* * *
Fran gazed at the packed-up boxes of her possessions in her West Coast rental apartment, ready for freighting back to the UK, her emotions mixed. She had finally taken another research post—a temporary position at her old Cambridge college, which had delighted her mother. Fran’s own feelings were less certain—ultra-prestigious though Cambridge would always be, it seemed to be a step back into her past, into the life, the world, she’d come from.
In America she felt freer—free to be only Dr Fran Ristori, not La Donna Francesca as well... Free to take off on an impulsive road trip with a guy she’d met at a hotel—one of the staff there.
In her head sounded the affectionate nickname Nic had bestowed upon her—Doc Fran. Yes, with him she had been that, too, and it had endeared him to her. She felt her lips twitch in a fond smile at the memory.
Emotion swirled again inside her, disquieting. Leaving America would set the final seal on that impetuous romance. Was that truly what she wanted? In the months that had passed since her time with Nic she knew that for all her admonitions to herself she’d never quite been able to let go entirely of wondering about him—wondering whether she should, after all, attempt to get in touch.
The question had hovered at the edges of her mind, however many times she’d told herself it was best to accept it had been a fling, nothing more than that. Wonderful, memorable, joyous—but only for the duration of their road trip. It couldn’t be anything more.
Yet the question came again, and her hand, she realised, was hovering over her phone.
Maybe I just want to say goodbye. To let him know I’m leaving the States. To reach closure. Closure? Or...?
Was that the reason? She didn’t know. Didn’t want to hear the voice inside her head telling her that if Nic had wanted to get in touch with her, if he had not wanted to accept it was over, then he’d had plenty of opportunity to do so. He could have found her through her university, easily.
But he hasn’t, has he? He’s moved on—clearly and obviously moved on.
But something plucked at her all the same...that flickering emotion she knew she should quell.
As if of its own accord, her hand picked up her phone. She found the hotel’s number, dialled it...
Two minutes later she was disconnecting again, emotions twisting inside her. The receptionist, polite as she had been, had been adamant that there was no Nic Rossi working at the Nevada hotel, nor at any Falcone hotel.
Fran stared blankly into space. A hollow feeling was forming inside her. Nic had left the Falcone with no trace.
He could be anywhere.
And ‘anywhere’ was the same as ‘nowhere’. She felt the hollow inside her increasing. In practical terms she had no idea where he was, or how to find him.
She stared at her empty living room, filled only with sealed boxes. Just as sealed as, she realised, the time she had spent all those weeks ago with Nic.
Sealed into the past.
Where it would have to stay.
* * *
Nic was in London, at his residence in the Falcone Mayfair.
The hotel was an elegant, double-fronted Georgian town mansion, occupying the south side of a fashionable square, and its possession had meant he had been content to leave the rival Viscari property in nearby St James’s in the Viscari portfolio during the brief period of daggers-drawn co-ownership last year.
As it happened, though, he would be visiting the Viscari St James’s this very evening, attending as the plus-one of the up-and-coming designer responsible for the Viscari’s lavish new roof garden, the launch of which was the occasion for a glitzy party.
Nic, obviously, given the acrimony between himself and Vito Viscari over Falcone’s short-lived corporate raid last year, was not on the extensive and exclusive guest list, but that did not trouble him. He merely wanted to evaluate Lorna Linhurst’s horticultural design skills with a possible view to using them on his own hotels—as he had already intimated to her.
What he had not yet intimated to her was the fact that he was considering taking a more than professional interest in her.
He shifted restlessly, tugging on the cuffs of his tuxedo, his mood just as restless. Maybe it was time he had another affair. The months since his road trip with Fran had been intense and full on, his priority focussed on opening the brand new Falcone Manhattan. It had absorbed him completely, along with his already ongoing programme of acquisitions, and R&R had taken a back seat. But now, surely, it was time to finally move on from Fran.
Lorna Linhurst co
uld be just the woman to move on with. Divorced, in her late twenties, highly attractive, a good figure—what was not to like? Not to desire?
He told himself that again as they made their way into the Viscari St James’s a short while later. Lorna was appealingly dressed in a dark red evening gown, her chestnut hair carefully styled. She seemed a little tense this evening, but that was to be expected. She was showing off her abilities to a potentially highly valuable client.
Yes, there was nothing to object to in her—she was intelligent and very attractive. Except she wasn’t Fran.