Lucy had duly lost her job, and although Jack had not he had left anyway, using the opportunity to work for himself at long last. But at least they had stayed together, thought Kate, even if Jack now spent the majority of his life abroad. And Kate had been able to offer her sister a job as her assistant at just the right time. That was the pay-off for being neighbours as well as workmates, she realised. As sisters, she and Lucy looked out for one another.
She looked around Lucy’s flat, which, with Jack helping to pay for it, was much larger and more opulent than her own.
‘How’s things?
’ she asked absently, still unable to get Giovanni out of her head.
Lucy stared at her. ‘Tell me about him,’ she said suddenly. ‘This man who’s making you tremble like that.’
Kate looked down with surprise at her unsteady hands. What could she say? That he had the coldest, proudest and most beautiful face she had ever seen? And eyes so startlingly blue that the summer sky would have paled in comparison? She shrugged, but her shoulders felt unusually heavy. ‘There’s nothing to tell. Like I said, I don’t know him. I’ve barely exchanged half a dozen words with him. He’s Lady St John’s godson—’
‘Mmm. So, he’s well-connected, then?’ murmured Lucy.
‘Oh, yes. And he’s Italian—or, rather, he’s Sicilian.’
‘There’s a difference?’
‘That’s exactly what I said! And apparently there is. A huge difference.’ Kate thought of his quietly furious response to her innocent question. ‘His family owns the Calverri silver factory. You must have heard of them.’
Lucy’s eyes widened. ‘You are kidding?’
‘No, I’m not. He’s rich. He’s handsome.’ Kate shut her eyes and forced herself to see facts rather than fantasy. He is curiously unsmiling and there is an impenetrable barrier between him and the rest of the world, she thought with an instinct which seemed to come from nowhere.
‘He sounds perfect.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ said Kate lightly. ‘For someone who doesn’t mind a man who looks arrogantly down his beautifully patrician nose at you!’
‘Hmm! So you’ve got it bad!’
‘Not really. A passing fancy,’ answered Kate tightly. ‘And anyway—I’ll never see him again. Why should I?’
Never. It sounded so brutally final. Oh, what magic had he woven during that tense, short meeting? she wondered despairingly.
She had gathered up all her belongings and left the house in an unseemly rush, driven by some self-protective instinct which was quite alien to her. She had just known that if she didn’t get out of the St John mansion quickly she risked making a very great fool of herself.
Because for one brief, mad moment as he and his godmother had accompanied her into the hall she had actually thought about asking him out!
Oh, not in the kind of ‘would you like to go out with me?’ way which was perfectly acceptable nowadays. Some of her more liberated girlfriends wouldn’t have hesitated.
No, Kate would have been more subtle than that.
She could have said that she would be interested to see the latest Calverri silver catalogue on behalf of one of her clients. And that wouldn’t have been a lie—she could think of at least half a dozen people who would doubtless love to choose something lavish and expensive from the latest glossy Calverri brochure.
But she had recognised in him a steely intelligence—and an innate ability to see what might lie behind a request such as that. He wasn’t stupid. Women must react to him like that all the time—hence the contempt for her, which he had barely bothered trying to conceal.
So she had shaken his hand and given him a cool smile, and hoped that her body language hadn’t betrayed the shimmering thrill of pleasure she felt to have his fingers closing around her hand.
She frowned as Lucy went to make some coffee, walking over to the window where the Thames glittered by in tantalisingly close proximity.
Flats like this didn’t come cheap. Her own had been bought with the proceeds of her work after her salary had started surpassing even her wildest dreams. And everyone knew that you should put money into property.
She had the perfect job. The perfect home. And the perfect life.
So stay away from him, she told herself fiercely, and then she remembered that their paths were never going to cross again.
Thank God. Because she wasn’t sure just how strong her will to resist him would be if they were to meet again.
Crazy.