Visconti's Forgotten Heir(28)

He had planned to quiz her about it over lunch, but when he’d felt her weaving her dangerous spell around him after she’d come out of the shower he’d needed an hour or so’s breathing space, had thrown himself into a working lunch instead. He’d planned to get the truth from her in his office that afternoon, but just as he’d been about to Lana’s call had come through....

Now, as he drove back through the building rush-hour on the busy motorway, with the car’s air-conditioning system on full to counteract the heat of the day, he sat grim-faced, going over all the things he’d wondered about and the things he now knew.

He’d begun to suspect that if Magenta’s memory lapses weren’t faked then she must have embarked on the same route to destructive self-indulgence as her mother after she’d walked out of his life. That the problem had to be alcohol-related...or something worse....

His foot hit the brake pedal, averting a near collision with the car in front, which had suddenly changed lanes without warning, nearly taking off his front bumper. With a hard decisiveness he threw on his indicator switch and pulled out round the offending vehicle, giving himself a clear run ahead.

He’d been certain he was right. In fact by the time he’d reached his London office he had been convinced of it, he remembered scathingly, as the big car gobbled up the miles, bringing him ever closer to her. But what his colleague had told him in the privacy of that office had made him sick to his gut, chilling him to the bone. Never in a thousand years could he have suspected what he now knew.

* * *

Magenta had stumbled upon the little wooden seat purely by accident. It was situated between the willows and a little stone footbridge spanning a brook, tucked out of sight of the house behind a trellis of wild honeysuckle.

A lovers’ seat, she decided. And could no more resist sitting down than she could resist pulling her gypsy-style white blouse off her shoulders and tilting her face to the sun as she soaked up the scent of the flowers and the sound of the brook, the tangible warmth of the late-summer afternoon.

The tranquillity was like balm to the thoughts that had been troubling her ever since Andreas had left and she had crept upstairs to take a proper look at that book.

How could she have forgotten that he had given it to her? she wondered as she waved a rather inquisitive bee away from her hair. It was a special edition that he had bought for her, knowing how much she liked Byron’s poetry, and he must have struggled to find the money for it on his meagre salary. But why had he not reminded her of it? Not said something? Because surely he must have thought it odd? And what was it doing on his bookshelf, and in such a broken state, when he had clearly meant her to have it?

Willing herself to fill in the gaps, she finally gave up and with a sigh of defeat decided to return to the house.

Her heart gave a wild leap as she came out from behind the trellis and almost collided with Andreas.

Tieless, as it had been when he had left the house earlier, his white short-sleeved shirt was half unbuttoned now. His light grey suit jacket was slung casually over one shoulder, and Magenta couldn’t help but notice how the superb cut of his trousers emphasised his tight, lean waist and the flat stomach that was testimony to his punishing daily workouts in the pool.

‘Magenta.’

She could detect an odd quality to his voice above the gurgling of the brook, even in the way he spoke her name.

‘I saw Mrs Cox coming out of the house and she told me I’d probably find you here.’

There was a stark look about his face that released a little dart of unease in her. However, with a broad sweep of her arms, she uttered, ‘Well, here I am!’

The movement brought that ice-blue gaze down over her bare, softly tanned shoulders and a crease appeared between the masculine eyebrows as his eyes came to rest on the little scar at the base of her throat.

Magenta wished she’d worn something to hide it. That she hadn’t left it to chance to get back inside the house unseen in her overwhelming need to feel free of any jewellery or other encumbrances.

Her throat worked nervously as she asked, ‘Did you have a successful meeting?’ She had presumed it was a meeting. Why else would he have shot off the way he had if something urgent hadn’t cropped up?

‘Very successful,’ he emphasised. ‘And fruitful.’

So why didn’t he look happier? she wondered. He looked hot and dishevelled, as though he had been battling with every juggernaut that had dared to use his stretch of the motorway, and from the creases in his trousers he had been sitting in his car for a long time. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop him from looking utterly desirable. So desirable that she had to look away, so that he wouldn’t guess at the sudden tightening of her breasts and the almost-painful throb beneath the stretchy material of her dusky-pink cropped leggings.