Happy Mother's Day! (4 page)

In the air was the sense of utter silence which told Aisling that it must now be the middle of the night—and, apart from the dawning realisation of what she had done, something else jarred at her conscience.

Jason!

Aisling froze. She had brought her young assistant to a party in the middle of nowhere and she had disappeared halfway through without a word, in order to sleep with their host!

A tiny moan escaped from her lips before she could stop it and the figure beside her stirred again. Aisling hastily clamped her lips shut. She needed to think. To decide on a plan of action—or rather a damage-limitation plan.

Ruthlessly, she quelled the aching in her heart and the wistful little voice in her head which kept telling her how wonderful it had been. Maybe it had, but it should never have happened—and whether she blamed the wine or the moonlight or her longstanding infatuation with him, none of that mattered. It
had
happened—that was the only thing which counted, and now she had to get out of here. She ran through the options in her mind.

If she waited until morning, then not only would she have the embarrassment of facing Gianluca, but also of facing however many staff he had working here. How the hell would
that
look? She bit her lip as she remembered
him introducing her to his old nanny last night and that nice local lawyer. It would look exactly what it was—that she had behaved like a tramp! And then she remembered Gianluca looking at his watch after they’d made love and saying that they really ought to get back to the party.

Now that didn’t sound like the behaviour of a man who wanted to eke out every last moment or lie around stroking her face and telling her that it had been wonderful, did it? No, it sounded exactly what it was—that she had presented him with an opportunity for seduction and he had seized it like the red-blooded man he was.

But what did she do now? And where the hell was Jason? Had he taken the chauffeur-driven car back to Rome or was he asleep in one of the bedrooms of this large house?

With all the stealth of a cat-burglar, Aisling wriggled slowly from beneath the muscular body of Gianluca—but he was so deeply asleep that she was able to extricate herself and her clothes and handbag and slip from the room without him waking. She found a bathroom down the corridor and as silently as possible scrambled into her underwear and jeans and tugged on her top. Then she pulled her mobile from her back pocket and found two text messages there from Jason.

‘Where are you?’ read the first. ‘Gone back 2 Rome. C U on flight 2moro?’ said the second.

Aisling breathed a sigh of relief. At least Jason wasn’t stranded out here as well—which meant that she didn’t have to worry about finding him.

The question was how she intended getting back to Rome in order to guarantee catching her early morning flight and putting as much distance between her and
Gianluca as possible. Surely that was the best possible scenario—allowing them both the dignity of pretending it had never happened.

If only she weren’t stranded.

But then Aisling remembered Gianluca’s entrance in the gleaming sports car and an idea began to slowly grow in her mind. A plan so unlike what the usual cool and careful Aisling would have devised that it made her realise just how much her senses were spinning. But not enough to stop her thinking it through.

What was to stop her borrowing
his
car to get back to Rome? He was bound to have a satellite-navigation system to guide her to the city—and the roads would be empty at this time. He’d easily be able to find another form of transport.

She bit her lip. True, he wouldn’t be best pleased that she’d taken his car without asking—but it wouldn’t be the first rule of etiquette she’d broken. Sleeping with the boss without him ever having taken her on a date was right up there with the major social no-nos.

It might be completely out of character, but so what? Things couldn’t really get much worse. Her contract with Palladio’s would inevitably be over after this—so what did she have to lose? And what the hell would Suzy, her partner, have to say about
that?

Her cheeks burning with remorse, Aisling crept back into Gianluca’s bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief as she located his car keys in the back pocket of his discarded jeans and carefully extracted them—and still he slept on.

She stole towards the front door and her heart pounded with guilt and she quietly took from her bag a pen and a postcard of the Trevi fountain, which she’d never got
around to posting. Silently, she wrote: ‘I’ve borrowed your car—will leave it at your office.’

And then she hesitated. How should she end it?
Love
Aisling?

No.

Just her name, then?

No. Just stick to facts and fade away into the dawn. Propping the note onto a small table, she gave a wry smile. Why, he might even thank her for it. They would both be spared the embarrassment of the morning after. The long, shared journey back to the city, heavy with awkward silences. Not that she’d ever had a one-night stand—but from everything she’d read, she knew it wasn’t the best way to earn his respect or admiration.

But it wasn’t until she was out on the open road, being guided by the rather spooky robotic female voice of the satnav system and heading towards Rome that she dared to put her foot down, her heart sinking with the horror of what she’d done as the sun began to rise high over the Umbrian hills.

A
ISLING’S
head pounded.

Unsteadily, she rose from her chair to close the blinds in her office, and the unanswerable question spun round and round in her head like dirty water whirling down the plug-hole.

Oh, what had she
done?

Nearly a month had elapsed since she had woken up in Gianluca’s bed—or rather
on
Gianluca’s bed, she corrected herself, and flinched. There was no point in giving the incident an air of respectability which it certainly didn’t merit. Saying that they had been
in
bed might have implied that there’d been a little forethought about that wild bout of sex, instead of the stark and unpalatable truth.

That she’d had a one-night stand with a client!

Aisling’s palms felt clammy as she sat down at her desk once more.

What kind of a woman did that? Risking everything she’d worked so hard for. Especially a woman who had known real poverty when she was growing up—who had learnt the hard way that you couldn’t rely on anyone except yourself to earn a living.

Her mother had always put men before everything—even her daughter. Janie Armstrong had sacrificed everything in her futile search for love. Jobs had gone by the wayside and she and Aisling had moved around the country—relocating at the drop of a hat if there was some promise of emotional happiness, which had never seemed to materialise.

Time after time, Aisling had seen her mother let down by a man—and time after time she had repeated the same needy and dependent behaviour which had seemed to drive the men further away. As her beauty had faded, so had the opportunities—and that had bred a new desperation.

Aisling had vowed to be different. That was the reason she had slaved away to establish her business, why she had put her social life on hold, working long hours to build up her small but thriving firm which now employed three people. A firm she had been so proud of—but which must now surely be threatened by a single act of madness?

How terrifying it was to discover this dark and unknown side to her character. Maybe she carried more of her mother’s traits than she had previously imagined.

After leaving Gianluca’s vineyard, Aisling had caught the London-bound flight from Rome airport with minutes to spare. She’d left Gianluca’s car in the underground car park of the Palladio Corporation, deposited the car keys with his bemused secretary and walked out with a feeling of terrible remorse making her cheeks sting pink.

Next there had been Jason to face—and that had been Aisling’s first real test of mental determination. How much was it permissible to pretend when facing your young assistant, to whom you were supposed to be setting
a good example? She didn’t want to lie—but how could she tell him the truth when, if the situation were reversed, she would have sacked him on the spot? There was nothing to be gained from showing her embarrassment and her guilt—she was just going to have to live with them. As it was, her former prim and proper image stood her in good stead.

‘Whatever happened to you?’ Jason asked curiously. ‘One minute you were there—and the next you were gone!’

‘Oh, Gianluca gave me a tour of the property—and we ended up talking about business,’ she answered quietly, her blue eyes just daring him to say any more on the subject, and to her relief he didn’t. Quite what Jason thought about it all only added to her discomfiture, but frankly she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of wallowing in self-pity.

For days, Aisling waited.

At first she wasn’t really sure what she was waiting for—until she woke up one morning after a night spent tossing and turning and realised that she was in fact waiting to hear from Gianluca. They still had a meeting scheduled to discuss his Miami project, didn’t they? Her guilty conscience had made her assume that he would want to pull out of it—and that he would take great delight in telling her exactly why. But she was wrong.

There was nothing. Not a word, a phone call or e-mail to cancel—and somehow this only compounded her silent sense of agony and self-recrimination. Was he planning to send someone else from the Palladio Corporation in his place? she wondered.

And it wasn’t until her period arrived that Aisling realised she had been waiting for something else, too—
the reassurance that there weren’t to be any lasting repercussions from that night of passion. And thank God, there weren’t.

But her behaviour made her think—logically, rather than emotionally. It shocked her into making an appointment at the family planning clinic. Because, yes, Gianluca had used protection—but what if he hadn’t had any? She had been so caught up in mindless need for him that she’d been beyond caring—and, whether or not that was the Palladio effect, she didn’t dare risk it happening again. A one-night stand was bad enough—an unplanned pregnancy would be unforgivable. And then there was the troublesome question of their upcoming appointment and how she might react if Gianluca turned up and tried to seduce her. Would she honestly be able to resist him?

The phone on her desk rang and Aisling picked it up.

‘Aisling Armstrong here,’ she said.

It was Ginger Jones, her secretary, who had taken to looking at her with frowning concern ever since she’d returned from Rome, even if she hadn’t quite had the nerve to ask her if anything was wrong. Unlike Suzy, who had been fishing like mad—but Aisling had deflected all
her
questions without blushing.

‘There’s someone here to see you,’ Ginger announced.

Aisling frowned as she scanned the appointments page of her diary. ‘But I don’t have anything scheduled.’ And it was almost seven o’clock. It had been a long day, which had started with a breakfast meeting, and she wanted nothing more than a bath and to pick at some food and then go to bed and pray for the oblivion of sleep.

‘I know that,’ said Ginger rather dramatically, and something
in the tone of her voice made the small hairs on the back of Aisling’s neck prickle with apprehension.

‘Who is it?’ she questioned hoarsely.

‘Signor Palladio.’

Aisling gripped the phone so hard that her knuckles turned the colour of milk. ‘But his appointment isn’t until next week,’ she said hoarsely. An appointment she had been expecting and praying that he would cancel.
And praying that he wouldn’t.

‘So I believe,’ said Ginger smoothly.

‘Can’t you tell him to go?’ Aisling whispered, and to Ginger’s huge credit and diplomacy she didn’t seem to find anything wrong in a question which Aisling would never have asked under normal circumstances.

‘I’ve tried,’ Ginger said, in a smoothly unfamiliar tone which suggested that the Italian billionaire might be standing right by the telephone.

Aisling thought quickly.

If she wanted to play French farce, she could always slip out of her office by the back way, but that would only postpone the inevitable. Gianluca obviously wanted to see her and he wouldn’t be deterred—not by anyone. So hadn’t she better listen to what he wanted to say?

Aisling chewed the end of her fountain pen. ‘Won’t you send him in?’ she asked.

She put the receiver down and sat with the tension building up inside her. There wasn’t even enough time to look in the mirror she carried in her handbag, nor to put on some lipstick—and, besides, it was only a short journey from Ginger’s office to her own.

What if he caught her prettifying herself and thought she
was trying to lure him into another sexual encounter? Aisling shuddered as—like someone caught in a bad horror film—she watched the door open and her heart sank.

For this was the man they called
Il Tigre
at his most threatening, looking just as she imagined his animal namesake might look the moment before it pounced.

Gianluca closed the door behind him, but he didn’t move. Just stood there, looking at her with a hostile black gaze—which was making her feel like some helpless innocent who had strayed into his path.

So don’t
let
him make you feel that way.

But it wasn’t easy under the circumstances—not when her heart was leaping against her ribcage in reaction to the muscular body and the shadowed beauty of his face—which was so still that it might have been carved from some dark stone. How could someone look so different? she wondered. It seemed a lifetime ago that those hard lips had been soft and responsive as they kissed her—yet it was only a few short weeks.

She tried to compose her face into some appropriate expression—but what was appropriate, in the circumstances?

‘Hello, Gianluca,’ she said as calmly as she could manage.

He didn’t return the greeting, just leaned back against the door, his hands moving down to rest on his hips, a movement Aisling tried not to react to, which wasn’t easy since, not only was it vaguely intimidating—it also meant that he thrust his hips forward in a way that was completely provocative as well as evocative. And, oh, the memories came flooding back in all their glorious, golden beauty.

She swallowed, remembering images that she had been trying to block—of his eyes, tight-closed with pleasure.
The way he had breathed something exultant at the moment of his climax and the warm feel of his naked body next to hers. ‘This is a … surprise.’

‘Really?’ he clipped out. He was angry. Correction. He was
furious
—with a strength of feeling he was neither used to, nor liked—and he hadn’t quite worked out what was causing it. Was it because she had taken control of the situation by her sudden and totally unexpected disappearance? Or because he had been shocked to find she had gone, leaving his bed without a single word—leaving him lying alone amid the rumpled sheets as if he were just some kind of
stud!

Yet the sight of her was making him ache, even though in theory it should have done the very opposite—because the woman who had writhed beneath him and slid all over him had disappeared, making him half wonder whether he had imagined the whole episode. Like a shooting star viewed in the night sky—brilliant yet so dazzlingly brief.

Gone was the floaty hairstyle and the foxy jeans—and back in place was one of her mannish suits with her dark hair so tightly pinned back that she might as well have had it shaved off.

‘Is this how you always behave?’ he demanded. ‘Don’t you usually hang around to say goodbye to your lovers, Aisling—or do you consider orgasm as a kind of farewell as well as the little death which the French always use to describe it?’

‘Shh! Please—keep your voice down!’ The words were out before she could stop them andAisling’s gaze darted nervously towards the closed door, praying that Ginger didn’t have her ear pressed to it. ‘I don’t want anyone to hear.’

‘You don’t want anyone to hear?’ He gave a mocking laugh of derision, but also a mental note of her vulnerability, and what had provoked it. ‘You mean you haven’t told your secretary you’ve been sleeping with one of the clients?’

‘Of course I haven’t!’ she retorted, until she realised that she was playing this all wrong. Calm it down, she told herself. Calm it
down.
Surely her disappearance should have set his mind at rest—made him realise that she wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it?

She tried the kind of smile that she imagined a sophisticated woman-of-the-world might turn onto one of her many lovers. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing to tell, is there?’ she finished brightly.

‘Nothing to tell?’ he echoed incredulously. ‘You let me take your clothes off and to enter your body and move inside you and bring you to orgasm and yet you describe this as
nothing?’

‘Gianluca!’ Her cheeks flared with heat, and with the first heavy beat of desire.
‘Please!’

‘Sì? Che cosa hai?
What is the matter with you?’ His mouth twisted with fury and with something else too—something which felt bizarrely close to jealousy. ‘Do you do this all the time, with different men? Different
clients?’
he finished insultingly.

The accusation was like a knife-wound and Aisling gripped at the desk. ‘I don’t—of course I don’t! You can’t think that!’

‘Why not? Why should I believe you?’

Accusation blazed from his black eyes and Aisling felt weak. He really
did
think she was some kind of unprincipled
pleasure-seeker! ‘Believe me if you want, or don’t!’ she said. ‘I don’t have to pass some kind of a morality test—especially with a man like
you!’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘And what exactly is
that
supposed to mean?’ he questioned softly.

‘Oh, come on, Gianluca—don’t try to play the innocent with me. You’re an intelligent man!’ Her words were tumbling out thick and fast and Aisling could feel the threatening break of tears at the edge of them and wondered what had happened to her determination to stay calm.

Think of everything you’ve worked for, Aisling—don’t throw it away in a crazy moment of turbulent emotion.

Yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself, and maybe it was the cold, hurtful expression in his eyes—as if she had done something unspeakably wrong, instead of simply opting for damage limitation to avoid an awkward scene the following morning.

She swallowed away the threat of tears and drew a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Maybe
you
make love to lots of different women like that?’

‘Make love?’ His laugh was scornful. ‘Cara, please! I implore you not to dress it up into something it wasn’t. That had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with raw sex.’

Aisling recoiled, twisting her fingers together in her lap and digging the nails sharply into the fleshy part of her palm. She had known that all along and yet to hear him say so was oddly and profoundly wounding. And this was what she had feared, what she had warned herself she must never do—to read more into what had happened than he intended her to. Thank heaven she had left when she did—taken the
upper hand instead of being shown the door and made to feel like some fallen woman.

‘Why are you here?’ she whispered.

Why indeed? Because he had woken up alone in bed the next morning, aching to possess her once more—only to discover the space where she had lain was empty? She had gone.