The Sicilian's Mistress

Gianni stilled. ‘I’m only one floor below you,’ he pointed out drily.

‘So what’s the number of your suite?’ she prompted anxiously.

Gianni studied her for a long, tense moment, brilliant dark eyes veiled. ‘I’ll send a mobile phone up…OK?’

Her throat thickening, she nodded again.

He compressed his expressive mouth even more. ‘You can call me as much as you want…all right?’

Milly kept on nodding like a puppet.

She wouldn’t call. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted. But didn’t he realise that she needed to talk? She stopped herself dead on that censorious thought. Exactly when had she begun pinning so many expectations on Gianni? Maybe right at this moment she badly needed to believe that Gianni really cared about what happened to her, but that didn’t give her an excuse to cling to him.

Yet Gianni was the only person who knew Milly Henner, her one connection, her sole link to twenty-three years of her life. Everything she had ever told him about herself was locked inside that proud dark head of his. But he wasn’t parting with any of it in a hurry, was he? He was sitting on all that information like a miser on a gold mountain!

With Gianni gone, Milly made herself order a meal. Connor was fast asleep in one of the two bedrooms. He had had tea before she’d left her former home. After the fastest bath on record, she had changed him into his pyjamas and tucked him into bed. Already overtired, he had slept within minutes.

Milly took her time eating, but tasted nothing. Then she went for a long shower, donned a pale blue cotton nightdress and carefully dried her hair. When she emerged from the bedroom, the mobile phone Gianni had sent up was buzzing like an angry wasp on the coffee table.

She picked it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Why the blazes haven’t you called me?’ Gianni demanded rawly.

‘I didn’t want to bother you.’

‘How am I supposed to work when I’m worrying about why you haven’t called?’ Gianni gritted.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were worrying.’ Milly sank down on the nearest sofa, much of her extreme tension evaporating under that comforting assurance. ‘Gianni, can I ask you some questions now about us?’

‘You’re limited to three.’

‘How did we meet?’

‘You jumped out of my birthday cake. Next question.’

‘I…I did what?’ Milly gasped, thunderstruck. ‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly, and only two more questions to go,’ Gianni reminded her.

‘Why…why did I leave you?’ she asked awkwardly.

Silence thundered on the line.

‘That one’s on the forbidden list,’ Gianni responded flatly.

‘That’s not fair,’ Milly protested. ‘I mean, obviously I want to know that!’

‘I’m not telling you. When you’ve come up with a replacement question, call me back,’ Gianni suggested drily.

The line went dead.

Had Gianni done something dreadful to make her walk out? Had she done something dreadful? Or had they had a foolish argument in which one of them or both of them had said too much? An argument which struck Gianni as so stupid in retrospect that it really galled him to even think of it now?

She waited ten minutes and then she punched out the number that had arrived with the phone.

‘It’s me,’ she announced.

‘I know it’s you,’ Gianni breathed wryly.