Your entire model is flawed. No one wants to come to a hotel of this quality and sweat on a treadmill. You need personal trainers. One to one. Everything tailored to the individual. You need free weights, exercise balls, offer Pilates—’ Her list had been carefully thought out. It had been her idea to turn what had originally been a standard gym into an exclusive fitness club, including physiotherapy and links to the spa with massage and beauty treatments. ‘You’ll attract athletes, but also normal people because you’re developing tailored programmes. In an ideal world everyone should have a personal programme and you’re trying to create an ideal world.’
When he’d pointed out the cost of her plans, she’d laughed. ‘Do you want to be the best or not?’
Despite grumblings from his brother, he’d followed her proposal to the last detail, admiring her bold vision and her innate sense of what was possible.
It had been an overwhelming success.
The Ferrara Spa Resort was now one of Europe’s foremost hotels. They did indeed attract top athletes who were able to maintain fitness within the luxurious resort, but they also drew a less physically fit clientele eager to make use of the expertise on offer. Laurel had personally selected the staff, trained them and supervised those opening weeks to ensure that everything was the very best it could be. She worked like a Trojan.
Cristiano had offered her a small fortune to stay on and run it but she’d turned him down flat.
‘I don’t work for other people.’ She was the most independent, self-reliant woman he’d ever met. Ironic, he mused, that the very quality that had drawn him had been the one that had eventually torn them apart.
Because of him. Because of his blind, selfish behaviour.
There had been reasons, of course. Reasons for switching off his phone and trying to block out all distractions. Reasons for choosing to stay instead of fly home. But he hadn’t shared those reasons because any explanation he delivered now would be seen as an excuse. And there was no excuse for the arrogant, thoughtless way he’d dismissed her fears.
No pile of bricks, no piece of land was worth the price they’d both paid.
Cristiano released the brakes and fed in the throttle, reaching the airport in record time.
Violating at least three traffic laws, he abandoned the car at the front of the terminal building and strode through the glass doors to Departures.
This part of the airport was unfamiliar to him and it was like walking into hell, a teeming mass of bad-tempered humanity crushed together into a woefully inadequate space.
Tripping over an ill-placed suitcase, Cristiano regained his balance and looked round, desperately trying to spot Laurel in the crowd. It seemed an impossible task. The place was heaving with tourists trying to move enormous suitcases through an unyielding, irritated throng. Faces glowed scarlet from too much Sicilian sun and too little cream, babies screamed, toddlers were fractious with boredom, mothers harassed, fathers bad tempered.
It was a place Cristiano had never had reason to visit before and looking at it now he had no regrets about that. Why did people come on holiday? he thought as he took advantage of his superior height to see over the heads of a group of scantily clad, giggling teenage girls.
He was just about to locate someone in authority and demand that they make an announcement over the public address system when he spotted a shiny brown ponytail towards the front of the check-in desk for Heathrow.
Laurel.
Hot and sticky, Laurel handed her ticket to the woman on the desk.
‘I’d like an aisle seat if possible, please.’
She didn’t want to look out of the window. She wanted to read a book and shut Sicily out of her mind.
A different woman would have sobbed all the way to the airport, but Laurel was in full crisis mode, focusing on getting out of Sicily and back to London as fast as possible.
She felt numb, slightly removed from everything that was happening around her.
Because of that, she wasn’t aware of the commotion behind her until she noticed a group of women in an adjoining queue all staring in awe.
Laurel recognised that look.
She’d seen it a million times on the faces of women when they caught sight of Cristiano.
Heart thumping, she turned her head to follow the direction of their stares and saw him forging his way through throngs of gawping tourists. Her first reaction was one of astonishment. She knew for certain he’d never been into this part of the airport before and he looked ridiculously out of place, like a thoroughbred horse in a field of donkeys.
Astonishment changed to alarm as it dawned on her that there was only one explanation for him being here. He wanted to stop her leaving.
And she didn’t want to be stopped.
She didn’t want to listen to anything he had to say.
As he vaulted smoothly over a pile of suitcases blocking his path, she backed away from him.
‘Go away. I have nothing left to say to you.’
‘You may have nothing left to say to me but I have plenty to say to you.’
‘My flight is boarding. I don’t have time to listen.’
His eyes glowed dark and dangerous. ‘If I board that plane I’ll have it grounded.’
Unlike the women hovering close to her, Laurel was unimpressed. ‘Then I’ll board a different plane. There is nothing you can say that I want to hear.’
‘You don’t know that until you’ve listened.’ He appeared oblivious to the growing audience of tourists who, sensing drama, pressed in closer.
‘You want to defend yourself. It’s what you always do.’
He sucked in a deep breath. For a moment she thought he was going to stretch out a hand to her but then he changed his mind and let it fall back to his side. ‘Even I cannot defend the indefensible.’
A woman close to her sighed dreamily, but Laurel ignored her.
‘You are finally admitting that your behaviour may have been less than perfect?’
‘My behaviour was abysmal.’
It wasn’t the words that caught her attention, although they were unusual enough. It was his dishevelled appearance that finally made her think that perhaps his attempts to talk were driven by conscience rather than his usual urge to prove that he was right in everything.
Before this moment she’d never seen Cristiano anything other than immaculate. But not only was he badly in need of a shave but he’d clearly left the villa halfway through the act of dragging on his clothes. ‘Aren’t those the trousers you wore for the wedding?’
‘I was in a hurry to get here.’ His bronzed face had lost layers of colour, his dark eyes shadowed with guilt. ‘I grabbed the first thing I could find.’
She
