The Sicilian's Mistress

‘Second question,’ she began rather tautly after his last response. ‘Was I happy with you?’

‘I thought you were deliriously happy, but that’s not really a question I can answer for you.’

In the last three years, Milly had known not one minute of what she could have termed delirious happiness. The concept of such an extreme couldn’t help but impress her to death.

‘Gianni…what was I like then?’

‘Stubborn, quick-tempered, full of life, unconventional…hell, this isn’t a safe subject!’

Milly snatched in a ragged breath, still reeling in astonishment from that disturbing flood of adjectives.

‘Are you OK?’

A choked sob was lodged in her throat. ‘Fine,’ she managed. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now.’

Milly Henner, it seemed, had been another woman entirely. A definite individual. Lively, strong…unconventional? A humourless laugh escaped Milly as she climbed into bed. Gianni’s description had knocked her for six.

She had judged their past relationship on the basis of the narrow outlook she had developed over the past three years. His mistress. She had been shocked, ashamed. She had immediately seen herself as a victim. But Gianni hadn’t described a woman who was a victim; Gianni had described an equal. Where had that stronger and more confident woman gone? And was she ever going to find her again?

Exhaustion sent Milly to sleep quickly, but dreams full of disturbing and increasingly frightening images kept her tossing and turning. Terror began to rise notch by notch until finally she came awake in a complete panic, shaking like a leaf and sobbing out loud, so confused she didn’t even know where she was.

‘Dio mio, cara…calm down!’

The instant she heard Gianni’s voice she froze, and then just crumpled into the shelter of his arms, sick with relief that he was there.

CHAPTER SIX

A SOB catching in her throat, Milly pressed her damp face into Gianni’s shoulder. The faint tang of expensive cologne underlying his own distinctive male scent made her nostrils flare. She breathed him in deep, like a drug.

‘That must have been some nightmare, cara.’ Gianni held her back from him.

Her eyes were huge and shadowed in the stark white triangle of her face. ‘I was struggling with someone in the dark…it felt so real!’

‘But it couldn’t have been. Nothing like that ever happened to you, at least not when I knew you.’ Gianni spread long fingers across her taut cheekbones, dark, deep flashing eyes scanning her still frightened face.

Some of her tension drained away at that comforting assurance, but not all of it. She had never had a dream like that before, could not help suspecting that something she had once experienced had summoned it up.

‘Before you woke up, you called my name at the top of your voice,’ Gianni imparted softly, mesmeric dark eyes glinting.

‘Did I?’ Milly didn’t want to talk about the dream any more. It had scared her too much. Her brows drew together. ‘How did you hear me…I mean, where on earth did you come from?’ she belatedly thought to ask.

‘About thirty feet away,’ Gianni told her. ‘I’d moved to work in the room next door. I didn’t think you should be alone tonight, so I came up about an hour ago. If you hadn’t wakened, you’d never have known I was there.’

In the dim light, Milly studied him properly for the first time. Shorn of his jacket and tie, his white silk shirt open at his strong brown throat and his black hair slightly tousled, he looked infinitely more approachable than he usually did. A faint blue-black shadow had already darkened his aggressive jawline. Even stubble, she thought guiltily, added to his appeal. Hurriedly she turned her head away and made herself rest back against the pillows.

‘I’ll get back to work.’ Gianni began to stand up.

Milly tensed in dismay. ‘Do you have to?’

‘You want me to stay?’

Milly nodded agreement. ‘And talk about something cheerful. You could tell me about my parents, if you like.’

Gianni folded down on the bed, stretched his long, lean frame out with intrinsic grace and sent her a winging glance from beneath he

avily lidded eyes. ‘You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?’ he murmured, like an indolent tiger.

‘Nothing’s going to happen.’ Milly reddened. ‘Think of the bed as a sofa.’