The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress

‘In less than an hour it’ll be feeding time at the pet hotel and I don’t want to be late,’ she lamented, pulling free and rolling over to vacate his bed at a frantic pace. ‘The staff don’t mind me going to give Piglet breakfast because he wouldn’t eat otherwise. But they do like me to fit in with their routine and they don’t like visitors between eight and nine in the morning.’ Barely able to credit that harried explanation, Angelo sat up. ‘Give me a moment,’ he urged tautly. ‘Are you telling me that you’re running over there every single morning to feed that animal?’ ‘Evenings too…he has a very tiny tummy,’ Gwenna told him defensively. ‘You should see him on the webcam in his kennel…he’s so depressed, it would break your heart. He won’t even look at the TV or play ball any more.’ Her departure from his room was hasty. Angelo cursed vehemently while he took a cold shower and strode out of the wet room determined to get a look at Piglet malingering on the webcam. And there he was, the clever little tyke, curled up on his gilded four-poster bed with his head sunk between paws, little round eyes dull and his ridiculous bat ears drooping. In no need of canine acting lessons, he was the very picture of full-blown doggy misery.

But Gwenna was devoted to her pet. Totally devoted and obsessed, Angelo reflected dourly. And why not? How much love and attention had she got from her sleazy father and a mother who had probably only had her in an effort to destroy her lover’s marriage? He lifted the phone. When Gwenna got out of his bed at dawn to trek across the city simply to feed the dog, it was time to release Piglet from captivity.

Chapter 7

Angelo surveyed the huge crowded room with concealed dissatisfaction. He wondered why it was that when fate gave him what he believed he had always wanted he should find it so irritating. Clingy women who remained welded to him like superglue in company had always exasperated him.

In the course of a month, he had learned that Gwenna did not cling, shadow him round the room or continually seek ways to attract his attention. In fact, he sometimes felt like handcuffing her to his wrist or tagging her with a satellite-navigation system he could use to locate her when he wanted her back by his side. When she got talking to his guests, she lost track of time. She was wildly popular with the garden enthusiasts and had to be regularly rescued from those who took advantage of her horticultural knowledge to request free advice and even personal visits.

‘Where is she?’ Angelo was finally forced to ask Franco.

A few minutes later, his chief of security at his heels, he strode out to the rear terrace of his impressive London abode and looked down into the garden below. Her iridescent blue evening gown trailing across the damp grass in her wake, Gwenna was showing off a flowering wall plant to a man and a woman. The man was a notoriously lecherous Swiss banker. That he should even be close to Gwenna set Angelo’s teeth on edge.

Franco cleared his throat. ‘You know, boss…Miss Hamilton doesn’t know she might be rattling your cage.’ ‘Is that a fact?’ Angelo murmured without expression.

‘She’s a very friendly lady, who loves helping people,’ the older man remarked into the awkward silence.

So, that dangerous virus of niceness was subverting the loyalties of all the staff who came into regular contact with her, Angelo acknowledged sardonically.

She took what Angelo considered to be an inordinate interest in other people and made no distinction between his employees and his acquaintances. Even Franco, a tough nut with a jaundiced view of the female sex, was eager to speak up on her behalf. His chauffeur, cured of a persistent cough with the gift of some magical mixture derived from honey, regarded her with positive reverence. His hard-hitting senior PA had mentioned how very pleasant and courteous Gwenna was.

His chef conjured up special dishes adorned with horticultural motifs because she had planted herbs in containers for him.

Unfortunately, Angelo felt pretty much excluded from that general niceness and that awareness nagged at him like a fine stiletto knife in his side. She did not take an inordinate interest in him or question his absences. There was a barrier beyond which she did not go. But shedid set him on fire in bed and wasn’t that what was most important? he asked himself impatiently. Sometimes he joined her at dawn after an all-night meeting. No woman had ever given him so much pleasure and he went to great lengths to make time to be with her. He also gave her a lot of attention. Naturally he wanted her to be content with her role in his life and he was a very generous lover. But she was not responding to his efforts to gratify her.