Tempestuous Reunion

‘Grazie, Guilia.’

‘Prego, signorina.’ With enthusiasm, Guilia whipped out lingerie and shoes and carried the lot reverently through to the bedroom. Catherine recognised a plant when she saw one. Guilia was here to educate her in the nicest possible way on what to wear for every possible occasion. Luc excelled on detail. Guilia had probably been programmed to bar the wardrobe doors if presented with a pretty cabbage-rose print.

It was eight in the evening. She had slept the clock round, slumbering through her first day at Castelleone. Last night, Bernardo’s wife, Francesca, had fussed her into bed with the warmth of a mother hen. Dr Scipione had then made his d;aaebut, a rotund little man with a pronounced resemblance to Santa Claus and an expression of soulful understanding.

Only when he had gone had she realised that she had chattered her head off the whole time he was there. He had only made her uneasy once by saying, ‘Sometimes the mind forgets because it wants to forget. It shuts a door in self-protection.’

‘What would I want to protect myself from?’ she laughed.

‘Ask yourself what you most fear and there may well lie the answer. It could be that when you fully confront that fear your mind will unlock that door,’ he suggested. ‘I suspect that you are not ready for that moment as yet.’

What did she most fear? Once it had been losing Luc, but since Luc had asked her to marry him that old insecurity had been banished forever. And the truth was that a little hiccup in her memory-banks did not currently have the power to alarm her—despite a nagging anxiety which she resolutely banished.

Attired in the fitting cerise-hued sheath, which was tighter over the fullness of her breasts than Guilia seemed to have expected, judging by the speed with which she had w

hipped out a tape-measure, Catherine sat down at the magnificent Gothic-styled dressing-table and smiled at the familiarity of the jewellery on display there. Her watch, stamped with the date she had first met Luc; clasping it to her wrist, she marvelled at how long it seemed since she had worn it. A leather box disclosed a slender diamond necklace and drop earrings; a second, a shimmering delicate bracelet. Christmas in Switzerland and her birthday, she reflected dreamily.

Leaving the bedroom, she peered over the stone balcony of the vast circular gallery. Bernardo’s bald-spot was visible in the hall far below. She hurried downstairs and said in halting Italian, ‘Buona sera, Bernardo. Dov’;aae Signor Santini?’

Bernardo looked anguished. He wrung his hands and muttered something inaudible. Abruptly she turned, her eyes widening. Raised voices had a carrying quality in the echoing spaces around them.

One of the doors stood ajar. A tall black-haired woman, with shoulder-pads that put new meaning into power-dressing, was ranting, presumably at Luc, who was out of view. Or was she pleading? It was hard to tell.

Catherine tensed. She had no difficulty in recognising Rafaella Peruzzi. She was the only person Catherine knew who could argue with Luc and still have a job at the end of the day. She inhabited a nebulous grey area in Luc’s life, somewhere between old friend and employee. She was also Santini Electronics’ most efficient hatchet-woman. She lived, breathed, ate and slept profit…and Luc.

She had grown up with him. She had modelled herself on him. She was tough, ruthless and absolutely devoted to his interests. At some stage she had also shared a bed with Luc. Nobody had told Catherine that. Nobody had needed to tell her. Rafaella was a piece of Luc’s past, but the past was a hopeful present in her eyes every time she looked at him. The women who blazed a quickly forgotten trail through his bedroom didn’t bother Rafaella. Catherine had.

‘You’ve got six weeks left. Enjoy him while you can,’ she had derided the first time Catherine met her. ‘With Luc, it never lasts longer than three months, and, with the clothes-sense you’ve got, honey, another six weeks should be quite a challenge for him.’

Luc was talking very quietly now. Rafaella vented a strangled sob and spat back in staccato Italian. Catherine moved away, ashamed that she hadn’t moved sooner, and uneasily certain of the source of the drama. Yesterday, Luc had publicly announced his marital plans. Rafaella was reeling. Her pain seared Catherine with a strange sister pain. There but for the grace of God go I.

Luc was the sun round which Rafaella revolved. She could not resist that pull even when it scorched her; she could not break free. Though she knew that she was overstepping the boundaries that Luc set, she would still interfere. That was Rafaella. Stubborn, persistent, remorseless in enmity. Sometimes what disturbed Catherine most about Rafaella was her similarity to Luc. By the law of averages, she had thought uneasily more than once, Luc and Rafaella ought to have been a match made in heaven.

A door slammed on its hinges with an almighty crash. Bernardo had made himself scarce. Catherine wasn’t quick enough. Rafaella stalked across the hall and circled her like a killer shark drawn by a lump of raw meat, rage and hatred splintering from her diamond-hard stare.

‘You bitch!’ She launched straight into attack. ‘He wouldn’t believe me when I told him, but I’ll be back when I can prove it. And when I get the evidence you’ll be out with the garbage, because he’ll never forgive you!’

‘Rafaella.’ Luc was poised fifty feet away, lithe and sleek as a panther about to spring, his features savagely set.

She shot him a fierce, embittered glance. ‘I wanted a closer look at the only truly honest woman you’ve ever met! She must be on the endangered species list. And, caro,’ she forecast on her passage to the door, ‘you’re in for a severe dose of indigestion.’

Bernardo reappeared out of nowhere and surged to facilitate her exit. Catherine slowly breathed again. Rafaella, out of control and balked of her prey, was an intimidating experience. And she was astounded by her threats. What wouldn’t Luc believe? What did Rafaella intend to prove? What would Luc never forgive her for?

‘What on earth was she talking about?’ she whispered tautly.

Smouldering tension still vibrated from Luc. She could read nothing in the steady beat of his dark eyes. For an instant it seemed to her that that stare both probed and challenged, but she dismissed the idea when a faintly sardonic smile lighted his expression. ‘Nothing that need concern you.’

But it did concern her, she reasoned frustratedly as he curved a possessive arm to her slim shoulders and guided her into the magnificently proportioned salone. ‘And Rafaella need not concern you either,’ he completed.

‘Why?’ she prompted uncertainly.

‘As of now, she no longer works for me,’ Luc drawled with a chilling lack of sentiment.

Catherine was immediately filled with guilt. Rafaella lived for her career. If she hadn’t been hanging about in the hall, the incident which had so enraged Luc would never have occurred. ‘She was terribly upset, Luc. Shouldn’t you make allowances for that?’ she muttered after a long pause, resenting the ironic twist of fate that had set her up as the brunette’s sole defender.

‘What is wrong with you?’ Luc demanded, abrasive in his incredulity. ‘In the same position, she’d slit your throat without a second’s hesitation. She walks into my home, she insults me, she insults you…and you expect me to take that lying down? I don’t believe this!’

‘She lost her head and it wouldn’t have happened if…if…’ she fumbled awkwardly beneath his piercing scrutiny ‘…she didn’t love you.’