CHAPTER TEN
LUCAPICKEDUPhis phone with the totally foreign sensation that he was floating on air, calling Olivia without a moment’s thought. She answered on the third ring.
‘How’s il Papa today?’
‘I haven’t seen him, yet,’ she responded, quick as a whip. ‘But if I do, I’ll tell him you said hi.’
‘Careful, he probably thinks I dance with the devil as much as the rest of Italy does.’
‘Then I’ll disabuse him of that mistaken belief, and tell him that you’re actually a bit of a guardian angel.’
What was that grinding sensation in the pit of his stomach? ‘Hardly,’ he demurred, but a smile crossed his face.
‘Are you home?’ Her simple question took on a breathy quality.
‘No.’ He flicked a glance at his Montblanc watch. ‘I’m calling to see if you can join me for a thing tonight.’
‘A “thing”?’ she repeated with obvious amusement.
‘My offer for Azzuri Bank has been formally accepted by the board. The announcement went out this morning, and to celebrate the news, and encourage a smooth transition, the previous owners and I will be hosting a party this evening. It’s going to be quite an event—high profile, lots of celebrities and, therefore, lots of paparazzi.’
‘And it would be helpful for you to have a wife on hand?’ she murmured. Was that strain in her voice? He wished he weren’t so attuned to her, so aware of her every mood.
‘Frankly, yes.’
She was quiet for a beat too long, but when she spoke, her voice was light-hearted enough. But was it sincere? Or forced, for his sake? ‘Then of course I’ll come. Where?’
‘I’ll pick you up from home.’ He didn’t give it a second thought, relief whooshing through him. ‘Can you be ready by eight?’
The amusement crept back into her words. ‘It’s two o’clock. How long do you think I’ll need?’
‘About thirty-seven seconds,’ he agreed. ‘You could pull on a hessian sack and outshine anyone else in attendance.’
The throwaway remark seemed to spark something in Olivia though. ‘Hmm, but there will be a heap of people, right?’
‘About two hundred.’
She let out a low whistle. ‘And you said celebrities?’
‘Sì. Clients of the bank—old Italian money, celebrities, you know the sort.’
‘So the dress code is—what?’
‘Conservative black tie.’
‘A ball gown?’
‘A dress of some sort,’ he responded. ‘Ideally something that will not be too complicated to remove as soon as we are home again.’
Olivia was quiet, and he hated that he couldn’t see her face, because he had no idea what that silence represented. She didn’t laugh at his quip.
‘Okay, I’ll see you at eight.’
A Cinderella moment might have been a fantasy for many women but, for Olivia, the longer she spent being transformed into a society wife, the more ice flooded her veins, until eventually, a little before eight that night, she met her reflection with sheer trepidation. Look back at her from the full-length mirror in the bedroom was a younger version of her mother.
She’d turned into what she’d always run from, what she’d been made to run from. At first, she’d planned to do her own hair and make-up, but it wasn’t as though she had much experience with either, so on a whim she’d asked Signora Marazzi to book her into a salon. The chic stylist assigned to her had spoken enough English to understand what Olivia had wanted, but somehow the instructions for ‘understated’ had still resulted in, frankly, a work of art. It was to the stylist’s credit, not Olivia’s, that her face was exquisitely made up. She wore barely any foundation—‘Because your skin is so glowing, we not want to cover it, eh?’ But her eyes had been made to look like a tiger’s, with delicate eyeliner slashing out at the corner, and mascara applied liberally to her naturally long lashes, so she felt as though she were a film star from the sixties. A hint of bronzer on her cheeks, and cherry red on her lips, a complete diversion from her usual, natural colour. Her blonde hair had been styled into voluptuous curls and pinned over one shoulder, the perfect complement to the dress she wore—one of the gowns that he’d given her in Venice.
Their honeymoon hadn’t been that long ago, and yet, she felt as though she were a different person. Luca was so new to her then, so unknown. So much had changed—between them, and within her. She was now an entirely different person, almost unrecognisable to herself.