‘But we can’t get in without a key.’
Charlotte reached into her bag without thinking. Anything to sort out the Piccadilly Circus situation on her doorstep.
From her own front door, she watched in dazed silence as Riccardo took charge. Events seemed to be moving at the speed of sound, men expertly checking things, stooping and peering under bits of furniture, then after what seemed like a lifetime Riccardo joined her by the front door wearing a sympathetic expression, which should have warned her of underhand dealings, but she was still too flummoxed to pay attention to that.
‘Now, here’s my idea,’ Riccardo said. ‘We go and get Gina from school and go somewhere…fun. And warm.’ He was liking what he saw. Charlotte in her work clothes, and not spitting fire at him, was incredibly appealing. She looked so damn young to be carrying a briefcase and wearing a stern grey suit. Her eyes looked enormous.
‘Fun? Warm? What are you talking about? And what’s going on in my house? Who were all those men?’ He was already ushering her into the back seat of a black cab, which seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and asking her for the name of Gina’s school. It was literally a short walking distance from the house, something for which Riccardo was deeply thankful, as he could sense Charlotte’s shock beginning to wear off.
It was peculiar, but he had always been intolerant of women who were demanding or argumentative. As far as he was concerned, his working life was high octane and stressful enough without his brief windows of relaxation being spent listening to a nagging harpy. The role of a woman was to soothe. In Charlotte’s case, however, he found himself oddly invigorated by her outspoken and frankly unwelcome disregard for his personal boundaries. Maddened, but invigorated. Right now he could see her edging towards a major outburst, but fortunately the black cab was pulling up outside the primary school.
Charlotte looked at him in exasperation, fully aware that the taxi driver was ready and willing to sit in on a long-winded rant with his meter running.
‘I’ll be ten minutes,’ she warned him. ‘And when I get back you’d better have a few answers for me!’
‘Yes, ma’am!’
Charlotte made an inarticulate sound of pure annoyance as she saw Riccardo and the cab driver exchange one of those infuriating eyes-to-the-heavens ‘who knows women?’ looks.
Yes, her life had been a bit boring, a bit lacking in something vital, but essentially peaceful. And peaceful had been good. Hadn’t it?
CHAPTER SEVEN
GINA was, predictably, on cloud nine at the unexpected turn of events that allowed her to skip her final class, which was maths. She was also, even more predictably, on whatever cloud was higher than cloud nine at the prospect of an afternoon with Riccardo.
Charlotte looked down at the bobbing black head and smiled. It was surprising how readily Gina had welcomed Riccardo into her life. She had been told that he had not been around because of circumstances, but that now he was, and so happy to have her in his life. And with absolute childish trust she had accepted the story. If she had been a couple of years older, Charlotte was sure that the situation would have been very different.
When she started thinking like that, when she witnessed her daughter’s excitement and realised how important a figure Riccardo was for her, she couldn’t suppress the surge of guilt that overwhelmed her. Who could blame Riccardo for his fury?
He was waiting for them in the taxi, and as soon as they were inside he turned to Gina and asked, smiling, where she would like to go as there was ‘some work’ being done at the house so they couldn’t go back there just yet.