Gianni's Pride (17 page)

‘I have no plans for you falling asleep on me just yet.’

Miranda snuggled in closer to him and lay her head on a chest that had the texture of satin and the consistency of granite. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh on his greyhound-lean toned body. She gave a voluptuous sigh of appreciation.

‘Well, I hate to break it to you, but I can hardly keep my eyes open. If I’d known you were coming I wouldn’t have stayed out so late last night, and the cider …’ She shook her head. ‘Next time I’ll give that stuff a wide berth.’

‘I am glad that you have not been bored in my absence.’ Last night he had spent the evening working until the small
hours so that he could be here this evening and now it seemed she had been out partying.

Miranda lifted her head to direct an enquiring look at his face. He did not sound at all glad. ‘Is something wrong?’

He sketched a tight smile. ‘Not with me. I’m not the one who’s been drinking.’

‘Hardly drinking,’ Miranda protested, stifling a yawn and missing the austerity in his deceptively soft voice. ‘I had two small glasses all night. Joe had—’

Gianni swore, his accent thickening as, grabbing her shoulders, he pushed her away far enough to allow him to direct an outraged glare at her bemused face. ‘Joe? You were with Joe last night?’

‘Yes, I was. Well, not just Joe, the rest of …’ She stopped and thought,
Why am I telling him this? Why am I acting as though I have anything to explain?

Suddenly the utter inequality of this situation she had got herself into hit home with a vengeance. She had actually been on the point of apologising and for what?

She’d done nothing to be ashamed of except shelve all her principles. Because she had fallen so deeply in love she was prepared to do anything, sacrifice anything, be anything to be with Gianni. All the burning shame and frustration bubbled to the surface as she lifted her chin to a belligerent angle and pulled free of his arms, shuffling away on her bottom until her back was digging into the carved headboard.

Gathering her anger around her, as well as a handful of the sheet, she pulled her knees up to her chest and met his hostile stare head-on.

‘I did spend the evening with Joe and I enjoyed it,’ she announced, enjoying her residence in the moral high ground.

He sucked in a furious breath and loosed a short, angry-sounding Italian epithet.

‘Is there anything wrong with that?’ she asked him, ignoring
the fact she knew it was dangerous to challenge him when he looked the way he did right now.

He vented a hard laugh. ‘
Dio
, if you have to ask me that …? Tell me,’ he asked with the triumphal attitude of someone producing the winning argument, ‘what if I had arrived last night and not tonight?’

‘I suppose you would have let yourself in with the key.’ It was still where it was the first time he had used it. ‘You’re good at turning up uninvited.’

His nostrils flared as he regarded her with a magnificent hauteur that his swashbuckling Italian ancestors would have applauded. ‘You are suggesting I am not welcome?’

‘I’m suggesting that you’ve got a damned cheek expecting me to sit here waiting for you,’ she told him frankly. ‘I went to a pub quiz with Joe. You’re acting as if I’ve taken an active part in some sort of … of … orgy! And for the record if I wanted to it would be none of your damned business. We’re not even in a damned relationship. This is just sex! Isn’t it, Gianni?’

The silence that followed her outburst was electric.

On anyone else she would have called the dark bands of colour that outlined the crests of his slashing cheekbones a blush.

‘You introduced the exclusivity clause,’ he reminded her heavily. And he had not even demurred—what the hell was wrong with him? Why was he letting her call the tune?

‘I don’t expect you not to talk with women, only not have sex … You can’t … just can’t think I would sleep with Joe …? Hell, the idea of anyone but you touching me like that is …’ She pressed a hand to her throat and gave an expressive little shudder before she could consider the wisdom of being this frank with Gianni—the last man in the world she would have imagined falling in love with and the only man now she could bear the thought of touching her.

Her guileless admission sent a stab of savage male satisfaction through Gianni. He gave a concessionary grunt and amazed himself by matching her frankness with some of his own.

‘I do not like the idea of you being with another man,’ he ground out between clenched teeth.

Miranda’s jaw dropped in shock.

‘Is that what you would call jealousy …?’ he asked her, the glimmer of self-mockery in his eyes mingled with genuine shock as he faced a fact he had been avoiding.

She tipped her head. ‘I think most people would think so.’

‘I think most people would also say we are wasting our limited time arguing.’ He opened his arms. ‘Come here.’

With a cry Miranda flung herself at him and felt his arms close like iron bands around her as he lay down, pulling her with him. ‘You are so innocent,’ he murmured, smoothing her hair with a tender hand. ‘The next time a man tries to ply you with drinks, remember,’ he warned darkly, ‘you can’t judge by appearances and many a wolf is disguised in sheep’s clothing.’

She breathed in the delicious musky male smell of his skin, enjoying the moment, but still confused by the dizzying change of mood she frequently experienced around him. ‘You’re a font of wisdom,’ she replied, her voice muffled by his chest.

‘I’m so glad I amuse you.’ He glanced down at her tawny head and murmured, ‘Now go to sleep.’

‘Actually I’m not feeling that tired any more.’

He placed a hand under her chin and turned her face up to him. ‘Is that so?’

‘I might not be able to sleep for hours and hours …’

‘Insomnia is a terrible thing … You know earlier when you mentioned orgies? I had in mind a very private version, just you and me …?’

She looked at him through her lashes, smiling wickedly. ‘I’m up for it if you are …’ Her hand slid down his body and she pretended shock. ‘Oh, gosh, you are!’

That first evening set a pattern that was repeated over the next three weeks, minus for the most part the major arguments. Gianni would turn up, generally without warning, two or even three times a week.

The time together was very intense. It frequently felt to Miranda as if they were trying to squeeze an entire week into a few hours. The Liam situation still remained a problem for Miranda. The first time she had mentioned the little boy’s name Gianni had just spoken across her.

It had happened three times before the penny had dropped. She felt foolish that it hadn’t earlier. She had foolishly assumed that he thought of her as more than a disposable lover, but she was wrong. He was still determined to protect Liam from her and she felt stupid for thinking otherwise.

The idea came to her when Gianni arrived while she was in the shower. It turned out to be a very long shower, but it made her think—was there any reason that she couldn’t be the one doing the surprising?

She planned her surprise for the next Monday. She knew his London address from an envelope he had left behind and, while she knew she would not be welcomed there because of Liam, she didn’t see how it would be a problem if she rang him from the hotel room she planned to book.

She caught the early train up, having taken up the offer made by a friendly neighbour to fill in for her at the cottage if she ever wanted a day off.

‘The dogs can stay with me and it’s no trouble for me to nip over the fence and feed the others.’

Miranda headed straight to the department store where she
had booked herself in for the full works—hair, a facial and make-up. At the suggestion of the woman doing her make-up she took advantage of the services of the store’s personal shopper. It seemed a good idea. She was wearing the only even vaguely dressy thing she had brought with her from home—the green skirt that Gianni loved—but he had seen her in it loads of times.

She wanted to show him that she wasn’t all jeans and boots—she wanted to knock his socks off!

When she’d walked into the department store she’d had her doubts about fulfilling this ambition, but when she walked out of the changing room three hours later she hardly recognised the slim, elegant figure in four-inch heels and green silk shift dress with the Peter Pan collar—apparently the fifties look was very in. She’d never manage to duplicate the sleek chignon they’d tamed her hair into, though the bag filled with samples of make-up made her hope she might be able to manage something similar herself … though maybe not the red lipstick.

I’m hot
, she decided modestly as she turned to get a look at her rear view in the full-length mirror, an opinion that seemed to be reinforced by the number of double takes and admiring looks she received during the short walk to her hotel.

When she walked into the hotel her confidence was on an all-time high that lasted right up to the moment she was inserting the swipe card into her room door, because at that exact moment Sam Maguire walked out of the door of the room opposite.

The woman was a hundred times more striking in the flesh than she looked on a TV screen. Not only slimmer, but taller and blessed with a figure that any catwalk model would have envied that didn’t come across on the screen—nor did her height or her great skin. Dressed in a nude-coloured lace
dress, high at the neckline, sleeveless and covered with intricate beading, she projected the sort of elegance that had not taken a team of professionals several hours to achieve. She projected happy, glowing confidence that couldn’t be bought.

As she studied Liam’s mother Miranda felt her confidence dissolve. Her outfit suddenly seemed contrived. She rubbed her hand across the red lipstick on her mouth. It was a look she couldn’t carry off; it was a cheap rip-off—she felt like a cheap rip-off.

The other woman turned and, intercepting Miranda’s stare, smiled faintly at her without, Miranda was sure, really seeing her, and glided down the corridor. She had seen her twin act the same way when on a visit to the States during the height of the popularity of the hit show Tam had starred in; she had seen her sister effectively filter out the stares of strangers that followed her.

Miranda, who had been mistaken for her famous sister during that trip and had hated the attention, had not been able to understand how her sister coped so casually with being the focus of attention.

When asked Tam had shrugged and said, ‘You get used to it.’ It had only been when the series had been cancelled and she had returned home that she had admitted it was the not being noticed that was difficult to adapt to.

Unable to resist the impulse that had her in its grip, Miranda pulled the card from the door and turned around to retrace her footsteps.

Is this how stalkers start?
she wondered as she slid into the lift beside Sam Maguire, knowing what she was doing was not rational but doing it anyway.

The door opened on ground level and Miranda followed the other woman into the foyer.

She sat down on one of the sofas and watched the older
woman, unaware as she did so of the admiring glances her own progress drew.

As she picked up a magazine to hide behind like some character in a spy movie the sheer lunacy of her actions struck Miranda. This wasn’t curiosity, it was madness. She crossed a hand in front of her face as she experienced a wave of shamed embarrassment.

What had she expected—that the other woman would do something that would reveal what it was about her that made Gianni seem willing to forgive her anything? Was he still in love with her?

Shaking her head in disgust, she laid the magazine down and got to her feet. As she moved back towards the lifts she saw the other woman pause by the reception desk. She was speaking to a tall, dark-haired figure.

A stab of instant recognition froze Miranda to the spot. The man with his dark head bent to catch what the tall blonde was saying was Gianni.

Her first anguished thought was that he couldn’t see her there!

Her second as she stared at the couple was,
They are way too close!

The gut reaction was quickly followed by,
Don’t be stupid, Mirrie
.

Considering their relationship, Gianni was bound to talk to her, and what she perceived as intimacy in their body language—the hand on his arm and the soft laughter—was just two people who knew one another well. While acknowledging this she couldn’t help tensing as Gianni bent and kissed the woman’s cheek.

Were they back together? Miranda shook her head and pushed away the thought, watching as they spoke for a moment longer before he headed towards the lifts, passing
within a few feet of Miranda but remaining oblivious to her presence, while the other woman headed to the glass-fronted entrance, pausing before she walked through the door.

M
IRANDA
, who had held her breath for the duration of the entire scene, released it with a shuddering sigh of relief as the lift doors closed on Gianni. She was ashamed of her voyeuristic behaviour and cringed at the thought of what Gianni would have thought if he’d seen her.

Well, he hadn’t, but he was here in the very hotel she had booked into; it seemed like a sign. Of all the hotels in London, he was here in hers.

She walked to the desk and adopted a flustered expression. ‘I have a meeting with Mr Fitzgerald but I’ve lost the paper with … Could you tell me his room number?’

Her heart raced with anticipation as she knocked on the door of the suite she had been directed to.

When a few moments later he opened the door Gianni looked at her with an utter lack of recognition before his eyes widened in shock.

‘Miranda?’ A mist of moisture broke out over his body as Gianni struggled to contain the emotions he had up to this point kept in careful check; emotions that her unexpected appearance here in his world, his territory, had shaken free.

This was the tipping point, he thought, recognising that he would never again be able to pretend that all their relationship was based on sex … He had feelings for this woman.
Dio
, why had she done this? Why could she not leave well alone? Why had she pushed it?