His reply was a final wake-up call for Meg. In real life, he was turning out to be quite a different prospect from the ideal man she wanted. With regret, she recognised he was as practical and down-to-earth as she was. It was beginning to feel as though work was the only certainty in her life. With no illusions left about Gianni, all she could hope to do was to secure her future. Apart from all the pressing practical reasons, her parents had waved her off at the airport with such high hopes for her. She couldn’t bear to disappoint them by returning home without achieving anything.
‘It isn’t simply money, signor. Common sense and practicality come into it, too. My family back home are relying on me as a backstop. I’ve put their business back on an even keel. They’re doing really well at the moment but we all know from bitter experience how circumstances can change overnight.’
When she said that, Gianni briefly made eye contact with her. He nodded, but didn’t speak.
‘That’s why I need this job, signor. Your father arranged for me to live in the Garden Cottage here on the Villa Castelfino estate. I’ve visited before, so I know where it is. There’s no need to worry about me,’ she said, in the unlikely event Gianni Bellini ever worried about anyone but himself. ‘I can sort myself out. I’ll be absolutely no trouble. We can talk about all this later. You just see about getting yourself some rest.’
‘No. I need to be alert.’
He looked as belligerent as only a sleep-deprived man could look.
‘Of course you do, signor.’ Meg smiled as he played straight into her hands. ‘That’s why you must get some sleep. Don’t worry; I’ve already had some experience of how this house works. They’ll keep you informed. You won’t miss a thing,’ she said soothingly. ‘The previous count was always telling me he was careful to employ only the very best staff.’
Gianni locked eyes with her for a long time. Then unexpectedly he took her hand again and raised it to his lips for another heart-stopping kiss. It brought back every spine-tingling sensation he had ever evoked in her, and left her gasping. When he looked at her now his expression overflowed with all the dark promise she remembered from their first meeting.
Then he said slowly, ‘Yes. He was. I can see that now.’
GIANNI followed Meg’s instructions only by default. He was so tired his body took complete control of his mind. Leaving the new arrival to fend for herself, he trudged up to his suite. Working entirely on autopilot, he kicked off his shoes and fell into bed.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up with the sun in his eyes and hunger gnawing a hole in his stomach. Grabbing his bedside phone, he rang Housekeeping to order some food. Megan was right, he told himself. He had needed sleep. He must have been out of action for hours.
Twenty minutes later, shaved, showered and feeling slightly more human, he walked into the dining room of his suite. A meal was being laid out on its central table. His body clock told him it should be dinner. It didn’t look like it. In fact, it didn’t look like anything that had appeared on the Villa Castelfino’s menu in all his thirty-two years.
‘That food looks delicious,’ he said suspiciously, picking up the neatly folded copy of La Repubblica lying on his tray.
‘It is, signor. Some of us were invited to lunch over at the Garden Cottage today, and the head gardener gave us this to eat, too.’
Before Gianni could question the man further, he noticed something.
‘This is Monday’s newspaper. What happened to Sunday, Rodolfo?’
‘The indoor staff had strict instructions not to disturb you, signor.’
The man put such an odd emphasis on the word ‘indoor’ that Gianni’s mind filled instantly with suspicion. He walked around the table, surveying his unlikely meal from every angle. There were cheese palmiers with half a dozen different sorts of salads and a cut glass dish of something brightly coloured.
‘This looks like English trifle. I haven’t seen that since I was at school. Where did it come from?’
‘The head gardener suggested some amendments to your menu, signor.’
Gianni stopped pacing. Frowning, he shook a finger in the air. ‘That was what I was going to ask you a moment ago. I didn’t know we had a head gardener,’ he said slowly, suspecting he already knew what had happened. The girl who had invited herself into his estate had become a cuckoo in the nest the moment he turned his back.
‘Miss Imsey has only recently arrived, signor.’
‘Oh…her,’ Gianni said with the airy exhaustion of a man who had a million employees, all of them more trouble than they were worth. ‘Well, don’t worry. She won’t be here for long. I’m more interested in practical skills than paper qualifications. People who hide from life by studying are always afraid of hard work.’ He was quite confident in his views, but the look on Rodolfo’s face instantly made him suspicious again. ‘Oh, now don’t say you’ve been taken in by that face, or those legs…her smile, that rivulet of hair or those baby blue eyes…’
Gianni’s tone began to waver along with his conviction. Straightening his jacket like a prosecuting counsel, he brought himself briskly back to the ancestral line. No member of staff could be allowed to run riot around the place. It didn’t matter how pretty and distracting she was.
‘Or anything else, for that matter!’ He added sharply. ‘That girl is only interested in one thing—collecting her wages. She told me so herself, the moment she arrived.’
Gianni’s waiter was in no hurry to leave. It was obvious he had something more to say. Reaching for a second cheese palmier, Gianni gave him a stare calculated to squeeze tears from a commando.
‘You look like you’ve got something else to tell me, Rodolfo.’
The man coughed politely. ‘You may like to know that Cook is currently wearing a face like an old lemon, signor.’
Gianni was bringing the serving tongs from the silver salver to his plate. When he heard those words, he stopped. The thought that Meg had been nice to him only so she could get paid was irritating. News that she could manage to annoy his staid old cook brought a grudging smile back to his face.
‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with the new head gardener, would it?’ he asked innocently.
‘Sì, Count.’
‘And…morale in the kitchens is…?’ Gianni probed, brushing pastry crumbs from his fingertips.
‘On the way up.’
‘I always said the Bellini family lets good staff have its head,’ Gianni said in a warm glow of self-satisfaction.
Dismissing the waiter, he settled down to enjoy his meal. He was ravenous, and ate himself to a standstill. It was the first time he could ever remember sitting in the Villa Castelfino and pushing away a plate because he was full, rather than nauseous. It was then he realised he was beginning to feel better than he had done in years. As well as the improved diet, in one day he had managed to get more sleep than he normally did in a week. Then reality kicked in again. His father was dead. The future of hundreds of hectares of real estate and thousands of staff across the globe relied on him, in his capacity as the new Count di Castelfino. His business could expand now, exactly as planned.
Walking over to his sound system, he put on some music. Then he went out onto the balcony leading from his private dining room. From there he could survey the scene at his leisure. All the land below him, right out as far as the sheltering hills, was now his responsibility. Until