Visconti's Forgotten Heir(53)

‘Why?’ Magenta enquired poignantly, looking up into his strong dark features.

‘Because of the way you left. Without a word or any prior warning. Without even talking it over with me personally first.’

‘I left my formal resignation. I didn’t feel that any further explanations were necessary.’

She heard him take a breath before he came and rested his hand, like her, on the top bar of the fence, his body half turned towards her. He was so close that she could feel the pull of his dark chemistry evoking dangerous sensations in her, making her pulse quicken, her body yearn to lean closer to him.

‘Is this Theo?’ A jerk of his chin indicated the trotting pony and its little rider.

‘Yes.’ She couldn’t even look at Andreas as she said it.

‘He looks like he’s been born to it.’

Magenta uttered a tight little laugh, clinging to the fence with both hands now as if it was the only thing holding her upright. She remembered going riding sometimes with Andreas in the distant past, how she hadn’t really taken to it, while he had ridden as proudly and confidently as his ancient forebears.

‘Like you were born to drive men mad, Magenta.’

He had turned towards the field and was following the little boy’s progress with studied absorption—as if he hadn’t just landed a comment that had set her veins on fire.

‘Then that’s their misfortune,’ she said swiftly, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. All her life, because of the way she looked, she had had more than her fair share of masculine attention.

‘Yes.’

She didn’t even need to ask to realise he was referring to himself. For a few moments they stood in silence, both gazing ahead at the pony, which was walking now, being led around in a figure of eight.

‘I want you to come back,’ Andreas said at length.

Magenta sent him a sidelong glance. ‘As your PA?’ When he didn’t answer, she thought, Of course. What else? She’d probably caused him quite a bit of inconvenience, walking out as she had. ‘Why?’ Her eyes were wounded, wary. ‘To save you all the bother of having to find someone else? I thought you would have replaced me—’ she clicked her thumb and middle finger together ‘—just like that.’

The strong jaw tightened, as though he was restraining an element of impatience. ‘I know you won’t let me help in any way, no matter how much you might need it, but I’d like you at least to have the benefit of earning the salary you expected to be earning after I prevented you from getting the job you’d set your heart on.’

‘Why? Because your conscience is probing you now and you suddenly feel responsible for me? I don’t want your pity,’ she breathed, with an excruciating ache deep in her chest.

‘That’s good,’ he returned. ‘Because I wasn’t offering any. But as your employer...well, let’s just say I acted more than a little unethically.’

‘Unethically?’ She gave a dry, brittle little laugh. ‘And as my ex-lover?’

He didn’t answer. After all, what could he say?

She saw him rest his elbows on the fence, his hands—those hands that had the power to do what no other man could ever do to her—clasped absently together in front of him.

‘I convinced myself you owed me something, Magenta,’ he admitted surprisingly, ‘and as a consequence of that I find myself owing you.’

‘If that’s meant as an apology,’ she uttered, ‘forget it. I have.’ That couldn’t have been further from the truth. But her pride would never let her admit to him how much her folly in imagining she could work for him—for whatever reason she had convinced herself she needed to—had cost her emotionally. Far, far more even than financially.

‘I’m afraid that doesn’t fall within my rules of conduct as a human being. You said you found it difficult getting a good job because of the discrimination you encountered when you told prospective employers what had happened to you, and I robbed you of a chance without even knowing about it, or what you had been through. But if you hadn’t had that setback which sent Rushford packing—I’m assuming that’s what happened—then without a shadow of a doubt, with your single-minded ambition and determination, you would have been enjoying all the status and financial rewards of a top model now.’

Sucking in her breath, Magenta stared at the pony that was now trotting again with its animated little rider. Theo had only just spotted the tall man who was talking to her and he kept looking towards Andreas, completely distracted from whatever it was the instructor was saying to him.