Then he was moving, making her eyes instantly wary as he strode towards her, right past her, to angrily round his desk. His hand snaked out, catching up the telephone, while his other hand remained tensely at his side, the handkerchief bandage slowly staining red.
‘I want a print-out of all calls to this office on this date a year ago,’ he snapped at whoever was on the other end of the line. ‘And while you are about it you will bring in last year’s appointments diary.’ Slam. The telephone landed back on its rest.
Joanna blinked, still staring, still stunned by the incredible display of emotional fury from this man who was usually so controlled. It was awful, she felt awful for being the one to cause it And it only got worse because, quite suddenly, he dropped into the chair behind his desk then slumped forward, both hands going up to cover his face.
Once again the desire to say sorry was hovering precariously close to the edge of being spoken. She had truly believed that he was no longer interested in anything that happened to her. It had caused her so much hurt at the time—oh, not only because of her own wretched feelings of desertion, but also for Molly. Molly, who had thought the world of Sandro.
Joanna had hurt him with her bitter and twisted view of everything life had to throw at her. Now she wanted to go to that desk and put her arms around him, hold him—offer him some kind of consolation for the shock she had just dealt him.
But she couldn’t because her own maimed senses wouldn’t let her. So she turned and moved away a step or two, then just stood with her arms tightly folded across her body and her eyes grimly lowered from the temptation of Sandro, who looked still so in need of comfort.
The tentative knock which came on the office door before it hesitantly opened was actually a relief.
Sandro straightened in his seat, face still pale, features drawn, eyes so black they wrenched at Joanna’s useless heart strings.
He didn’t look at Joanna but honed his attention directly onto his secretary. ‘The print-out you asked for,’ she murmured, hurrying forward to place it down on the desk in front of him. ‘And last year’s appointments diary...’
Sandro began scanning the print-out while Sonia hovered warily, uncertain what was expected of her—she was curious, curious enough to keep sending Joanna furtive glances that scurried away before their eyes could clash.
‘I was away in Rome throughout the whole month of March,’ Sandro sighed out eventually.
Sonia nodded. ‘I remember,’ she said, and heat bloomed into her cheeks.
Guilty heat? Knowing heat? I-remember-because-we-were-there-as-lovers kind of heat? Jealousy licked a sandpaper-rough stroke along Joanna’s backbone, stiffening it, leaving it tight and tingling.
‘So, who took over here?’ Sandro demanded.
‘Luca brought his own secretary here with him,’ Sonia explained, then dared to ask the big question. ‘Why? Was there some kind of oversight?’
‘Oversight?’ Grimly Sandro repeated the word and let loose a short huff of a laugh. ‘You could say that,’ he clipped out, then, heavily, ‘OK, Sonia you can leave this with me now.’
A dismissal in anyone’s books. If they were lovers, Sandro obviously knew how to keep the two relationships separate.
‘Discretion’ was the word he had used himself.
Sonia walked stiffly out of the room, leaving another fraught silence in her wake. ‘Come here, Joanna,’ Sandro commanded grimly.
But that awful, blinding, bitter jealousy was now licking its way around her whole body and she couldn’t move a single muscle. Didn’t dare even glance at him, because if she did she would be spitting out filthy accusations, like, You’re sleeping with that woman while you’re still married to me, you bastard!
‘Joanna...’
Oh, God, why had she come here? Why had she set herself up for all this grief? Grabbing desperately at some hint of composure, she walked forward until once more the flat of her hips touched the desk.
‘Read,’ he commanded, stabbing a long finger at a single line of type on the paper print-out.
It was a list of some kind. Frowning, she leaned a little closer so she focused on what was written. ‘Female asking for Mr Bonetti,’ it said. ‘No name. No message.’
‘This is a computer print-out of all telephone calls that come into this suite of offices,’ he explained. ‘Look at the date. Look at the time. That was you calling me, wasn’t it?’ he suggested gently. ‘On the day of Molly’s accident you called here, and in your shock and confusion when you could not get through to me personally you forgot to leave your name or mark the urgency of why you were calling, didn’t you?’
Had she? Was that what she had done? She frowned, trying to remember, but found that she couldn’t. That dreadful day was very hazy. She could barely remember anything about it except trying to contact Sandro.
‘And see this...’ he continued levelly, turning the old appointments diary to face her next. The whole of the month of March was scored through with a pen. ‘ROME’ it had printed in big letters. ‘I was not in the country. I was, in fact, away for the whole month.’
‘You don’t have to go to these extremes to convince me it was an oversight,’ she murmured uncomfortably. ‘I believe you without it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘You’re not a liar,’ she tagged on with a jerky shrug of one slender shoulder. ‘Your honesty and integrity have never been in question for me,’ she felt constrained to add.