She turned hurriedly, almost falling over one of the expensive leather cases standing near the door, packed ready for departure. Gabriella stared down at them. Her cases had been packed since yesterday, to be collected on the day itself and put into the car which would take them to the airport.
Everything had been carefully planned far ahead, organised down to the last detail by Stephen’s secretary, a capable middle-aged woman who had worked for him for years.
Gabriella’s passport was in her handbag. Stephen had told her that she needn’t bother to bring any money with her, but that had ruffled her sense of independence. She and Stephen were still arguing about her job—he wanted her to stop work when they were married, but she wanted to retain the freedom of being responsible for herself, having her own life outside her home and marriage.
So she had refused to let him give her money before they were married; it would have made her feel as if she was being bought. In her handbag she had a folder full of American dollars which she had got from her own bank; it hadn’t left her much in her deposit account, but at least it was hers, so she could take it with her now.
She only had to pick up her cases and walk out, she thought. She didn’t have to go through with it. She could just vanish.
Where, though? She had to go somewhere. Her mind worked feverishly. She could take a plane to…No, if she went by air she would have to hire a car and it would be too easy for him to check her name on passenger lists at the airport, and check with car-hire firms.
But would he look for her?
She shivered. He would be so angry. She had seen him lose his temper once when his secretary had had to confess to having mislaid a vital fax. She didn’t want that black rage turned on her, and this was much worse than some office mistake. Stephen was going to lose face in a very public way. He would be humiliated, made to look a fool.
He would probably never want to set eyes on her, or even hear her name again.
She choked back a half-hysterical laugh which was also half a sob. No, not him. That much she did know about him. He would want to find her and…He’ll kill me! she thought, her stomach churning.
Think, think! she told herself, trying to clear her weary brain. She had her car. She could just drive out of London and head somewhere quiet and far away…Cumbria, maybe? Or the far west of Cornwall? Or the Fens? Britain was full of secret, remote places, without railway stations, or hotels, or shopping centres—little villages lost in the countryside, where nothing much ever happened or changed, where few people ever visited.
Oh, but wherever she went in Britain people would read newspapers. She wasn’t famous, but Stephen was wealthy and well-known. Some reporter might pick the story up and sell it. Then there would be pictures of her appearing, she would be recognised, and someone unscrupulous who wanted to earn some easy money might ring the Press and tell them where she was, and they would tell Stephen.
No, she must go abroad, as far away as possible. Foreign newspapers wouldn’t bother with the story. France was closest; she could easily lose herself in a country as large and as underpopulated as France, but she only knew a little French, and her accent was so atrocious that whenever she tried to say anything in shops or markets crowds of locals gathered to hear her and laugh their heads off at the way she mangled their language.
She didn’t have enough money, either, to support herself for very long. She would have to get some sort of work wherever she went, and for that she would have to be able to speak the language. She could get a job in a hotel, maybe, or a restaurant. She was a good cook—she had been well-trained—and they wouldn’t insist on references if she offered to show what she could do. But she wouldn’t get a job if she couldn’t speak the language.
It had to be Italy, then, in spite of the fact that that was where Stephen would expect her to go. Italy, too, was a large country—surely she could hide herself in it somewhere? She would drive down to Dover and buy a ticket for the Channel ferry using cash, making it harder to trace her than if she booked a ticket in advance—she wouldn’t show up on the computers until after she had left. Once in France she would make her way on the autoroute into Italy by the most direct route. If she left now she could be in France before Stephen even knew she had gone.
Her mother had been Italian, and Gabriella had been born there and lived there until she was eleven and her mother had died. She had dual nationality and spoke the language fluently. She would not stand out in Italy; she could easily be taken for a native.
She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere near Brindisi, where her mother had come from—there were only distant relatives living there now, but Stephen knew about them, and would look there first. She would make for the northern part of Italy, as far away from Brindisi as possible.
She hurried into her bathroom and, dragging her nightdress over her head, stepped into the shower. The sting of the water sharpened her mind; a few minutes later she towelled herself dry and began to dress.
First she put on black lace panties and a matching bra, and then old blue jeans and a thin blue cotton sweater. She didn’t want to be noticed; she would pass without comment in her old clothes, and they would be comfortable for travelling.
Her long black hair she put up in a knot at the back of her neck, but she put on no make-up, not even a touch of lipstick. She would wear dark glasses as she drove and keep them on as she crossed the Channel—that would help keep her anonymous.
She mustn’t be recognised anywhere on the way because Stephen was going to be right behind her, and the very thought of him scared her stiff.
Oh, God, why didn’t I face it long ago? she inwardly wailed, shivering.
What would he do to her if he caught up with her? Last night she had seen the real Stephen, the nature he had hidden from her all these months. She wasn’t blinkered any more—she knew she could expect no mercy from him.
She had to let him know in advance, even so; she couldn’t just run away and leave him standing at the altar not knowing what had happened to her. She sat down at a table and scribbled a note to him. There was no time to pick and choose her words, to break it tactfully; she simply told him that she was very sorry, please to forgive her, but she couldn’t go through with it, and was going away.
She began to fold the note, then on an afterthought added a few more lines.
Please let everyone know and make my apologies. Try to understand, Stephen—I’m sorry, I just can’t marry you after all. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t explain.
She signed it with her name in a scrawl then read it and groaned. It was incoherent—he would think she’d been drunk when she wrote it, but it was the best she could do, and there was no time to try again.
She would put it into his mail-box at the apartment block on her way out of town—she knew the porter delivered all mail at eight o’clock, which was around the time the post office delivered it.
The wedding was due to take place at eleven-thirty—Stephen would have time to cancel the service and the reception before people began arriving. At least he would have help—he had a huge secretarial team in his offices; they could make the phone calls for him. Even so, she flinched from the thought of the chaos that was going to follow: the presents that would have to go back, the three-tiered bridal cake that nobody would want now, all the food for the reception.
It was going to be embarrassing and humiliating for Stephen and she felt a weary sense of shame at doing this to him as she stared down at the envelope on which she had written his name and address.
For a second she couldn’t decide what to do, then the panic began to burn in her stomach again and she swung away. She could not go through with it, that was all. Whatever the consequences, she could not marry him.
To calm herself, she concentrated on little details—went through her handbag to check that she had everything she would need, then put on a light summer jacket—black and white striped. Picking up her car keys, she