‘Where’s lover boy?’ questioned Gavin. ‘Not joining us tonight? Not flying in by helicopter for a quick pint?’
Cassie gave a smile which she hoped was less wan than it felt. ‘No. It’s over between us, Gavin. It was only ever a temporary thing. I told you that’s how it was.’
‘And you’re okay with that?’
Behind her glued-on smile, Cassie gritted her teeth. ‘Absolutely okay with that.’
But later that night, when the midnight bells were chiming around the village and the ever-present roar of the waves from the nearby sea was sounding in her ears, Cassie knew she could wait no longer. Climbing into bed, she untied the white ribbon from the turquoise box and began to open it, her fingers flying to her lips as she looked inside.
For sitting on dark and luxurious velvet was a fine platinum chain from which hung a single bright diamond the size of a small pea. As she lifted it out it seemed to capture the light and sparkle it back at her in a rainbow cascade—and Cassie could have wept, knowing that she would never be able to wear it. At least, not in public. It wasn’t the kind of jewellery you could pass off as fake since even the most untutored eye would have recognised its worth. So she wore it hidden beneath her dress on Christmas Day—and the cold stone which dangled against her skin felt like a constant reminder of the man who had given it to her.
And when she started back at work just after the New Year the shop seemed doll’s-house tiny after the mega-stores of London. It was hard summoning up her customary enthusiasm—especially when Patsy, her boss, wanted to know all about working at Hudson’s and Cassie wasn’t mad-keen to relive any of it.
‘Did you feel you learnt a lot there?’ Patsy questioned. ‘And in London generally?’
‘Oh, masses,’ said Cassie truthfully as guilt scorched through her. Imagine if Patsy knew the truth—that she had been accused of theft and sacked because a man with black eyes had made her concentration fly out of the window.
But the shame of losing her job paled into insignificance when measured against the pain of missing Giancarlo—a sharp, searing loss which seemed to haunt her every waking moment. All she could do was keep telling herself over and over again that she would get over it. It might take time but she would—because didn’t they say that nobody ever died of a broken heart?
Throwing herself into work, she volunteered to redress the shop window and Patsy was flatteringly pleased with the results. Cassie suggested that they might have a preview evening for customers—offering wine and snacks—whenever the season’s new stock came in and the idea was received with enthusiasm. She was promised a pay-rise in the spring and she tried to focus on the thought of the winter evenings growing lighter and the primroses pushing their pale yellow heads through the cold earth.
The only fly in the ointment was the slight queasi-ness she felt upon waking each morning. At first she thought it was because she’d been eating badly since getting back. Wolfing down squares of chocolate at inappropriate times, which she put down to Christmas greed—and showing a marked lack of interest in eating normal food, which she blamed on missing Giancarlo. It was easy to blot things out, when you really wanted to. And denial was easy, Cassie discovered—a safe and comfortable place to be.
Until one morning when she was actually sick—retching quietly in the small bathroom, terrified that her mother would hear and guess at the awful fear which was daily growing larger in Cassie’s mind.
She waited until her mother had gone to her weekly salsa class before she dared do a test. Even buying the kit had seemed as if she was jinxing herself. She told herself that it was bound to be negative, that they’d used contraception every time—she told herself that because she refused to consider any alternative scenario. It had to be negative!
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t.
It was glaringly and frighteningly positive.
Cassie went to bed, huddled beneath the duvet and pretended to be asleep when her mother got back. For the next five days she carried on trying to convince herself that there had been some awful mistake when deep down she knew there had not. And that she had to tell him.
In a way, the phone call was made worse by the realisation that Giancarlo had meant what he’d said. Because if there had been a small part of her which had longed for him to retract his words and go back on his intentions, then she had been sorely disappointed. There was no change of heart from her ex-lover. No emotional telephone call on Christmas Day, telling her how much he was missing her—even though she had stared at the phone and willed and willed it to ring. Nothing on New Year’s Eve either—the other prime time when people allowed sentiment to take over from sense. He had meant what he said. It was over—and he had planned never to see her again.
Even making the telephone call required careful planning—it mustn’t be anywhere where she could be overheard, and she couldn’t make it outside because of the freezing weather and the ever-present pounding of the sea.
In the end she called when her mother had gone out for the day, praying that he would pick up and not let the call go through to voicemail. Because she couldn’t tell him in a recorded message. She couldn’t.
Pick up, she urged silently as she listened to the ringing tone.
Pick up!
‘Cassandra?’
She was so startled by the sound of his richly accented voice that for a moment she was rendered speechless by a hundred different emotions, of which longing and sadness were the main ones. But she had never heard that note of wariness in his voice before—a note which told her more clearly than words that this was not a welcome call. If she had simply been calling on the off chance that he might want to see her again she would have ended the conversation as quickly and with as much dignity as possible. But she was not in a position to do such a thing. And how on earth did she even begin to tell him her momentous news?
‘Giancarlo. I need to speak to you.’
At the other end of the phone, Giancarlo frowned, wondering what had made her abandon the pride he had so admired in order to ring him. Was she calling him on some flimsy pretext—the supposedly forgotten pair of earrings she had neglected to take with her, or the book she had been reading, which she had left behind? Was this a ploy to get back into his bed—and, if so, wasn’t there a small part of him which was tempted to indulge her? For hadn’t he missed the warmth of her beautiful body in his arms and the sight of her sweet smile greeting him when he returned from work each day?
‘Giancarlo, are you still there?’
His eyes narrowed as he noted the lack of affection or everyday courtesy in her voice. This was not the wheedling tone of a woman who was prepared to trample on her own pride to get him back—and his senses were immediately alerted.
‘You are speaking to me,’ he pointed out coolly.
‘I meant…in person.’
‘In person might be difficult.’ He thought of her firm young body. Her violet eyes and rose-petal lips. The way her hair had spilled like a pot of pale gold all over his bare chest. Yet what would be the use of seeing her again and letting temptation distort his thinking? Long-term she was an unsuitable consort for all kinds of reasons—he knew that and he thought that she had known it, too. This wasn’t going anywhere—and maybe he needed to spell it out to her. ‘I have a business trip coming up. Time is tight, Cassandra—you know how it is.’
In her little Cornish sitting room, Cassie flinched, wishing that she’d just come right out and told him—for then she would not have had to face the reality of hearing that note of cold dismissal in his voice. And hadn’t there been a part of her which had hoped that maybe he was regretting letting her