shouting and thumping stuff,’ Toby groaned, hugging his ribs and struggling to catch his breath.
Angelo studied him in incredulous disgust. ‘He won’t even fight for you!’
‘Why would he fight for me? He’s gay,’ Gwenna said woodenly, crouching down beside Toby to ask him if he was all right.
‘Gay?’ Angelo thundered in disbelief.
‘Gay,’ Toby confirmed, squinting at Gwenna in surprise and then back at Angelo. ‘Didn’t she mention it?’
‘It was none of Angelo’s business,’ Gwenna declared, refusing to look at either man.
Angelo strode forward and immediately extended a hand down to Toby to help the younger man up. ‘I’m sorry. I owe you a sincere apology.’He sent Gwenna a shimmering glance of challenge. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? How wasn’t it my business?’
Her cheeks flushed a discomfited pink, Gwenna folded her lips on a stinging retort. A slanging match in front of Toby in which Angelo was certain to give as good as he got would only embarrass her more. She already felt foolish, angry and guilty that Toby had got hurt. She did not want to recall that, when she first realised that Angelo had followed her down to Somerset, she had been pleased.
‘Are you coming back to my hotel with me?’ Angelo drawled softly.
Gwenna jerked her chin in grudging affirmation. ‘How could you do that?’ she snapped the minute she was alone with Angelo.
‘You’re responsible for that stupid farce,’ Angelo drawled with cutting cool, thrusting open the inn door for her to precede him into the car park.
‘And how do you make that out?’ Gwenna demanded.
‘You didn’t answer your mobile phone. You walked out of your father’s house with the man you told me you loved. You then dined alone with him and went upstairs to his hotel room. What was I supposed to think?’
‘That not everyone is as oversexed as you are!’
Gay! The guy was gay! Why hadn’t she said? Angelo’s aggressive jaw line squared. She was all sweetness and light with everyone else, but she had gone out of her way to put him through the equivalent of a meat mincer. Subtle torture of the most female kind. Naturally he had found it offensive that her main source of interest should be another man, when it was his bed she was sharing! When she had thrown that fact in his teeth earlier that day, Angelo had been dismayed by the discovery that he was struggling to restrain his temper even with his staff.
‘I still don’t understand how you knew where I was today.’
Angelo dealt her a sardonic look. ‘I always know where you are. Whenever you go out, someone on Franco’s team watches over you. I’m in the public eye. I have enemies. Even if the only threat is from the paparazzi, you need protection.’
Gwenna could hardly contain her annoyance. ‘It’s like being under police surveillance…why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Your safety is my concern. So, tell me the tale of Toby,’ Angelo invited, determined to satisfy his curiosity. ‘How did you manage to fall for someone who’s gay?’
Gwenna worried at her lower lip with her teeth before she finally answered. ‘It was a secret and I wasn’t in on it when I first knew him. By the time I found out, it was too late.’
‘How too late? Finding out that should have been a wake-up call,’ Angelo said very drily.
‘It’s not that simple—’
‘In the same scenario I would find it very simple.’
Gwenna tilted her chin. ‘When did you last fall for anyone?’
Angelo felt as if he had been dumped in conversational quicksand. He didn’t do love, didn’t believe in it, didn’t go into the building, never mind the living room. Love was a four-letter word that had never crossed his lips since childhood and not something he was prepared to talk about. His icy reserve was well known. People didn’t ask him personal questions. They didn’t have the nerve. They didn’t want to irritate him.
‘How come you can ask me but I can’t ask you?’ she prompted in the simmering silence.
‘Dio mio…I don’t fall. Okay?’
Gwenna fixed stunned china-blue eyes on him. ‘You mean…ever?’
‘So what?’ Angelo was infuriated by her compassionate look that implied he must be some kind of emotional cripple.
Gwenna wished she hadn’t asked. She felt terribly sad for him and hastened to breach the awkward silence. ‘My grand-mother used to say that it takes all sorts to make a world,’ she continued brightly. ‘I suppose that if I’d ever met anyone else worth caring about, I would’ve got over Toby. There again, he would be a hard act to follow. He’s very creative—he designs parks and gardens. We have a lot in common—’
‘Soil…plants…’ Angelo slotted in with lethal derision. ‘The wow factor.’
Her heart-shaped face tightened. ‘Toby’s really special—kind and caring.’
Worth caring about. Although he wasn’t looking for love, Angelo felt affronted. Toby was kind, caring and creative. It was not a level playing field. Possibly Toby filled in for the saints in his spare time. Angelo decided that pursuing the topic was beneath his dignity.
It was almost midnight when they arrived at the Peveril House hotel. A private lift whisked them up to an opulent suite that comprised several rooms. Gwenna had taken one step through the door when Piglet hurled himself at her in rapturous welcome.
‘My word, you brought him with you!’ Gwenna pounced happily on her pet. ‘Thank you.’
Angelo wondered how he was supposed to have left behind a dog that went on hunger strike without her. Piglet had to be the most successful attention-seeker in canine history.
The next morning, Gwenna woke up at nine. In spite of everything she had slept like a log and Angelo had left her undisturbed. Totally undisturbed. Maybe he had realised how exhausted she had been. She was surprised that he hadn’t asked about the nature of her family crisis the night before. But then why should he be interested? But if he wasn’t interested, why had he followed her down to Somerset?
She could no longer avoid the disagreeable decision she had to make. Did she or did she not ask Angelo to help her father? Certainly, she didn’t want to make that approach. In fact she cringed at the very thought of it. But although Eva and her daughters had been unpleasant and her father had treated the matter far too lightly, Gwenna still felt that she should do what she could to try and help. The money had been taken from the garden fund around the same time as the money from Furnridge. In many ways it could be seen as another strand of the same offence, she told herself bracingly.
When she appeared for breakfast, Angelo acknowledged her with an inclination of his handsome dark head. He was poised by a desk across the room and talking in rapid Italian, and it was clear to her that he was fully engaged in business. She watched him covertly while she chased some cereal round a bowl, her appetite steadily dwindling at the prospect of the dialogue that lay ahead.
Angelo
