ferocious frown line between his eyes, but continued understandingly, ‘I expect you’re in shock after that news, and that’s stopping you from thinking logically.’
Paolo gritted his strong teeth. She was seriously irritating him. Obviously a creature with the attention span of a gad-fly—veering from bristling moral outrage to saccharine triteness in the flicker of her impressively long eyelashes.
When he put forward a proposition he expected the recipient to sit quietly, hear him out and reach a conclusion based on the facts as offered. Most typically his conclusion.
A slash of colour washed his strong cheekbones as he spelled out through gritted teeth, ‘Without the operation she will die. Fact. With it, the chances of her pulling through are slim. Fact. She is seventy years old and not strong at the best of times,’ he imparted grimly. ‘My mind’s made up. All you have to do is agree to my request.’
‘I’m not comfortable with it,’ Lily confided earnestly. ‘If you really do intend to do this couldn’t you invent a name? Any name?’
Resisting the impulse to pick her up and throw her out, he confessed austerely, ‘I deal in facts and figures, not make-believe. A real woman’s name I would remember. A name I made up might slip my memory in the grip of emotion.’ Not something he was overjoyed to admit to even to himself, let alone this hugely annoying creature. He shot a dark look at his watch and demanded lethally, ‘Well?’
Lily took a deep breath. He was clearly set on going through with it. Nothing she’d said had stood a chance of changing his mind. And it had touched her deeply when he’d made that remark about worrying he’d forget a made-up name if he got emotional. His conversations with his mother prior to her operation would be highly emotional for both of them.
Shrugging her slim shoulders resignedly, she gave in. ‘OK. I agree.’
‘And total secrecy?’
‘Of course.’ How could he ask that? ‘It’s not something I’d remotely want to have known!’
‘And?’ Irritated beyond endurance by her holier-than-thou attitude towards what was, after all, a kindness to a desperately ill woman, he grated. ‘Your name? Lily what?’
‘Oh!’ Her face flamed. He must think she was an idiot! ‘It’s Frome. Lily Frome. Shouldn’t you write that down?’ she suggested, as he just stared at her, making her feel ridiculously squirmy inside.
‘No need. As I told you, I never forget facts. How tall are you?’
‘Why?’
‘Because Madre will ask what you look like,’ he grated through his teeth, as if talking to a child with the IQ of a snail.
‘Five foot one and a half,’ Lily muttered, as he withdrew a chequebook from one of the desk drawers and began to write.
He slid the cheque over the desktop, his eyes lifting as he enumerated, ‘Big grey eyes, small nose…’ he drew the line at voicing that, come to think of it, she had a totally luscious pink mouth. ‘Hair the colour of—caramella.’ He almost smiled before inborn practicality and self-possession kicked in. ‘Arrivederci, Lily Frome.’ He extracted car keys from the pocket of his beautifully tailored suit trousers. ‘I have a flight to catch. Miss Fleming’s somewhere around. She will look after you.’
And he was gone. Leaving Lily staring at his cheque for five thousand pounds and wallowing in the sense of unreality which was swamping her, because the happenings of the last twenty minutes were totally weird.
Two weeks later, at just after ten o’clock, Lily gave her last passenger a cheery ‘Goodnight!’ after seeing her safely inside her home—one of a pair of former labourer’s cottages—and clambered back into the people carrier, expelling a sigh of exhaustion.
It had been a long day, following a long night spent trying to put the accounts in order. She started the engine and set off through the dark lanes for home. The usual sort of day. Organising the two willing volunteers, visiting the housebound, doing chores they couldn’t manage themselves, drinking tea and chatting, driving old Mr Jenkins to his doctor’s appointment.
It was worth it, though. Even if ferrying eleven senior citizens with no transport of their own to the monthly whist drive in Market Hallow’s sports centre and back to their homes again was time consuming, the pleasure the old people got from the outing, from socialising with friends over tea and biscuits, made every minute special. After all, one of the charity’s main aims was to alleviate loneliness and isolation.
And thanks to Paolo Venini’s generous cheque—plus the jumble sale, which had raised a record level of funds—they were managing to carry on. At least the financial crisis was over for the time being. But they would have to advertise for more volunteers in the parish magazine. She and their two part-time volunteers couldn’t do everything.
Shelving that downbeat observation, she wondered how Paolo’s mother was, if the operation had been a success, and immediately conjured up an image of his spectacular, totally unforgettable features. He often occupied her thoughts—which was natural, she excused herself. Without that strange encounter the charity would probably have folded.
And it was not, definitely not because she fancied him, as Penny Fleming had dryly commented when, driven by something more than mere nosiness, Lily had bombarded her with questions about her boss.
‘Females have a habit of going weak at the knees around him,’ Penny had cautioned. ‘But there’s no mileage in it. He’s the take ’em and leave ’em type. With one broken engagement behind him he upped and married a French actress, but got rid of her before their first anniversary. I don’t know the ins and outs, but my guess is he was bored. That’s my opinion anyway, because no woman’s lasted more than a few weeks since then. His dumped wife died of an overdose a couple of months later, poor thing. If you fancy him you’re on a hiding to nothing, believe me!’
‘I don’t fancy him!’ Chilled by that last revelation, Lily had protested tartly. ‘In any case, I’ll never set eyes on him again!’
The obvious truth of that state of affairs had left her feeling oddly regretful—a feeling that stubbornly persisted. Which was why when, yawning widely, she finally let herself into the cottage and found Paolo Venini sitting with Great-Aunt Edith in front of the parlour fire, her heart felt as if it was exploding within her under-endowed breast.
‘Miss Frome—’ He rose to his feet, spectacular in a beautifully tailored pale grey suit, crisp white shirt and dark grey tie, the image of the highly successful merchant banker detailed on the internet. Handsome, powerful, charismatic. And heartless?
Her knees weakening shamefully, swamped by the effect he always seemed to have on her, she got out thinly, ‘What are you doing here?’ and received her great-aunt’s curt rebuke.
‘Manners, Lily. Manners! Our benefactor has introduced himself to me and has been waiting for you.’ She heaved her solid tweed and twin-setted bulk out of the armchair. ‘Signor Venini has a proposal which, in my firm opinion, is the generous answer to all Life Begin’s future difficulties. Listen to what he has to say. It will mean changes.’ She smiled at the tall Italian. ‘But then nothing stays the same. Onward and forward—or stagnate!’
On which typical rallying cry the old lady excused herself and retired for the night, leaving Lily wondering what the strictly principled lady would say if she knew exactly why their ‘benefactor’
