CHAPTER ONE
STUDIOUSLY ignoring Faith’s troubled expression, Edward smiled. ‘I never dreamt that Mother would make us such a generous offer—’
Faith sucked in a deep, steadying breath. ‘I know, but—’
‘It makes perfect sense. Why go to the expense of buying another property when there’s ample space for us all at Firfield?’
At that precise moment Edward’s flight was called. Immediately he rose to his feet and lifted his briefcase. ‘We’ll talk it over when I get back.’
Faith stood up. A slim, beautiful blonde of diminutive height, she had sapphire-blue eyes, flawless skin and wore her hair in a restrained French plait. ‘I’ll see you to the gate.’
Her fiancé shook his well-groomed fair head. ‘Not much point. I don’t know why you bothered coming to see me off anyway,’ he remarked rather drily. ‘I’m only going to be away for three days.’
Edward strode off and was soon lost from view in the crowds. Faith left the café at a slower pace, genuinely appalled at the announcement Edward had just made. They were getting married in four months and they had been house-hunting for the past three. Now Faith sensed that as far as Edward was concerned the hunt was over: his mother had offered to share her spacious home with them.
It was a really ghastly idea, Faith acknowledged in guilty dismay. Edward’s mother didn’t like her, but she carefully concealed her hostility. Mrs Benson was no more fond of Faith’s two-year-old son, Connor. But then the fact that Faith was an unmarried mother had first fuelled the older woman’s dislike, Faith conceded ruefully as she walked back through the airport.
Her troubled eyes skimmed through the hurrying crowds. Suddenly she stiffened, her gaze narrowing, her head twisting back of its own volition to retrace that visual sweep. She found herself focusing on a strikingly noticeable man standing on the far side of the concourse in conversation with another. As her heartbeat thumped deafeningly in her ears, she faltered into complete stillness.
The compulsion to stare was as overwhelming as it was inexplicable. The man was very tall and very dark. His hard, bronzed features were grave, but not so grave that one glance was not sufficient to make her aware that he was stunningly handsome. Her tummy somersaulted. A fevered pound of tension began to build up pressure behind her temples.
A smooth dark overcoat hung negligently from his wide shoulders. He looked rich, super-sophisticated, that cool aura of razor-edged elegance cloaking immense power. Perspiration dampened her skin. Sudden fear and confusion tore at her as she questioned what she was doing. A wave of dizziness ran over her.
Simultaneously, the stranger turned his arrogant dark head and looked directly at her, only to freeze. The fierce intensity with which those brilliant dark eyes zeroed in on her stilled figure disconcerted her even more. But at that point the nausea churning in her stomach forced a muffled moan from her parted lips. Dragging her attention from him, Faith rushed off in search of the nearest cloakroom.
She wasn’t actually sick, as she had feared. But as she crept back out of the cubicle she had locked herself in and approached the line of sinks she was still trembling. Most of all, she was bewildered and shaken by her own peculiar behaviour. What on earth had possessed her to behave like that? What on earth had prompted her to stop dead and gape like some infatuated schoolgirl at a complete stranger?
Infatuated? She questioned the selection of that particular word and frowned with unease, the way she always did when a thought that didn’t seem quite her came into her mind. But she wasn’t feeling well. Maybe she was feverish, coming down with one of those viruses that could strike with such rapidity.
There had to be some good reason why a total stranger should inspire her with fear…unless he reminded her of somebody she had once known. She tensed. That was highly unlikely, she decided just as quickly, and began to scold herself for her overreaction to a fleeting incident.
But she knew what was the matter with her. She understood all too well the source of her basic insecurity. But that was something she had learnt to put behind her and never ever dwell on these days. With conscious care, Faith suppressed the scary stirrings at the back of her mind and blanked them out again.
But what if she had once known that man? The worrying apprehension leapt out of Faith’s subconscious before she could block it again. Aghast, she stared blindly into space, suddenly plunged into a world of her own, a blank, nebulous world of terrifying uncertainty which she had believed left far behind her. The lost years…what about them?
A crowd of noisy teenagers jostled her at the sinks, springing her back into awareness again. She blinked rapidly, once, twice, snatched in a shuddering breath to steady herself. Discomfited by her uncomfortably emotional frame of mind, she averted her head and shook it slightly. You saw some really interesting people at airports, she told herself squarely. Her attention had been momentarily distracted and she wasn’t feeling too good. That was all it had been.
But when Faith vacated the cloakroom and turned back into the main concourse, she found her path unexpectedly blocked.
‘Milly…?’ A dark, accented voice breathed with noticeable stress.
Faith glanced up, and it was a very long way up, and met flashing dark eyes so cold and deep her heart leapt straight into her throat. It was the same guy she had been staring at ten minutes earlier! Her feet froze to the floor in shock.
‘Madre di Dio…’ The stranger stared fixedly down at her, his deep, accented drawl like an icy hand dancing down her taut spine. ‘It is you!’
Faith gazed up at him in frank surprise and sudden powerful embarrassment. She took a backward step. ‘Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong person.’
‘Maybe you wish I had.’ The intimidating stranger gazed down at her from his incredibly imposing height, slumbrous dark eyes roving so intently over her face that colour flooded her drawn cheeks. ‘Dio…you still blush. How do you do that?’ he drawled very, very softly.
‘Look, I don’t know you, and I’m in a hurry,’ Faith responded in an evasive, mortified mutter, because she couldn’t help wondering if her own foolish behaviour earlier had encouraged him to believe that
she was willing to be picked up.
Eyes the colour of rich, dark golden honey steadily widened and her heartbeat started to thump at what felt like the base of her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe. ‘You don’t know me?’ he repeated very drily. ‘Milly, this is Gianni D’Angelo you’re dealing with, and running scared with a really stupid story won’t dig you out of the big deep hole you’re in!’
‘You don’t know me. You’ve made a mistake,’ Faith told him sharply.
‘No mistake, Milly. I could pick you out of a thousand women in the dark,’ Gianni D’Angelo murmured even more drily, his wide, sensual mouth curling with growing derision. ‘So, if the nose job was supposed to make you unrecognisable, it’s failed. And what sad soap opera did you pick this crazy pretence out of? You’re in enough trouble without this childish nonsense!’
Her dark blue eyes huge in receipt of such an incomprehensible address, Faith spluttered, ‘A nose job? For goodness’ sake—’
‘You have a lot of explaining to do, and I intend to conduct this long-overdue conversation somewhere considerably more private than the middle of an airport,’ he asserted grittily. ‘So let’s get out of here before some paparazzo recognises me!’