The Truth Behind his Touch (3 page)

‘I said that I have an empire to run.’

‘It’s the same thing!’ She was shaking all over, like a leaf, but she looked up at him with unflinching determination, chin jutting out, her brown eyes, normally mild, flashing fire. ‘Okay, I’m not going to see you again …’ Caroline drew in a deep breath and impatiently swept her disobedient hair from away her face. ‘So I can be really honest with you.’

Giancarlo moved to lounge against the door, arms folded, an expression of lively curiosity on his face. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered. She was a woman in a rage and he was getting the impression that this was a woman who didn’t
do
rages. God, wasn’t this turning into one hell of a day?

‘I don’t suppose
anyone
is really ever honest with you, are they?’ She looked around the office, with its mega-expensive fittings, ancient rug, worn bookshelves, the painting
on the wall—the only modern one she had glimpsed, which looked vaguely familiar. Who was really ever that honest with someone as wealthy as he appeared to be, as good-looking as he was? He had the arrogance of a man who always got exactly what he wanted.

‘It’s useful when my man who handles my stocks and shares tells me what he thinks. Although, in fairness, I usually know more than he does. I should get rid of him but—’ he shrugged with typical Italian nonchalance ‘—we go back a long way.’

He shot her a smile that was so unconsciously charming that Caroline was nearly knocked backwards by the force of it. It was like being in a dark room only to be suddenly dazzled by a ray of blistering sunshine. Which didn’t distract her from the fact that he refused to see his father, a sick and possibly dying old man. Refused to bury the hatchet, whatever the consequences. Charming smiles counted for nothing when it came to the bigger picture!

‘I’m glad you think that this is a big joke,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m glad that you can laugh about it, but you know what? I feel
sorry
for you! You might think that the only thing that matters is all … all
this
… but none of this counts when it comes to relationships and family. I think you’re … you’re
arrogant
and
high-handed
and making a huge mistake!’

Outburst over, Caroline yanked open the office door to a surprised Elena, who glanced at her with consternation before looking behind to where her boss, the man who never lost his steely grip on his emotions, was staring at the small, departing brunette with the incredulous expression of someone who has been successfully tackled when least expecting it.

‘Stop staring,’ Giancarlo said. He shook his head, dazed, and then offered his secretary a wry grin. ‘We all lose our cool sometimes.’

M
ILAN
was a diverse and beautiful city. There were sufficient museums, galleries, basilicas and churches to keep any tourist busy. The Galleria Vittorio was a splendid and elegant arcade, stuffed with cafés and shops. Caroline knew all this because the following day—her last day before she returned to Alberto, when she would have to admit failure—she made sure to read all the literature on a city which she might not visit again. It was tarnished with the miserable experience of having met Giancarlo De Vito.

The more Caroline thought about him, the more arrogant and unbearable he seemed. She just couldn’t find a single charitable thing to credit him with. Alberto would be waiting for her, expecting to see her arrive with his son and, failing that, he would be curious for details. Would she be honest and admit to him that she had found his sinfully beautiful son loathsome and overbearing? Would any parent, even an estranged parent, be grateful for information like that?

She looked down to where her ice-cold glass of lemonade was slowly turning warm in the searing heat. She had dutifully spent two hours walking around the Duomo, admiring the stained-glass windows, the impressive statues of saints and the extravagant carvings. But her heart hadn’t been in it, and now here she was, in one of the little cafés,
which outside on a hot summer day was packed to the rafters with tourists sitting and lazily people-watching.

Her thoughts were in turmoil. With an impatient sigh, she glanced down at her watch, wondering how she would fill the remainder of her day, and was unaware of the shadow looming over her until she heard Giancarlo’s velvety, familiar voice which had become embedded in her head like an irritating burr.

‘You lied to me.’

Caroline looked up, shading her eyes from the glare of the sun, at about the same time as a wad of papers landed on the small circular table in front of her.

She was so shocked to see him towering over her, blocking out the sun like a dark avenging angel, that she half-spilled her drink in her confusion.

‘What are you doing here? And how did you find me?’ Belatedly she noticed the papers on the table. ‘And what’s all that stuff?’

‘We need to have a little chat and this place isn’t doing it for me.’

Caroline felt her heart lift a little. Maybe he was reconsidering his original stance. Maybe, just maybe, he had seen the light and was now prepared to let bygones be bygones. She temporarily forgot his ominous opening words and the mysterious stack of papers in front of her.

‘Of course!’ She smiled brightly and then cleared her throat when there was no reciprocal smile. ‘I … You haven’t said how you managed to find me. Where are we going? Am I supposed to bring all this stuff with me?’

Presumably, yes, as he spun round on his heels and was scouring the
piazza
through narrowed eyes. Did he notice the interested stares he was garnering from the tourists, particularly the women? Or was he immune to that sort of attention?

Caroline grabbed the papers and scrambled to follow him as he strode away from the café through a series of small roads, leaving the crush of tourists behind.

Today, she had worn the only other outfit she had brought with her, a summer dress with small buttons down the front. Because it left her shoulders bare, and because she was so acutely conscious of her generous breasts, she had a thin pink cardigan slung loosely over her—which wasn’t exactly practical, given the weather, but without it she felt too exposed and self-conscious.

With the ease of someone who lived in the city, he weaved his way through the busier areas until they were finally at a small café tucked away from the tourist hotspots, although even here the ancient architecture, the charming square with its sixteenth-century well, the engravings on some of the façades, were all photo opportunities.

She dithered behind him, feeling a bit like a spare part as he spoke in rapid Italian to a short, plump man whom she took to be the owner of the café. Then he motioned her inside where it was blessedly cool and relatively empty.

‘You can sit,’ Giancarlo said irritably when she continued to hover by the table. What did his father see in the woman? He barely remembered Alberto, but one thing he
did
remember was that he had not been the most docile person in the world. If his mother had been a difficult woman, then she had found her match in her much older husband. What changes had the years wrought, if Alberto was happy to work with someone who had to be the most background woman he had ever met? And once again she was in an outfit that would have been more suitable on a woman twice her age. Truly the English hadn’t got a clue when it came to fashion.

He found himself appraising her body and then, surprisingly, lingering on her full breasts pushing against the thin
cotton dress, very much in evidence despite the washed-out cardigan she had draped over her shoulders.

‘You never said how you managed to find me,’ Caroline repeated a little breathlessly as she slid into the chair opposite him.

She shook away the giddy, drowning feeling she had when she looked too hard at him. Something about his animal sex-appeal was horribly unsettling, too hard to ignore and not quite what she was used to.

‘You told me where you were staying. I went there first thing this morning and was told by the receptionist that you’d left for the Duomo. It was just a question of time before you followed the herd to one of the cafés outside.’

‘So … have you had a rethink?’ Caroline asked hopefully. She wondered how it was that he could look so cool and urbane in his cream trousers and white shirt while the rest of the population seemed to be slowly dissolving under the summer sun.

‘Have a look at the papers in front of you.’

Caroline dutifully flicked through them. ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what these are—and I’m not very good with numbers.’ She had wisely tied her hair back today but still some curling strands found their way to her cheeks and she absent-mindedly tucked them behind her ears while she continued to frown at the pages and pages of bewildering columns and numbers in front of her, finally giving up.

‘After I saw you I decided to run a little check on Alberto’s company accounts. You’re looking at my findings.’

‘I don’t understand why you’ve shown me this. I don’t know anything about Alberto’s financial affairs. He doesn’t talk about that at all.’

‘Funny, but I never thought him particularly shy when
it came to money. In fact, I would say that he’s always had his finger on the button in that area.’

‘How would you know, when you haven’t seen him for over a decade?’

Giancarlo thought of the way Alberto had short changed his mother and his lips curled cynically. ‘Let’s move away from that contentious area, shall we? And let’s focus on one or two interesting things I unearthed.’ He sat back as cold drinks were placed in front of them, along with a plate of delicate little
tortas
and pastries. ‘By the way, help yourself …’ He gestured to the dish of pastries and cakes and was momentarily sidetracked when she pulled her side plate in front of her and piled a polite mound, but a mound nevertheless, of the delicacies on it.

‘You’re actually going to eat all of those?’ he heard himself ask, fascinated against his will.

‘I know, I shouldn’t really. But I’m starving.’ Caroline sighed at the diet which she had been planning for ages and which had yet to get underway. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I mean … they’re not just here for
show
, are they?’

‘No,
di niente
.’ He sat back and watched as she nibbled her way through the pastries, politely leaving one, licking the sweet crumbs off her fingers with enjoyment. A rare sight. The stick-thin women he dated pushed food round their plates and would have recoiled in horror at the thought of eating anything as fattening as a pastry.

Of course, he should be getting on with what he wanted to say, but he had been thrown off course and he still was when she shot him an apologetic smile. There was an errant crumb at the side of her mouth and just for an instant he had an overwhelming urge to brush it off. Instead, he gestured to her mouth with his hand.

‘I always have big plans for going on a diet.’ Caroline blushed. ‘Once or twice I actually did, but diets are deadly.
Have you ever been on one? No, I bet you haven’t. Well, salads are all well and good, but just try making them interesting. I guess I just really love food.’

‘That’s … unusual. In a woman. Most of the women I meet do their best to avoid the whole eating experience.’

Of course he would be the type who only associated with model types, Caroline thought sourly. Thin, leggy women who weighed nothing. She wished she hadn’t indulged her sweet tooth. Not that it mattered because, although he might be good-looking—well, staggering, really—he wasn’t the sort of man she would ever go for. So what did it matter if he thought that she was overweight and greedy into the bargain?

‘You were saying something about Alberto’s financial affairs?’ She glanced down at her watch, because why on earth should he have the monopoly on precious time? ‘It’s just that I leave tomorrow morning and I want to make sure that I get through as much as possible before I go.’

Giancarlo was, for once in his life, virtually lost for words. Was she
hurrying him along
?

‘I think,’ he asserted without inflection, ‘that your plans will have to take a back seat until I’m finished.’

‘You haven’t told me whether you’ve decided to put the past behind you and accompany me back to Lake Como.’ She didn’t know why she was bothering to ask the question because it was obvious that he had no such intention.

‘So you came here to see me for the sole purpose of masterminding a jolly reunion …’

‘It wasn’t
my
idea.’

‘Immaterial. Getting back to the matter in hand, the fact is that Alberto’s company accounts show a big, gaping black hole.’

Caroline frowned because she genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Si,’
Giancarlo imparted without a shade of regret as he continued to watch her so carefully that she could feel the colour mounting in her cheeks. ‘He has been leaking money for the past ten years but recently it’s become something more akin to a haemorrhage …’

Caroline gasped and stared at him in sudden consternation. ‘Oh my goodness. Do you think that that’s why he had the heart attack?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I didn’t think he took an active interest in what happened in the company. I mean, he’s been pretty much a recluse since I came to live with him.’

‘Which would be how long ago?’

‘Several months. Originally, I only intended to come for a few weeks, but we got along so well and there were so many things he wanted me to do that I found myself staying on.’ She fixed anxious brown eyes on Giancarlo, who seemed sublimely immune to an ounce of compassion at the news he had casually delivered.

‘Are you … are you sure you’ve got your facts right?’

‘I’m never wrong,’ he said drily. ‘It’s possible that Alberto hasn’t played an active part in running his company for some time now. It’s more than possible that he’s been merrily living off the dividends and foolishly imagining that his investments are paying off.’

‘And what if he only recently found out?’ Caroline cried, determined not to become too over-emotional in front of a man who, she knew, would see emotion in a woman as repellent. Besides, she had cried on him yesterday. She still had the handkerchief to prove it. Once had been bad enough but twice would be unforgivable.

‘Do you think that that might have contributed to his heart attack? Do you think that he became so stressed that it affected his health?’ Horribly rattled at that thought, she
distractedly helped herself to the last pastry lying uneaten on her plate.

‘No one can ever accuse me of being a gullible man, Signorina Rossi.’ Giancarlo was determined to stick to the script. ‘One lesson I’ve learnt in life is that, when it comes to money, there will always be people around who are more than happy to scheme their way into getting their hands on some of it.’

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so. Whatever. Poor Alberto. He never mentioned a word and yet he must have been so worried. Imagine having to deal with that on your own.’

‘Yes. Poor Alberto. Still, whilst poring over these findings, it occurred to me that your mission here might very well have been twofold.’

‘The doctor said that stress can cause all sorts of health problems.’

‘Focus, signorina!’

Caroline fell silent and looked at him. The sun wafting through the pane of glass made his hair look all the more glossy. She vaguely noticed the way it curled at the collar of his shirt. Somehow, it made him look very exotic and very European.

‘Now are you with me?’

‘There’s no need to talk down to me!’

‘There’s every need. You have the most wandering mind of anyone I’ve ever met.’

Caroline shot him a look of simmering resentment and added ‘rude’ to the increasingly long list of things she didn’t like about him.

‘And you are the
rudest
person I’ve ever met in my entire life!’

Giancarlo couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever dared to insult him to his face. He didn’t think it had
ever happened. Rather than be sidetracked, however, he chose to overlook her offensive remark.

‘It occurred to me that my father’s health, if your story about his heart attack is to be believed, might not be the primary reason for your visit to Milan.’

‘If my story is to be believed?’ She shook her head with a puzzled frown. ‘Why would I lie about something like that?’

‘I’ll answer a question with a question—why would my father suddenly choose
now
to seek me out? He had more than one opportunity to get in touch. He never bothered. So why now? Shall I put forward a theory? He’s wised up to the fact that his wealth has disappeared down the proverbial tubes and has sent you to check out the situation. Perhaps he told you that, if I seemed amenable to the idea of meeting up, you might mention the possibility of a loan?’