excusing himself.
‘The wife,’ the only woman present at the high-powered meeting predicted, unwittingly echoing Gianfranco’s first thought when he had heard the ring.
No one disagreed.
Before his marriage the previous year Gianfranco would not have disregarded his own rule concerning interruptions. Since the wedding to which no one, least of all media cameras, had been invited there had been some significant changes. It was rumoured that Gianfranco even took a day off occasionally, but that was only a rumour.
‘Well, I hope she says something to put him in a less vile mood.’
‘Yes, our leader is not his usual sunny self this afternoon, is he?’ someone agreed drily.
There was a generous noise of assent around the table.
‘Have you met her? The wife, that is?’ one of the executives asked curiously.
The gentle chatter around the table stopped and a couple of people nodded to confirm they had.
One said, ‘My mother got me to take her to the opening of the new children’s hospice. It turns out to be his wife’s brainchild.’
‘I suppose even a lady who lunches needs something to put on her CV.’
‘That’s what I thought, but it turns out she’s really hands-on. Literally actually,’ he recalled with a reminiscent smile. ‘She was down on her hands and knees rolling around on the grass barefoot with some of the kids.’
‘She doesn’t sound like a Gianfranco Bruni girlfriend.’
‘She’s not—she’s his wife. Maybe that’s the difference. You’re not wrong, though. She really isn’t his usual type.’
‘Presumably not hard on the eye, though?’
‘She’s pretty,’ the speaker agreed. ‘A redhead, green eyes, freckles.’ He gave a reminiscent smile. ‘Really great, sexy laugh.’
‘Sounds like Ricardo was smitten,’ someone said slyly, and there was laughter as the middle-aged man in question flushed but didn’t deny the charge.
‘I’ve never even seen a photo of her.’
Another result of his sudden marriage had been that Gianfranco, who had once supplied the gossip columns with acres of copy, had pretty much slipped off the photo-opportunity map and retreated behind the sort of security that people who were as rich as he was could.
‘Not exactly a party girl, then, the redhead?’
‘She is English, though?’ The person who asked the question glanced at the closed door before he spoke. Being caught gossiping about the boss would do his promotion prospects no good at all.
‘I’m not sure. Her name doesn’t sound English … Der something …?’
‘Dervla.’ It was the sole female who supplied the bride’s name.
‘Wasn’t she a model?’
‘Doubt it. She’s not tall enough,’ one person who had met her said.
‘Well, from what I’ve heard …’
The men leaned forward to catch the woman’s words as her voice dropped to a confidential hiss. ‘I don’t know how true it is, you understand, but my friend’s cousin—he works at the hospital in London where she was apparently working when they met.’
‘She’s a doctor?’
‘No, a nurse … she looked after his son when they were caught up in that terrorist thing.’
There were murmurs as the people present recalled the horrific incident she spoke of.
‘I think it’s so romantic,’ she added dreamily.
One of the men, the youngest there, who had been struggling to defend a business decision earlier to his critical boss, laughed and said scornfully, ‘Gianfranco Bruni doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. A couple of years’ time and he’ll probably trade her in for a new model.’
When Gianfranco had reached for his phone and not seen Dervla’s name he had needed to dig deep into his seriously depleted reserves of self-control to maintain a semblance of composure.
At least until he was out of the room.
In the corridor he gritted his teeth and ground one clenched fist into the other. It had been forty-eight hours and not a word—not one word!
For all he knew she could be lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Fighting against the swell of crushing anxiety in his chest, he pushed his fingers deep into the ebony hair that sprang from his temples and inhaled deeply, forcing the air into his lungs before expelling it in a gusty sigh.
Get a grip, man, he counselled himself as he smoothed back the tousled hair from his brow and adjusted his tie.
Damn the woman!
‘Gianfranco!’
Gianfranco turned his head at the sound of the familiar voice and forced his lips into a semblance of a smile. Normally he would have been genuinely pleased to see Angelo Martinos, who had been his closest friend since the days when they both shared the distinction of being the only ‘foreigners’ at the English prep school they had been sent to at the ages of nine and ten respectively.
‘Angelo, what brings you here?’ he asked without enthusiasm.
‘Called on the off chance. They told me you were in a meeting.’ He raised an interrogative brow as he scanned his friend’s face. ‘Not a good one, apparently …?’
Now this was one of the reasons why Angelo was the last person to see right now. It wasn’t easy to pull the wool over his eyes, and he thought being his best friend gave him the right to pry.
‘You know how it is,’ he returned, doubting that his happily married friend knew the first thing about being put through an emotional meat-grinder by his wife.
Angelo’s wife apparently thought that his every word was a pearl of wisdom, whereas Gianfranco’s own bride never lost an opportunity to challenge him.
‘Feel like a coffee?’ Angelo wondered, his glance lingering briefly on the razor cut on Gianfranco’s angular jaw. When a moment later he noticed the mismatched socks his eyebrows hit his hairline—impeccable and effortless elegance were descriptions frequently ascribed to his friend.
Gathering his straying attention and wishing his friend would take the hint and go, Gianfranco shook his head and said, ‘Not really,’ in a discouraging way that would have made ninety-nine people out of a hundred back off, but not Angelo.
‘I’m at a loose end. Kate and her mum are baby shopping. I was getting in the way.’
‘Sorry, I’m pretty snowed under today. I just ducked out to take a call from Alberto. I should ring back.’
‘I
