A couple of months later, while he’d been in London on business, he had been using his mobile phone to discuss with Paul the almost insurmountable problems created by his grandfather’s will. Even though he had been in a public place at the time, indeed he had been getting a haircut, he had assumed that the very fact that the conversation was taking place in Italian had meant that it was almost as private as it might have been in his office. He had learnt that he was mistaken when his little hair-stylist had leapt headlong into his private conversation to first commiserate with him over his grandfather’s ‘weirder than weird’ will and, second, to offer up herself as a ‘pretend’ wife so that he could keep Castello Sabatino in the family.
Ultimately, Hilary Ross had sold her hand in marriage to him in a straight business deal. What age would she be now? Roel mused. Twenty-three years old last St Valentine’s Day, his memory supplied without hesitation. He was willing to bet that she still didn’t look much older than a teenager. She was very small but wonderfully curvaceous and back then at least her dress sense had rested on the extreme gothic edge of fashion. Black from head to foot, clumpy boots and vampire make-up, he recalled with a frowning smile rather than a shudder. It was strange how very sexy a vampire could look, he reflected abstractedly. Before the traffic lights could change, he dug out his wallet and with long, deft fingers extracted the snapshot Hilary had pressed on him. A snapshot adorned with a teasing signature, ‘Your wife, Hilary,’ and backed by her phone number.
‘Something to remember me by,’ she had said, babbling like a brook in flood because he had known and she had somehow sensed that, aside of any necessary legal need to keep tabs on her whereabouts, he would not seek any further personal contact with her.
‘Kiss me,’ those huge eyes of hers had pleaded in a silent invitation.
Resolute to the last, he had withstood temptation. They had had a business arrangement that had to remain unsullied by sex: Paul had made it clear to him that if he’d consummated what had essentially been only a marriage on paper he would have made himself liable for a substantial maintenance claim.
He must have imagined being tempted by her, Roel told himself in exasperation. What possible appeal could she have had for him? She had left school at sixteen. She was an uneducated girl from a poor working-class background. Dio mio…a hairdresser! A giggly little hairdresser, only five feet plus in height and wholly without cultural interests or sophistication! They had had only their humanity in common. Finally he allowed himself to glance down at the photograph. She wasn’t beautiful, he reminded himself, exasperated by his own disturbing absorption in such thoughts. He drew his own attention to the fact that her brows were too straight and heavy, her nose a little too large. But regardless of her flaws his brilliant dark gaze still locked to the impish look of fun in her eyes and the wide, bright smile curving her lush mulberry-painted mouth.
‘When I worked as a junior on Saturdays, I used to blow every penny I earned on shoes,’ she had once confided unasked and in much the same way he had picked up other titbits and glimpses of a lifestyle as far removed from his own as that of an alien.
‘When my grandma met my grandpa, she said she knew he was the love of her life before they even spoke…anyway, they couldn’t speak. She didn’t know a word of English and he didn’t know a word of Italian. Don’t you think that’s romantic?’
He had considered it beneath his dignity to respond. In fact he had stonewalled all her attempts to flirt with him. So he was a snob, socially and intellectually, but she had not been from his world. Furthermore he was all too well acquainted with the Sabatino male habit of marrying gold-diggers and far too clever to risk following in his father’s and his grandfather’s footsteps to make the same crucial mistake. He had suppressed what he had recognised as an inappropriate and dangerous attraction to an unsuitable woman.
Yet he still couldn’t forget the last time that he had seen his fake wife: her jaunty wave in spite of the suspicious glisten in her eyes, the gritty, defiant smile that had told him that she was going to find a guy who did believe in romance…had she found that mythical male? Discovered his feet of clay? Was that why she had yet to request a divorce on her own behalf?
In the act of wondering that while rounding a notorious bend, Roel only had a split second to react when a child ran off the pavement into the road in pursuit of a dog. Braking hard, he wrenched at the steering wheel in a ferocious attempt to avoid hitting the little girl. The Ferrari smashed nose first into the wall on the other side of the street with a bone-numbing jolt, but he would still have walked unhurt from the wreckage had he had the chance to get out of his car before another vehicle crashed into it. As that second collision followed a blinding pain burst at the base of Roel’s skull and plunged him into darkness.
The photograph still curled within fingers that refused to relinquish their grip, he was rushed into hospital. His late father’s sister, Bautista, was called to the emergency room. With haughty scorn, Bautista watched two young nurses react to Roel’s extravagant dark good looks with hungry eyes of awe.
A spoilt and imperious brunette dressed in a style that the less charitable might have judged inappropriate for a woman of sixty, Bautista was furious at the interruption to her day. Roel would be fine! Roel was indestructible; all the Sabatino men were. Aside of the blow to his head, his other injuries were minor. The following day, Bautista was due to fly to Milan to attend a gallery opening with her fiancé, Dieter, and she was determined not to change her plans.
Only ten days earlier, Roel had infuriated her with the information that the handsome young sculptor whom she was planning to marry had a history of chasing wealthy older women. How horribly insulting Roel had been! Why shouldn’t Dieter want her for herself? Bautista was confident that she was still a remarkably good-looking woman, possessed of a most engaging personality. Four staggeringly expensive divorces had failed to diminish her shining faith in love and matrimony.
When a consultant finally came to Bautista to tell her that, although Roel had recovered consciousness, he appeared to be suffering from some degree of temporary amnesia, her annoyance and subsequent frustration were intense.
‘Is Mr Sabatino’s wife on her way?’ Bautista was then asked.
‘He’s not married.’
With a look of surprise the older man extended a somewhat crumpled photograph to her. ‘Then who is this?’
In astonishment, Bautista studied the photo and its revealing inscription. Roel had married an Englishwoman? My goodness, how secretive he had been! But then was he not famed for his cold reserve and reticence? His extreme dislike of publicity? His marriage would indeed excite the kind of headlines that he would consider to be distasteful and intrusive, Bautista conceded. Exactly when had he been planning to inform his relatives that he had taken a wife? But at that point happily appreciating that Roel’s possession of a wife freed her from all further responsibility for him while he lay in his hospital bed, Bautista rushed off to phone her nephew’s mystery bride.
The instant Hilary walked into her tiny flat and saw her sister Emma’s troubled face, a cold shiver trickled down her spine.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hilary asked, hastily setting down the evening paper she had gone out to buy.
‘While you were out, a woman phoned…I want you to sit down before I pass on her news.’ Emma was a tall slender blonde with a steady look in her grey eyes that hinted at an unusual degree of maturity for a girl of seventeen.
Hilary frowned. ‘Don’t be daft. You’re here and all in one piece and the only family I’ve got. Who phoned…and with what news?’
‘I’m not the only family you’ve got,’ her sister said in a strained undertone. ‘Roel…Roel