The Italian's Pregnant Mistress(13)

Weird, she thought, that he would be the one caretaking her now, when it  had always been the other way around. Time certainly changed  everything. His bad old days had gone. She felt as though hers were now  about to begin and a wave of resentment flooded through her at the  thought that Angelo could step back into her life and manage to turn it  upside down.

'And sacrifice my pride? Let us both down?' She laughed shortly. 'I  don't think so.' Then, on a sigh, 'But he's playing with me, Jack. Let's  behave like adults and civilised adults can discuss the past without  getting emotional. And he enjoys watching me when I react. He never used  to be like that, like a cat toying with a mouse. He said he doesn't  intend to use his influence to our disadvantage and I believe him, but  he's happy to watch my discomfort every time I'm around him.'

'And you're uncomfortable because … ? Why don't you just tell him the truth?'

'No.' Why not? Because she didn't want to watch the scales drop from his  eyes. He might hate her for walking out on him, but if he saw her in  all her honest glory he would be contemptuous and she didn't want that.  Her pride again, but then who didn't have an abundance of that  particular vice? 'No, the answer is for you to deal with him. There's no  reason for him to call in a hurry, anyway. He doesn't have the excuse  of wanting to go through menus or anything like that and he's not going  to interrupt his work schedule to make pointless contact with us just  because he likes watching me squirm in his presence.'                       
       
           



       

'Then you don't have anything to worry about.' He dragged a chair over  with one foot and settled into a more comfortable position. 'So you can  sit there and listen about me. You haven't even asked why I turned up  here when I should have been down at the pub … '

His convoluted story of an enraged husband-'Never suspected a thing,'-a  child in the background-'I'll never trust a blonde again,'-and a  pleading woman-'I told her from the start that I was all about the  Fun,'-more or less managed to take her mind off the problem preying on  it like a lethal virus with a mission to destroy. But as soon as Jack  had left, walking back to his place after a couple of beers, she was  thinking again about Angelo, replaying everything he had said to her.

She couldn't believe that after all this time, and after all the changes  she had made in her life, she could still find herself hurtling back  into the past with such a lack of self-control. Back there, in the  sitting room, when he had been standing in front of her deliberately  baiting her with memories of when they were lovers, she had felt her  body melting. Yes, he had been goading her on. Yes, he had liked seeing  her rigid with discomfort. Yes, yes, yes! But she had still responded,  against her will, against all rhyme and reason, and it had been written  all over her face. No wonder he had been so insolently dismissive of her  so-called relationship with Jack.

The intervening week gave her plenty of time to brood over the unfolding  scenario. In fact, it became a close companion as she went through the  books, paid a visit to their bank manager, dealt with the steady flow of  clients and their demands. Daily stress had now linked hands with  simmering panic and, between the two, they were giving her a number of  reasons to lose sleep.

Jack, of course, was once again blithely sauntering through life,  cooking magnificently in the kitchen, experimenting with different  combinations and nurturing a new relationship which, he assured her, was  free of hidden complications. He should know. He had cunningly checked  out her house for contradictory signals, which apparently had been his  big mistake with Jodie, the Blonde with the Background.

His amusing stories at least managed to keep her on an even keel. Thank  God for him! He invited her to have opinions on everything, from his  cooking to his love life, never leaving her the option of slinking  quietly into her own thoughts and getting overwhelmed by them. Nor did  he press her to share them with him.

She had to wait until she was in bed to really indulge in the nightmare  of having Angelo around. If only she had never been recommended to  Georgina. If only she had not been greedy and decided that they could  handle a really big job. If only, if only.

But then, something whispered in her head, don't you feel alive for the  first time in years? That always seemed to be the little voice that had  the last whisper before she fell asleep and was the first to greet her  when she woke up in the morning.

But as the days dragged on and the phone remained thankfully free of  Angelo's dark, disturbing voice, she felt herself begin to relax a bit  more.

She had been right. There was no need for contact, at least not for a  while, not until they needed to make practical arrangements for delivery  of the food. They would have to discuss what staff Angelo and Georgina  needed and what staff they were going to employ themselves for an event  of that size. There was nothing to be gained in mentally rehearsing  conversations that would take place down the line and the grind of daily  life left her little time to add that further element of stress to the  repertoire already there and thriving.

So she didn't think about it. In fact, she so successfully convinced  herself that he was a distant bridge that she could happily defer  crossing until some unspecified time in the future that it was a shock  when, on a balmy Saturday evening, she answered the phone and heard his  voice down the line.

She sat down as her stomach took an immediate nosedive, quickly followed by the rest of her internal organs.

'What are you doing?' was the first thing he asked her, before she had time to get her head in order.

'What am I doing when?'

'Now.'

'Now? I'm … I'm … well … '

'Nothing,' he inserted helpfully. 'Good. Because I've decided to pay you a little visit.'

'It's nearly six-thirty, Angelo! Jack and I … have plans … '

'Have you? That's funny. I telephoned him at his house. You remember his  number is also on your business card? Someone called Robbie answered  and informed me that he's house-sitting for the weekend because Jack's  somewhere in Yorkshire until Monday. You mean you didn't know?' Angelo  clicked his tongue sympathetically. 'Very bad to be kept in the dark  about your boyfriend's movements … '                       
       
           



       

Yorkshire. The wretched cricket match which he had been determined to see with his mates.

'Oh, yes,' she said weakly. 'Now I remember.'

'So I thought that I would rescue you from an evening of solitude.'

'Don't you have more pressing plans for a Saturday night?'

'Georgina is … not around, shall we say? So I'll be with you in, say, half  an hour. We're going to go and buy some food and then you are going to  show me what you can do with it.'

'Jack is the real genius when it comes to the food,' Francesca wittered  on as a sickening alternative to Saturday night in presented itself.  'I'm the lackey, really. Chopping and stuff.'

'Chopping's a good start. And don't put yourself down, Francesca. I have  every faith in your talents and I'm curious to see what you can  produce. I will see you shortly.'

He seemed to have become very talented at abrupt conversations because  he didn't give her time to voice any more objections. In fact, he barely  gave her time to brush her hair and stick on some make-up and then the  doorbell was ringing and there he was. Cool, casual and impossibly  good-looking. And on her doorstep. And yes, she was horrified to see him  standing there. But she was also … shamefully excited.

'I've already brought the wine.' He handed her two bottles of very  expensive stuff which she dumped on the table in the hallway before  grabbing her bag.

'This is just crazy.' Her heart was thumping madly as she looked at him.  He was wearing a casual pair of cream trousers and an open-necked  designer polo shirt. Against it, his skin was bronzed and vitally  attractive and she didn't want to stare so she focused on the logo on  his shirt instead.

'What's wrong with crazy some of the time?' Crazy? It didn't feel crazy  to him. It felt like the sanest thing he had done in a while. Georgina,  he mused, would have been very hard pressed to agree with his  self-diagnosis. She, too, had called him crazy when he had spoken to her  three days before. A lot else, as well. In fact, crazy had been one of  her more gentle remarks.

'You can't do this,' she had told him, over her spritzer in his  apartment. 'You can't just break off this engagement, not when  everything's been planned and invitations have been sent out!'

But after the tears and the pleading had come the inevitable rage. And,  at that stage, crazy had been one of her less flamboyant descriptions of  him.