weeks in advance. The parting was amicable with gentle words of regret, a lavish gift—a car, jewellery, an exotic holiday—according to the lady in question’s preferences.
But never like this. Never!
And never before he was ready to end it!
Slamming his empty glass down on the leather-topped desk, he scowled at the spines of the books on the shelves, not seeing them. The anger that raged through him in a roaring torrent demanded release.
And where in the name of all that was sacred had that proposal of marriage come from? Porca miseria—his mind must have gone walkabout! The words had slipped out without any direction from his brain, shocking him.
His hands balled into fists and his jaw clenched until his teeth ached. She had simply ignored what he’d said. Not by a flicker of those fabulous lashes had she revealed that his monumentally crazy offer of marriage had made the slightest impact,
Many women would have killed their own grandmothers to hear those words from his lips!
Bianca Jay had simply looked through him and walked away!
No one, but no one, humiliated Cesare Andriotti and got away with it!
His ebony brows flared as he bit out an expletive in rawly vented Italian. Then, collecting himself, he dragged in a deep breath, meant to be calming but not quite hitting the mark.
He had wanted Bianca Jay from the very first moment of seeing her. She hadn’t been a pushover but he’d got what he’d wanted from her in the end. But somehow, on a level he’d never encountered before, it had been far more complicated than the slaking of physical lust within the confines of a sophisticated affair.
The beautiful, elusive Bianca had begun to intrigue him. In bed they shared a mind-blowing ecstasy but out of it she kept him at a distance, never letting him get to really know her.
She’d flatly refused to move in with him and put their relationship on a semi-permanent basis, and had made it abundantly plain that she would accept none of the gifts he had instinctively wanted to shower on her, had refused to speak of her background, her family, easily and prettily changing the subject whenever he’d brought it up.
And although he’d increasingly wanted to know what made her the woman she was he’d respected her need for privacy, battening down his ever-growing desire to solve the mystery of her, pin down the elusiveness that was part of her tantalising contribution to their relationship.
Impatiently sloshing another inch of whisky into his glass, he took it to his desk and extracted a slim notebook from one of the drawers. Riffling through it, he found the number he wanted.
What had happened this evening had changed all the rules. Respecting her privacy was now completely out of the frame.
Sitting on the comfortably upholstered swivel chair, he reached for the phone, his shoulders relaxing, his eyes darkening and narrowing as his anger hardened into something darker, needier.
Don’t get mad, get even!
‘It’s not going to work, is it?’ Jeanne said decisively as she stirred the third spoonful of sugar into her breakfast coffee.
Dressed this morning in a light tweed skirt and cotton blouse, every iron-grey curl in its designated place, she looked what she was: sensible, stolid and utterly reliable. Sighing, Bianca had to agree with her aunt’s blunt statement. In the past she had coped alone with her mother’s growing excesses, her startling mood changes, but after the overdose episode she had been really frightened.
For the first time ever she’d sought outside help in the shape of her widowed Aunt Jeanne. Her amber eyes misted with tears as she recalled her aunt’s immediate offer. ‘She can stay with me in Bristol while you wind things up that end and find somewhere else to live. And I’ll spend the next week or two with you until she’s feeling more herself, keep an eye on her while you’re out at work. From the sound of it she shouldn’t be left too much on her own.’
Bianca had grasped the offer with both grateful hands. The lease on this house expired in a couple of months. Hunting for a flat she could afford, holding down her demanding job, deciding what to do about the furnishings—all while coping with her mother’s problems—would have been a nightmare.
Newly discharged from hospital, feeling frail and needy, Helene had listlessly agreed. But on the evidence of last night’s return to her former addictions, alcohol and men, it was obvious that she wouldn’t settle for five minutes in her sister’s tidy little semi in a quiet road on the outskirts of Bristol.
‘I love my sister but I can’t take the responsibility; it wouldn’t be fair on either of us,’ Jeanne admitted. ‘What she needs is professional help—one of those fancy clinics you read about, where film stars and footballers go to get themselves sorted out.’
‘If only!’ Bianca gave a wry smile as she passed her aunt a rack of fresh toast and sat to pour herself some desperately needed strong hot coffee. ‘She refuses to see her GP about her problems, mainly because she won’t admit she has any. But she’d probably go for a fancy, up-market clinic. It would suit her image!’ She took a grateful sip of the aromatic brew in her cup and added prosaically, ‘Unfortunately, there’s no way we could afford that sort of treatment.’
‘Nothing left of the settlement?’
‘That went years ago.’ Bianca lifted her shoulders in a weary shrug. Her mother’s divorce settlement had been recklessly spent on the latest designer clothes, lavish parties, an endless supply of drink.
‘Then ask your father to pay for treatment. He’s extremely wealthy, by all accounts. And it’s mostly his fault she’s the way she is.’ Jeanne spread butter lavishly on her toast. ‘You know, I always used to envy my little sister. When she married Conrad Jay I thought she had everything. Wealth beyond her wildest dreams—a bit “new money”, but you can’t have everything. At least his financial clout bought their way into the most glittering social circles. She was so beautiful and I was plain. But now I’m glad—about being plain.’ She took a healthy bite. ‘If you’ve never had any looks you can’t lose them and get all bitter and twisted about it. That said, you should approach your father for help.’
‘No.’ The refusal was instinctive. Seeing Jeanne’s quick frown, Bianca knew she had to elaborate and excuse her apparent stubbornness.
Although the sisters had kept in touch through the years, via the occasional phone call or letter, their lives had barely touched. There was so much her aunt didn’t know. And because Helene was sleeping off the effects of last night’s binge and the resulting aftermath, when she’d thrown her sister’s offering of a mug of sweet cocoa—‘To help you settle, dear’—at the sitting-room wall then had hysterics, Bianca and Jeanne could at least have a frank and full discussion.
‘I only met my father once. I was twelve,’ Bianca explained. ‘It was New Year’s Eve and he was visiting London—he was living in the States at that time. He wanted to see me—he’d never shown an atom of interest before. I went to his hotel hating him, not because he’d never so much as acknowledged my existence, but because of what he’d done to my mother.’
She leaned back in her chair, remembering that dreadful day. ‘A week before, something had gone wrong for Helene—don’t ask me what, I can’t remember—but she’d started drinking and getting maudlin and told me I was old enough to be told what a louse
