Which also brought her neatly back to the reason why she was here at all.
Money. The one commodity which Sandro had in abundance, and in which she had never shown the slightest interest before. In fact, how they’d ever got to the stage of wanting to marry each other was a real enigma to her. She’d lived in a cheap bedsit and waited on other people for a living. Sandro’s homes were all in the very best places. His London townhouse was in Belgravia, for instance, and h
is elegant Italian apartment a mere stone’s throw away from Rome’s Colosseum.
Even this penthouse, this small-by-comparison apartment that she hadn’t known existed until today, was something out of the ordinary to a girl like her. But a handy apartment situated above his place of business was a reflection of the man’s wealthy lifestyle.
In short, Sandro came from top-drawer Italian stock and had never waited on another person in his life. He lived surrounded by luxury, he travelled in luxury, he wore luxury like a mantle that demonstrated his exclusivity.
Yet what had happened to this very exclusive man? He’d taken one look at the little waitress in a tiny backstreet Italian restaurant, and had seemed to fall flat on his very exclusive face for her.
She’d never understood it. But had never thought to question it because she’d been so young then, so innocent and naïve and eager to fall in love and be loved by this man who, to her besotted eyes, had been a god among men.
And he’d treated her with such tender loving care—wooed her in the old-fashioned way, with flowers and small presents and gentle kisses that had not been allowed to get out of hand even though they’d both known it was frustrating the hell out of both of them.
‘I want to marry you with respect. I want you to come to me wearing the white of a virgin and to know I am paying the correct price for the gift of that virginity.’
Oh, dear God, she thought painfully now. Beautiful words, warm and caring—enchantingly romantic words. Words that had given him idol status in her impressionable mind.
But it had been those same beautiful words that had finally ruined it all for them.
Would always ruin any hope they had of being anything but poison to each other.
Suddenly he spun back to face her. Their eyes caught, and she wondered if his own thoughts had been taking him down similar painful pathways because he looked so damned sad.
‘Did she feel anything?’ he asked. ‘Was she in any pain before she—?’
He meant Molly. He had been thinking about her sweet-natured baby sister, not herself. She shook her head. ‘It was instant, so they tell me. She would not have known much about it.’
‘Good.’ He nodded. Then, out of the dull, throbbing silence that powered down around both of them, a telephone began ringing somewhere in the room.
Sandro muttered something and strode off to answer it. ‘Si?’ he bit into the receiver—a sure sign that he still had not got himself totally in hand yet, because he had spoken in his native tongue.
He listened, his dark eyes snapping with irritation. ‘No—no,’ he said. ‘You must cancel. I am too involved here.’
Cancel? Cancel what? Joanna wondered, then, on a jolt of understanding, ‘Oh—no, Sandro!’ she protested. ‘Please don’t cancel your meetings on my account!’
But he was already replacing the receiver on its rest and turning back to her with an expression carved into his features that had her old friend panic skittering to life.
He looked like a man who had come to a decision, and that decision most definitely involved her. ‘Sit down,’ he invited, ‘while I pour us both a drink.’
‘But y-you told me this morning that you were very busy,’ she reminded him anxiously. ‘And—and I have to be leaving now anyway!’ she lied as her eyes darted over to the closed lift doors, as if they could be her saviours and not the source of one of her worst nightmares.
‘Leave without your five thousand pounds safely stashed away, cara?’ he mocked. ‘What a waste of all this anguish you have been putting yourself through by making yourself come to me.’
And it was absolutely amazing—Joanna made incredulous note. Today Sandro had swung himself through just about every emotion that existed. Now he had come full circle and was back to being the sharpeyed cool headed businessman again, while she—
Well, she was back to making choices, seeing Arthur Bates’ grotesque figure looming threateningly in front of her and knowing that once again she had to draw the same conclusion she had drawn each time she reached this same unpalatable point.
There was no choice.
She was caught, held fast in a trap of her own making. Her own fears, failures and wretched inadequacies the bait with which she had ensnared herself.
As if knowing all of this quite instinctively, Sandro turned away from her pale-faced defeated stance and moved over to a cupboard which, when opened, revealed a comprehensive selection of bottles and glasses.
No choice. Those two little words began to rattle with dizzying speed around her head until she had to give in to them and sit herself down—before she actually fell down. She chose one of the soft oatmeal linen-covered chairs, dropping into it and lifting a shaky hand to her aching eyes; that lingering ’flu virus, worry and lack of sleep were really beginning to get to her.
On top of all that, she mocked herself grimly, there was all the stress entailed in making herself come here; it was no wonder she was feeling drained to the very dregs of her reserves now.