think that was an equal exchange?
But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know how much she’d endured, the gossip and shame, the loss and heartbreak. He had no idea of the hell she’d been through, and she wouldn’t weaken and shame herself by telling him now.
‘Well, then,’ she said, and her voice sounded flat, lifeless. ‘I suppose that’s all there is to say.’
Angelo nodded, the movement no more than a terse jerk of his head. ‘I suppose so.’
She made herself look at him then, for surely this was goodbye. The goodbye they’d never had. They lived in different worlds now; she was a maid, he was a billionaire. And while she cherished the memory of who he’d once been, she knew she didn’t even recognise this haughty man with his hostile gaze and designer suit. He was so different from the tousle-haired boy with the sad eyes and the sudden smile, the boy who had hated her to see him vulnerable and yet had sought her out in the sweetest, most unexpected moments. What had happened to that boy?
Staring at Angelo’s hard countenance, Lucia knew he was long gone. And the unyielding man in front of her was no more than a wealthy stranger. She felt a sudden sweep of sorrow at the thought, too overwhelming to ignore, and she closed her eyes. She missed that boy. She missed the girl she’d been with him, full of irrepressible hope and happiness. The girl and boy they’d been were gone now, changed forever by circumstance and suffering.
She opened her eyes to see Angelo staring at her, a crease between his brows, a frown compressing his mouth. He had a beautiful mouth, full, sculpted lips that had felt so amazingly soft against hers. Ridiculous that she would recall the feel of them now.
‘So may I go?’ she asked when the silence between them had stretched on for several minutes. ‘Or is there anything else you’d like to say? You might as well say it now, because if you summon me to your office twice the gossip will really start flying.’
Angelo’s frown deepened into a near scowl. ‘Gossip?’
Lucia just shook her head. She shouldn’t have said that. Angelo didn’t know how difficult those months after he’d left had been for her, how in their stifling village community she’d been labelled another Corretti whore…just like his mother had. She didn’t want him to know. ‘It looks a little suspicious, that’s all. Most maids never see the CEO’s office.’
‘I see.’ He paused, glanced down at some papers that lay scattered across his desk. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you.’
‘Never mind. May I go now?’
Angelo stared at her for a long moment, and she saw that glimpse of bleakness in his eyes again, and that ache inside her opened right up, consumed her with sudden, desperate need. She wanted to take him in her arms and smooth away the crease that furrowed his forehead. She wanted to kiss him and tell him none of it mattered, because she loved him. She’d always loved him.
Pathetic. Stupid. What kind of woman loved a man who had treated her the way Angelo had treated her?
Her mother, for one. And look how she had ended up.
‘Yes,’ Angelo finally said, and he sounded distant, distracted. He was probably already thinking of his next business deal. He turned away, to face the window. ‘Yes, of course you can go.’
And so she did, slipping silently through the heavy oak doors even as that ache inside her opened up so she felt as if she had nothing left, was nothing but need and emptiness. She walked quickly past the receptionist and felt tears sting her eyes.
Alone in the lift she pressed her fists against her eyes and willed it all back, all down. She would not cry. She would not cry for Angelo Corretti, who had broken her heart too many times already so she’d had to keep fitting it back together, jagged pieces that no longer made a healthy whole. Still she’d done it; she’d thought she’d succeeded.
Alone in the lift with the tears starting in her eyes and threatening to slip down her cheeks, she knew she hadn’t.
Angelo stared blindly out the window, his mind spinning with what Lucia had said. And what she hadn’t said.
His first reaction had been, predictably, affront. Anger, even. What kind of person didn’t accept an apology? He’d had no need to call her up here. He could have ignored her completely.
Yet even as he felt anger flare he’d known it was unreasonable. Unjust. He’d treated her badly, very badly considering their childhood friendship, their history. He’d always known that even if he tried not to think of it. Tried not to remember that one tender night.
Seeing her last night had raked up all those old memories and feelings, and he knew he couldn’t be distracted from his purpose here. So she’d been right; his apology had been, in a sense, an item on his to-do list.
Deal with Lucia and then move on.
Except as he stood there and silently fumed, staring out the window without taking in the view, he knew he wasn’t moving on at all. Seeing Lucia had mired him right back in the past, remembering how he’d been with her. Who he’d been. She’d seen him at his most vulnerable and needy, at his most shaming and pathetic. The thought made his fists clench.
He’d hoped apologising to Lucia would give them both a sense of closure, but he didn’t think it had. At least for him it had only stirred things up even more.
Gazing blindly out the window, he saw the bright blue of her eyes, the determined tilt of her chin. When had she become so strong, so hard? He’d thought, he realised now, that she’d be glad of his apology, grateful for his attention. He’d expected her to trip over herself accepting his grudging sorry.
Instead she’d seemed…indifferent. Uncaring. Hard.
He spun away from the window.
He hated this feeling of restless dissatisfaction that gnawed at him, ate away any sense of achievement he’d had over his recent business successes. He hated the raw emotion he felt about Lucia, an uncomfortable mix of guilt and vulnerability and need. Why couldn’t he just forget about her? Regardless of whether she had accepted his apology or not, at least he’d given it. The matter was done. It should have been, at any rate.
He sat down at the desk, pulled a sheaf of papers towards him, determined not to think of her again. He’d managed not to think of her for seven years; surely an hour or two wouldn’t be difficult.
Yet the minutes ticked by and Angelo just sat there, staring at the papers in front of him without taking in a single word.
CHAPTER THREE
‘FRESH TOWELS ARE needed in the penthouse suite.’
Lucia glanced up from where she’d been stacking laundered linens in one of the supply cupboards.
‘The penthouse suite?’ she repeated, and felt dread—as well as a betraying anticipation—sweep through her. ‘Can’t someone else go?’ She’d been avoiding the penthouse suite or any of the hotel’s public places since her confrontation with Angelo.
She’d seen the speculative, sideways glances when she’d walked out of his office, had heard the whispers fall to a hush when she’d entered the break room. She
