As she descended the central staircase, she could hear the party was in full swing. Perhaps thirty or forty guests – intimate and cozy, Cressida had called it – would be swilling the finest champagne, enjoying Maggie’s canapés, and swaying their hips to the jazz band Clint had organised for the affair. He and Cressida always argued when it came to music. She adored classical and opera. Clint preferred rock and roll, and jazz.
He’d won, on this occasion, for two reasons. The party was being held in his home, and Cressida was nothing if not well mannered. And because he’d told her more people would sing along to jazz style carols than classical, with all those poncy violins to confuse things. Besides, he’d added a third point, though it had been unnecessary. “The classical band will take up half the drawing room, meaning we’d need to spill into the ball room, and you’ve made it clear that you want it to feel ‘intimate’.”
Maggie paused, halfway down the stairs and cursed. Her phone was in her room, and she needed to keep it with her. She began to retrace her steps, smiling distractedly as she thought of her little May. A weekend with Rosie, Luca and their daughter Marianna would be enormous fun for the one year old, but Maggie was missing her already.
Phone in hand, she moved back down the stairs, and turned towards the party.
In the two years, since that wild, impassioned night with Dante Velasco, she had imagined that she’d seen him everywhere she went. That night was no exception. A dark head in the corner of the room had her freezing, her whole body going into overdrive as her eyes hungrily, hopefully devoured the man.
It was not Dante. And nor would it be. This was a small party in the middle of the English countryside. Hardly the place she was most likely to run into Spanish wine-making royalty. Besides, if she’d wanted to see him again, she could have. But his words had taunted her since that night: I am my own person. I do not want to compromise that with commitments – to a family. That is not my way. How furious he would be to think she’d fallen pregnant! That she’d had his baby! No, it was better that the past stayed in the past, even if it meant her body would always long for his.
“Hello, darling,” Clint crossed to her, his mischievous eyes twinkling in his face. “You look like Cressida has waved her magic wand over you.”
Maggie pulled a wry face. “Not the kind of thing I usually dress in, that’s for sure.”
Clint rubbed a hand across his chin. It had been, once. A long time ago. Maggie had been the quintessential socialite. So much so that he’d been worried she’d end up married to some stuffed-shirt banker at twenty one. He’d certainly not expected her to be a vegan, part-time caterer with a secret love-child by God only knew who at twenty six.
“You look lovely, anyway.”
“Thanks, dad.” She kissed his cheek. “It looks like more people than expected.”
He shook his head drolly. “No. Just several of Cressida’s family are the size of two or three.”
She laughed at his unkind observation, though it was accurate. As she looked around the room, she saw many portly, overweight family members, who had nonetheless valiantly squeezed themselves into the latest fashion week dresses.
“Except that one, who looks like she hasn’t eaten in a month,” he said with more irreverent humour, nodding to a waif-thin woman against the far wall. Painfully slender, with a face Maggie recognised from a billboard in the West End, and dressed in a barely there sheath of a dress. The woman was stunning, in that heroin addict way.
Maggie hooked an arm through her father’s and leaned closer, so that no one would overhear their conversation. After all, gossiping was bad enough, but being caught out was worse. “Who is she?”
“The God-daughter.” He lifted his brows heavenward. “A terrible bore, if you ask me.”
Maggie laughed, though she felt badly for it. “Oh, daddy, models are never boring,” she remarked sarcastically, watching as the tiny thing flicked her white blonde hair over her shoulder. “Does she always look, so…”
“Like she’s got a stick up her arse? Yes. I suspect there was a bad wind change when she was younger, and her face just got caught like that.”
Now Maggie did laugh, a beautiful sound, like bells in the wind. She looked up at her dad, with every intention of scolding him, but a movement caught her attention instead. A swift, searching turn of a dark head. A response, perhaps, to her laughter.
She shifted her focus, and felt like she’d fallen through a crack in the earth’s surface. The molten lava was licking at her heels.
It was him.
Unmistakable this time. How had she ever mistaken anyone else for him? Two years had passed, but he hadn’t changed a bit. He was wearing a dark suit and a slate grey shirt. No tie, open at the neck, to reveal a hint of the chest hair that she knew ran down his muscled wall of abdominals to the waistband of his pants.
Her face drained completely of color, and she gripped her father’s arm even tighter.
“Darling? Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” she nodded, her throat thick with feeling. She’d spent two years telling herself that her night with Dante Velasco had been a beat out of time. That it had been an aberration. An experience that would never, could never, be repeated. In fact, she’d even come to doubt the strength of what she’d felt. It seemed so unbelievable, to have fallen to his bed within minutes of meeting him. It was as uncharacteristic as it had been stupid.
Her pale blue eyes shone with distress, but the rest of her face was carefully kept blanked of emotion. “I just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“’Fraid not. All a bunch of Cressida’s uptight friends.” He pulled a face. “Shame that Rosie and whatshisface couldn’t make it.”
“Whatshisface?” She remarked with a small smile that
almost hid her inner turmoil. “Luca Abramo is one of the best known names in the country, thanks to the recent acquisition of that airline.”
“Oh, yes, well, I liked him anyway. And I always like your Rosie.”