She had four hours before her flight. More than enough time to see Gio one last time and let him know exactly what he was chucking away.
CHAPTER NINE
EXHAUSTED, but determined, Issy walked into the domed reception area of the stunning glass and steel building on the banks of the Arno.
She’d figured out exactly what she was going to say to Gio and exactly how she was going to say it during the drive into the city. She would be calm, poised and articulate, and would keep a tight grip on her emotions. Under no circumstances would she dissolve into a gibbering wreck as she had at seventeen and let Gio see her utterly destroyed.
Because she wasn’t. She’d matured over the last ten years—enough to know that she had to accept the things she couldn’t change. However much it hurt. Because she couldn’t afford to spend another ten years pining over a man who had nothing to offer her.
‘Mi scusi, parle inglese, signor?’ she asked the perfectly groomed young man at the reception desk, praying he did speak English.
‘Yes, signorina. What can I do for you?’ he replied in heavily accented English.
‘I would like to see Giovanni Hamilton.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No, I’m…’ She stuttered to a halt, the heat spreading up her neck. ‘I’m a friend of his.’
The young man didn’t show by a single flicker of his eyelashes what he thought of that statement, but the heat still hit Issy’s cheeks as her hard-fought-for composure faltered. How many other women had come to his offices like this? Looking for something he wasn’t going to give them?
‘I need to see him if at all possible,’ she soldiered on. ‘It’s extremely important.’
To me, at least.
She wasn’t sure if the receptionist believed her or simply took pity on her, but he sent her a sympathetic smile as he reached for the phone on his desk. ‘I will contact his office manager. What is your name?’
‘Isadora Helligan.’
After conducting a brief conversation in Italian, the receptionist hung up the phone.
‘His office manager says he is at a site meeting, but if you would like to go up to the top floor she will contact him.’
The stylish young men and women working on state-of-the-art computers and at large drawing easels stopped to watch as Issy walked through the huge open-plan office on the sixth floor—and her composure began to unravel completely.
What was she doing here? Was this another of her hare-brained ideas that was destined to end up kicking her in the teeth? And how the hell was she going to stop herself dissolving into tears with a boulder the size of Mount Everest already lodged in her throat?
Given her tenuous emotional state, she was extremely grateful when Gio’s calm, matronly officer manager, who also spoke English, ushered her into Gio’s office and informed her that Signor Hamilton had interrupted his meeting at the site office and would be with her in about ten minutes.
Well, at least he wasn’t avoiding her.
Unfortunately Gio’s office, which took up one whole corner of the floor, was made completely of glass. As she sat down on the green leather sofa adjacent to his desk, and stared out of the floor-to-ceiling window at the Florence cityscape, she could feel the eyes of all his employees burning into the back of her neck.
After suffering from goldfish-in-a-bowl syndrome for an endless five minutes, she paced to the window and stared out at the Florence skyline, the enormity of the task ahead hitting her all over again.
Did she really want to do this? If Gio dismissed her feelings, the way he had done ten years ago, how much harder would it be to pick up the pieces of her shattered heart?
‘Issy, this is a nice surprise. Why don’t I take you to lunch?’
She lifted her head and saw Gio standing in the office doorway, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his suit trousers creased and flecked with mud. He looked rumpled and ridiculously pleased to see her. His impossibly handsome face relaxed into a sexy, inviting smile.
Mount Everest turned into the Himalayas.
How could she love him so much and not know whether he was even capable of loving her in return?
‘I don’t have time for lunch,’ she said, glad when her voice hardly faltered. ‘I dropped by to tell you I’m catching a flight home this evening.’
The smile disappeared, to be replaced by a sharp frown. He closed the door and walked towards her. ‘What the hell for?’