not being stubborn.’ For ‘stubborn’ Holly read ‘selfish’. ‘I have a right to a life here, where I know everyone. I have my livelihood here. What would happen to this animal sanctuary if I left?’
‘I don’t think the animals would all pack their bags and leave home,’ Andy told her with brutal honesty. ‘It’s a very viable proposition. You would be able to sell it, along with the cottage and the land, and you’d get a good price for it. And there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…’
Holly looked at him warily. He had changed out of his grubby work clothes into a clingy checked top and black jeans. She didn’t like the way he was scrupulously inspecting the tips of his cowboy boots, avoiding her eyes.
‘Remember Marcus?’
‘How could I forget your broken heart?’ Holly asked wryly.
‘He’s back from Toronto,’ Andy said sheepishly. ‘We’ve been emailing. I didn’t want to make anything of it in case it didn’t work out but he’s packed in the job over there and has taken up a residency at Guy’s Hospital in London.’
‘And…?’ But Holly already knew what he was going to say. Andy and Marcus had been an item before Marcus had relocated to Toronto, on his own, because Andy had refused to go with him. Now he was being given a second shot at the relationship and he was going to move to London.
She would be on her own. She listened, smiling and nodding encouragingly as Andy told her all about his plans. They had seen a house. It would be perfect and he was thinking of teaching as a career. Her mind was suddenly in a daze. Without Andy, the sanctuary just wouldn’t be quite the same, yet she refused to see capitulation to Luiz as the only option.
If she removed that awful, swoony feeling she got whenever she was in his presence, then what was she left with? A man who was prepared to ‘do the right thing’. She couldn’t help but wonder, if she married him, how long he would carry on being prepared to do the right thing. He didn’t love her, so how on earth could he ever hope to remain faithful to her? Would part of any union between them be the tacit understanding that he could continue seeing other women, women like Cecelia, just as long as he didn’t flaunt his infidelities? Did he imagine that a sham marriage was better than no marriage at all?
Andy’s imminent departure seemed to raise more questions about her own situation than she felt she could reasonably deal with and she spent a restless night, only managing to fall properly asleep in the early hours of the morning and awakening, muddle-headed, to the sound of the dogs going wild in their compound.
In fact, hurriedly getting dressed and heading down the stairs, it dawned on her that the commotion went beyond the barking of dogs. Flinging open the front door, she was confused to see three cars parked at haphazard angles in front of the enclosures. Andy was not yet on the scene, but Claire and Sarah, two of the girls who helped out, were and they seemed to be in awkward conversation with a handful of men. Altogether, it was a bewildering scene, and as Holly remained in the doorway, trying to assimilate what was going on, she was spotted.
Like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a speeding car, she froze to the spot. Her sluggish brain computed that two more cars were speeding up the winding drive, doors opening even before the cars had pulled to a stop. She had no idea what was going on. Claire and Sarah were running full tilt towards her.
‘You dark horse!’ Claire was laughing. ‘You never told us that you were getting married to a billionaire!’
It dawned on Holly what was going on pretty much when the questions started being shouted at her, intrusive questions bombarding her like bullets fired from a gun. She yanked Claire and Sarah into the house, slammed the front door and got on the phone to Andy. She told him he wasn’t to come in; there were reporters everywhere.
He was thrilled, Holly a lot less so. Even Claire and Sarah, once she had briefed them on the situation, fell into a subdued silence. The cottage felt as though it was under siege. Holly drew the curtains in the sitting room so that the three of them were huddled like fugitives in the semi-darkness. Had they got the message and left? Or were they lurking outside like Rottweilers, ready to pounce? She didn’t know.
She had never experienced anything like this in her life before. Doing a full day’s work was out of the question. Never before had she questioned the origins of all those intrusive pictures she had seen in tacky magazines, where celebrities were caught in their least favourable moments. Now, experiencing the horror of the paparazzi in full pursuit, she felt a grudging sympathy for them.
Frustrated and angry, she left Claire and Sarah gossiping in the sitting room and headed for the kitchen, where once again she had to drop the roller blind before she could be guaranteed privacy for the phone call she had to make.
Luiz picked up on the third ring and Holly wasted no time telling him what was going on.
‘I can’t even go outside!’ she screeched down the line. ‘This is all your fault and you have to make them go away!’
On the other side of the Atlantic, Luiz was fully alert to the panic in her voice, despite the fact that the beep of his mobile had dragged him out of sleep. He was not in the slightest bit irritated by the phone call. Actually, he had been expecting it.
‘Paparazzi are the bane of my life,’ he told her, strolling across to the window from which he had an incomparable view of New York’s Central Park. Even at this hour, it seemed to be humming with life. This was a city where no one ever seemed to sleep and, whilst he had always found that an appealing trait, mirroring his own continual restlessness, he had been missing London and anticipating the next step in sorting out the situation that had landed on his doorstep with Holly.
‘I don’t care about that!’ Holly wailed. ‘I can’t get outside and I don’t know what to do! This is really the last straw, Luiz—why are they here? How did they even find out about us? They’ve been asking all sorts of questions about the pregnancy! Have you said something to them? They’re like bloodhounds! No, I take that back—that would be an insult to bloodhounds!’
‘Are you sitting down?’
‘You don’t sound in the least bit bothered!’ Holly ignored his question. Whilst she had been screaming like an enraged banshee, his tone of voice had been mild and unruffled. As it would be, she thought sourly, because he wasn’t the one having to endure a clutch of strangers with microphones hiding out in the shrubbery! Sooner or later, Claire and Sarah would have to go. They would be pursued, would probably love their fifteen minutes of fame and within seconds her story would have spread like wildfire through all the neighbouring villages and towns. That was how it worked in this part of the world. Lots of people knew her, had known her parents. She detested the thought of having her privacy invaded, her situation discussed and analysed on receipt of third-hand information. She was fully prepared to let Luiz take the blame for that occurrence.
‘I’ve had my fair share of nosy reporters. I’ve learnt how to deal with them.’
‘How?’ Holly practically shrieked.
‘Ignore them. If they ask any questions, just say “no comment”. They can only carry on hounding you for so long if you don’t give them any information to play with. Sooner or later they’ll get bored and give up.’
‘It sounds easier said than done,’ Holly imparted gloomily but she was no longer shaking like a leaf in a high wind. ‘And you never told me how they found me…’
‘I think we can call that
