‘I have to take care of the stall. There’s no one else to do it.’ Jo lengthened her steps to walk outside as fast as possible. The back of the church hall housed the bins and the occasional smoker, but it was at that moment quiet and empty. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get your text. I forgot to charge my phone.’
‘If I can’t even reach you on the phone,’ Gianni shot at her, ‘what sort of marriage is this?’
‘Obviously not a marriage that meets your expectations,’ Jo conceded with stiff reluctance, wounded by that question. ‘You’re doing that not-listening thing that you do when you get angry. Take a deep breath, count to ten, whatever works for you.’
At that advice, Gianni’s gaze flared with incredulity. A moment later, he stepped hastily out of the way as an elderly woman trod past him to plunge a bag into a bin, exchanged a cheery word with Jo about the queue forming at the front of the hall, and went back indoors.
‘Your phone battery is past it. If you were actuallyusingthe new phone I gave you...’
‘Gianni...the phone you gave me has diamonds all over it,’ she reminded him in a pained whisper. ‘It’s very extravagant.’
Gianni shrugged a broad shoulder in dismissal. ‘You reject everything I give you. The phone, the car, the clothes, but when it comes to Ladymead, you take itall.’
‘Stop scoring points. It’s not like that, you know it’s not,’ Jo begged. ‘Please, just tell me how the board meeting went.’
Gianni stepped back, shoulders squaring, mouth taut, bright narrowed eyes grim. ‘I’m still CEO but they’re planning to review the situation again in three months.’
‘Oh, no, I know that must make you feel like you’re still on trial!’ Jo exclaimed in dismay and immediate sympathy, moving closer to stroke his arm in a consoling gesture. ‘I’m so sorry, Gianni.’
‘I feel like I’m getting absolutely nothing out of our marriage,’ Gianni spelt out in a harsh undertone as she stepped back from him again. ‘You’re never there for me.’
Jo stared at him in a panic. ‘Don’t say that!’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ Gianni was not in the mood to give any quarter. ‘You could have been in New Yorkwithme. Instead, you put your family and Ladymead, even your blasted pets before me! You’re my wife. I should take precedence.’
‘I think that sounds very old-fashioned,’ Jo protested even as guilt and regret burned through her like a stream of lava because she had not realised that he resented her choices quite so much, had indeed assumed that he would be far too much in demand to miss her. For her, however, the days of his absence had run one into another in a mad blur as every day had thrown up new complications at Ladymead or fresh family challenges. ‘I’ll start using the new phone.’
‘Too little, too late,’ Gianni breathed in a tone of finality. ‘A month into our marriage, I can’t accept that it’s extraordinary that I should expect more of your time.’
That criticism hit Jo hard. At that moment, it seemed to her that everyone in her life was expecting more from her and that, one way or another, she was short-changing or disappointing all of them. Sharp anxiety engulfed her. The days weren’t long enough to cover all that she had to do, and now Gianni was home with every right to expect her attention and some cruel fate had ensured she was unavailable.
‘Perhaps not. Gianni... I have to go inside now and finish setting up the stall,’ she muttered apologetically, her sapphire eyes clinging to his lean, strong features in vain search of some understanding of her predicament. ‘I’ll be home in a couple of hours.’
‘As you wish...’ Gianni turned on his heel.
‘We’ll continue this back home,’ Jo pointed out. ‘Let’s hope I don’t lose my temper as well.’
‘I haven’t lost my temper,’ Gianni countered with quiet dignified assurance, for he had been careful about containing it. ‘Nor have I said one word that I regret.’
Jo went back into the hall and finished unpacking. The scrum of shoppers kept her from thinking too much about the argument. She felt crushed by Gianni’s dissatisfaction though. He deemed her a complete failure in the wife stakes. Clearly, he had wanted her with him in New York. She had got that decision badly wrong. Furthermore, she should be using the new phone and the new car and wearing the clothes. He was spending a fortune on her family home and she wasn’t quibbling about that, so why was she refusing to utilise his generous gifts? That was petty and thoughtless of her. He saw it as a form of rejection and she had offended him.
‘“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice,”’ Duffy warned as Gianni walked through the orangery and strode outside, drinking in the fresh air after the hours of travel and strife. The parrot’s Shakespeare quote only made Gianni groan.
Jo would never have agreed to marry him had he not promised to repair Ladymead. That was the crux of the problem, he reasoned tautly. Strip all the other stuff away and what was he left with?
‘She married me for my money,’ he reminded himself, thinking that his expectations had been too high, if not out of order.
Just inside the doorway, Duffy trilled in delight and began singing his song about money making the world go around, pacing to the beat along his perch.
‘But she wasn’t a gold-digger.’ Gianni sighed, accepting that essential truth that was an obstacle that stretched like a mountain range between them.
Even so, if Jo didn’t have time for him or their marriage, he had a very practical solution to the problem. He needed to hire a project manager to free his wife from the onerous duties of overseeing the work being done on the money pit. That was simple, straightforward, a first step in the right direction, he told himself ruefully. He would organise that transfer of labour immediately and free Jo from the responsibility. In addition, he would organise a break for them on the yacht because they had had a very brief honeymoon, and marriage, he was beginning to appreciate, required a lot more effort and time input than any casual affair.
Jo walked back to Belvedere with McTavish and Fairy at her heels. She was deeply troubled. Gianni had treated her unfairly. He had not looked at his own behaviour. He had kept every one of his secrets, locking her out, keeping her at a distance and refusing to give her his trust. Yet she had told him everything about herself without reservation. He had allowed his father to insult her with his allegations about Ralph only the day after their wedding and he had not had enough faith in her to defend her. That had hurt and damaged her ability to trust him.
And whether he liked it or not, Jo had a responsibility towards her family. Gianni didn’t really have a family beyond a father he barely spoke to and her as his new wife, so how could he understand her position? Jo had gladly taken charge for Sybil at Ladymead after her grandmother’s fall and had stepped in at the jumble sale because her family would have done the same thing for her. Such things happened and had to be dealt with sensibly.
‘I’ll bring you tea. Mr Renzetti is on the terrace,’ Abigail told her cheerfully.