Pent-up anxiety made her voice loud and accusing. As a bottle stood poised above her wineglass she covered it with her hand and shook her head.

All eyes turned to her in response to her question.

‘Knowing Luca, he could be anywhere,' his brother joked.

‘He'll turn up,' his father predicted. Then added with a chuckle, ‘The young devil always does, like the proverbial bad penny.'

This display of parental callousness fed the flames of Alice's growing anger.

‘Oh, Cook will put aside some food for him, my dear,' Natalia said, stretching across the table to place a pat on Alice's hand.

Alice looked at the beautifully manicured hand covering her own and blinked. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Hadn't it occurred to
any
of them that Luca could be in trouble?

‘But he said he'd be here,' she reminded them, forcing a quick tight smile.

‘Perhaps you misunderstood,' Roman suggested.

Scarlet, seated beside him, nodded. ‘That's easily done,' she agreed.

‘Maybe he meant tomorrow?' Roman ventured.

Their inability to appreciate the urgency of the situation made Alice want to scream. ‘Or maybe he didn't ring at all. That's probably what you're all thinking,' she accused wildly.

Somewhere in the dark, dim recesses of her consciousness she knew she had already said too much, she knew she was making a total idiot of herself, but she couldn't stem the flow.

‘But he did ring,' she choked. ‘And he said he'd be here tonight.'

‘Maybe he just changed his mind,' Roman suggested tentatively.

Alice shook her head positively. ‘Luca doesn't say things he doesn't mean.' She scanned the faces around the table and appealed, ‘Hasn't it occurred to anyone that he may have had an accident?'

The colour drained from her overheated face as she envisaged Luca's lifeless body lying in an overturned car or worse, almost, he might be hurt and need her and she wasn't there!

‘We should call the police!' She pressed her hand to her mouth as acid rose in her throat.

‘My dear girl…' Finn began. He subsided when his wife pressed a warning hand to his arm. Slowly she shook her head before murmuring something in her native tongue to her eldest born, who nodded back.

‘And so we shall, my dear,' she soothed.

Alice heaved a sigh of relief.

‘If we don't hear from him before, we'll call them directly in the morning.'

‘But—!' Alice began heatedly.

Natalia held up her hand, her expression kind but firm. ‘They won't do anything unless someone is missing for twenty-four hours, you know, and the chances are he'll walk through that door any moment now.'

Alice bit her lip and, after a short pause, nodded. She looked around the table and realised that she had firmly established herself as the mad woman in their midst.

‘I just thought…' She took a deep breath. ‘I might have over-reacted,' she conceded.

‘And then some,' Finn agreed with feeling before his wife silenced him with a frown, but not before a mortified flush had spread over Alice's pale skin.

It was Scarlet who smoothly came to her rescue.

She turned to her prospective father-in-law, who was not immune to the charm of her teasing smile. ‘The trouble is, men lack imagination, and so they don't understand the curse of having an overactive one.' She forestalled the predictable male protest with an imperious wave of her hand. ‘Whereas I can definitely empathise,' she admitted ruefully. ‘Sam doesn't have a tummy ache, he has a burst appendix; he doesn't have a high temperature, he has meningitis. That's the way my mind works when it comes to Sam. I tell you, our doctor dreads hearing my voice and the practice nurses have coded me an NOPM…neurotic over-protective mum.'

Laughter and a general lessening of tension followed her droll disclosure. Alice mimed a thank-you across the table and Scarlet wrinkled her nose and gave a conspiratorial wink.

Alice smiled her way through the rest of dinner. She even managed to make a cheerful contribution when the after-dinner conversation turned to babies and weddings. Every time she replayed her spectacular loss of control she cringed and wished the floor would open up and swallow her, but she managed to hold it together until she said goodnight to Scarlet and Roman.

In fact, if she hadn't paused and turned back to make her last husky comment she would have got through the door with her smile intact.

‘I'm so happy for you both,' she declared before bursting into tears.

‘You can tell how happy she is, can't you,
cara mia
?' Roman observed, watching the tears stream down the cheeks of his cool and collected secretary.

'Roman!'
Scarlet reproached, enfolding the sobbing woman in a comforting embrace.

‘S…sorry,' Alice hiccuped as she wiped the moisture from her face and sniffed. ‘I'm just…'

‘No need to explain,' Scarlet interjected. ‘I know
exactly
how you feel.'

‘Is someone going to let me into the secret?' Roman enquired.

‘Don't be so dense, Roman!' Scarlet chided impatiently.

‘I'm assuming this has got something to do with my brother. If you've got any problems with him, come to me, Alice,' he suggested. ‘I'll sort him out.'

‘God, she's not that desperate!'