the point of exhaustion, signor. You need rest, and unless you get some you’ll be in hospital, too! Who will take care of the Villa Castelfino and all your staff then?’
He looked at her steadily for a long time. As he did so his dark, enigmatic expression began to stir a transformation deep within her body. Meg reacted to his scrutiny like a bud growing beneath snow. Gianni Bellini was unshaven and exhausted, yet he still looked totally irresistible. All the wicked fantasies she had dared to dream about him filtered back into her mind. She had spent so many long, lonely nights remembering his face, his smile, all his easy charm. Now here he was, right here in front of her. She began to blush. Something that began as heat rising from her breasts to her cheeks blossomed into the colour of a guinée rose, and silenced her.
‘Why are you doing this, Megan Imsey? You’ve only just got here. Why should you care about me? I’m a cold, unfeeling taskmaster. You’ll hear that from anyone outside the clubs and beaches. When I shelve all my father’s wild ideas, there’ll be no job here for you.’
Meg raised her eyebrows. The old count’s plans had all seemed perfectly sensible to her. This was her dream job, but there was definitely no place for daydreams in Gianni’s new regime. It was time to tell him some of her hard home truths.
‘I can’t afford not to care,’ she said in a careful, matter-of-fact voice. If he wouldn’t recognise simple compassion, that must mean he didn’t want any. ‘I’m on the Villa Castelfino payroll, but so far you’re the only person here who knows I’ve turned up for duty. To put it bluntly, it’s in my interests to take great care of you if I ever want to be reimbursed for this pointless jaunt, Signor Bellini. And there’s always an outside chance you might see reason, and stick with the old count’s plans as I suggest,’ she finished boldly.
It took some time, but Gianni’s expression gradually moved from resignation to distaste. ‘I might have guessed. With women, it all comes down to money in the end. And people wonder why I keep them all at arm’s length!’ He grimaced at last.
His reply was a final wake-up call for Meg. In real life, he was turning out to be quite a different prospect from the ideal man she wanted. With regret, she recognised he was as practical and down-to-earth as she was. It was beginning to feel as though work was the only certainty in her life. With no illusions left about Gianni, all she could hope to do was to secure her future. Apart from all the pressing practical reasons, her parents had waved her off at the airport with such high hopes for her. She couldn’t bear to disappoint them by returning home without achieving anything.
‘It isn’t simply money, signor. Common sense and practicality come into it, too. My family back home are relying on me as a backstop. I’ve put their business back on an even keel. They’re doing really well at the moment but we all know from bitter experience how circumstances can change overnight.’
When she said that, Gianni briefly made eye contact with her. He nodded, but didn’t speak.
‘That’s why I need this job, signor. Your father arranged for me to live in the Garden Cottage here on the Villa Castelfino estate. I’ve visited before, so I know where it is. There’s no need to worry about me,’ she said, in the unlikely event Gianni Bellini ever worried about anyone but himself. ‘I can sort myself out. I’ll be absolutely no trouble. We can talk about all this later. You just see about getting yourself some rest.’
‘No. I need to be alert.’
He looked as belligerent as only a sleep-deprived man could look.
‘Of course you do, signor.’ Meg smiled as he played straight into her hands. ‘That’s why you must get some sleep. Don’t worry; I’ve already had some experience of how this house works. They’ll keep you informed. You won’t miss a thing,’ she said soothingly. ‘The previous count was always telling me he was careful to employ only the very best staff.’
Gianni locked eyes with her for a long time. Then unexpectedly he took her hand again and raised it to his lips for another heart-stopping kiss. It brought back every spine-tingling sensation he had ever evoked in her, and left her gasping. When he looked at her now his expression overflowed with all the dark promise she remembered from their first meeting.
Then he said slowly, ‘Yes. He was. I can see that now.’
GIANNI followed Meg’s instructions only by default. He was so tired his body took complete control of his mind. Leaving the new arrival to fend for herself, he trudged up to his suite. Working entirely on autopilot, he kicked off his shoes and fell into bed.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up with the sun in his eyes and hunger gnawing a hole in his stomach. Grabbing his bedside phone, he rang Housekeeping to order some food. Megan was right, he told himself. He had needed sleep. He must have been out of action for hours.
Twenty minutes later, shaved, showered and feeling slightly more human, he walked into the dining room of his suite. A meal was being laid out on its central table. His body clock told him it should be dinner. It didn’t look like it. In fact, it didn’t look like anything that had appeared on the Villa Castelfino’s menu in all his thirty-two years.
‘That food looks delicious,’ he said suspiciously, picking up the neatly folded copy of La Repubblica lying on his tray.
‘It is, signor. Some of us were invited to lunch over at the Garden Cottage today, and the head gardener gave us this to eat, too.’
Before Gianni could question the man further, he noticed something.
‘This is Monday’s newspaper. What happened to Sunday, Rodolfo?’
‘The indoor staff had strict instructions not to disturb you, signor.’
The man put such an odd emphasis on the word ‘indoor’ that Gianni’s mind filled instantly with suspicion. He walked around the table, surveying his unlikely meal from every angle. There were cheese palmiers with half a dozen different sorts of salads and a cut glass dish of something brightly coloured.
‘This looks like English trifle. I haven’t seen that since I was at school. Where did it come from?’
‘The head gardener suggested some amendments to your menu, signor.’
Gianni stopped pacing. Frowning, he shook a finger in the air. ‘That was what I was going to ask you a moment ago. I didn’t know we had a head gardener,’ he said slowly, suspecting he already knew what had happened. The girl who had invited herself into his estate had become a cuckoo in the nest the moment he turned his back.
‘Miss Imsey has only recently arrived, signor.’
‘Oh…her,’ Gianni said with the airy exhaustion of a man who had a million employees, all of them more trouble than they were worth. ‘Well, don’t worry. She won’t be here for long. I’m more interested in practical skills than paper qualifications. People who hide from life by studying are always afraid of hard work.’ He was quite confident in his views, but the look on Rodolfo’s face instantly made him suspicious again. ‘Oh, now don’t say you’ve been taken in by that face, or those legs…her smile, that rivulet of hair or those baby blue eyes…’
Gianni’s
