Rags To Riches Collection. Rebecca Winters

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СКАЧАТЬ he had never seen her again.

      He dragged his mind back to the present. There could be a number of reasons for Beth’s unexpected departure, he told himself. But his hands shook as he ripped open the envelope and skimmed his eyes down the page.

      The agency I used to work for phoned to offer me an interview for a job as nanny with a family on the south coast of England. It sounds ideal as they are happy for me to combine caring for Sophie with looking after their two children. The position comes with my own living accommodation, and it will be a wonderful place to bring up Sophie and allow me to be independent. You have no responsibility for either of us, and I could not live as your mistress indefinitely.

      Thirty years after reading the note from his mother, Cesario once again experienced a gut-wrenching sense of abandonment—but this time he could not burst into tears and cling to Teodoro. Big boys don’t cry, he reminded himself grimly, and Piras men never revealed their emotions.

      Instead, he screwed Beth’s letter up in his fist and avoided the sympathetic expression in Teodoro’s eyes as he strode into his study and took a bottle of bourbon from the drinks cabinet. Clearly, he had been wrong to think Beth had feelings for him, to hope that she loved him. It was lucky he hadn’t revealed his feelings. Lucky he hadn’t made a fool of himself by telling her. He laughed bitterly and stared at the little square box on the coffee table in front of him. He’d chosen emeralds to match her eyes, and diamonds because, like her, they were pure and sparkling and utterly beautiful.

      He leaned back and rested his head on the top of the sofa. His throat ached. Maybe he was coming down with a virus? His eyes felt gritty and he squeezed them shut, ashamed of the hot wetness that seeped beneath his lashes.

      Maybe there was something wrong with him—something that made him unlovable and drove the people he cared about to leave him? His mother, his wife. He hadn’t loved Raffaella when he’d married her; they had both married for duty. But after their son had been born they had grown closer, and the discovery that she was having an affair had hurt him—although he had never shown it.

      He drained his glass, feeling the alcohol seep into his frozen blood. Raffaella and Nicolo were dead, and now Beth had gone, leaving him alone once more.

      Something brushed against his leg and he opened his eyes to find Beth’s scruffy dog sitting at his feet. ‘Okay, not completely alone,’ he acknowledged, reaching out to stroke Harry. The dog flopped down at his feet and howled mournfully. ‘You and me both, mutt,’ Cesario muttered, feeling the sound of the animal’s grief slice through his heart. ‘At least you know she cared about you.’

      Every time Beth had fussed over the dog and said ‘Love you, Harry,’ Cesario had felt a stab of envy as he’d imagined her saying those words to him.

      But why would she have done when he had never given her any real indication of how he felt about her? He poured himself another whisky, but instead of drinking it he swirled the amber liquid around the glass.

      It wasn’t surprising that Beth’s unhappy childhood had made her wary and untrusting. Abandoned by her father, she had been devastated by the deaths of her mother and her best friend. Everyone she had ever loved had left her.

      Yet she had given herself to him with absolute trust and told him she wanted him to be the first man to make love to her. He couldn’t believe that had meant nothing to her. She had chosen to give her virginity to him, and every time they had made love these past weeks she had given herself so sweetly. so lovingly—as if she wanted to show him with her body what she did not have the courage to say in words.

      So why had she left? He raked a hand through his hair. It didn’t make sense. He must be wrong. Maybe he’d imagined that soft look in her eyes because he’d wanted to see it.

      ‘You make me happy,’ she’d once told him. Surely she wouldn’t have said it unless she’d meant it? Beth was fiercely honest; it was one of the qualities he loved most about her—that and her gentle smile and her beautiful green eyes, the way she stroked his hair in those moments of sweet lethargy after they had made love.

      Love! Cesario gave a hollow laugh. It was an emotion he had been denied during his childhood and it had been missing for most of his adult life. He had loved his son, but Nicolo’s death had nearly destroyed him and he had vowed never to love anyone again when he knew how much pain it could bring.

      He was in pain now; there was a terrible ache in his chest, a wrenching sensation of loss. But one thought drummed in his head. He had made Beth happy once and he was not going to let her go without trying to find out what had gone wrong. Determination replaced his despair and he jumped to his feet and strode to the door to call Teodoro.

      ‘I need to fly to England tonight. See if you can book me onto a flight, and arrange for the helicopter to take me to the airport.’

      * * *

      The road that twisted up the mountainside was dappled gold from the setting sun, and the great jagged peaks all around were stained fiery orange. As the taxi turned a bend the Castello del Falco appeared, ancient and mellow in the fading light, its gates flung wide open as if they were welcoming Beth home.

      The taxi drew up in the courtyard and the driver unloaded her bags while she lifted Sophie in her baby-carrier from the car. He was the same man who had driven her from the castle down to Oliena the previous day, and he was clearly intrigued.

      ‘You will stay here for long?’ he queried in broken English.

      Beth gave him a tremulous smile. ‘I hope so.’ She did not add that if the master of the Castello del Falco refused to see her she would need the taxi driver’s services again. There was a good chance that Cesario would not want to listen to her, but she had to try.

      Waiting for her flight at the airport yesterday, she had finally faced up to why she had left him. She had been too scared to stay. The job opportunity had provided a good excuse for taking Sophie back to England. But the real reason she had run away was because she was afraid to accept the relationship Cesario had offered her, with all the uncertainty that being his mistress would mean.

      Like a spoilt child, she had been disappointed that he hadn’t offered what she had secretly hoped for. He hadn’t acted like Prince Charming in the fairy tale and declared his undying love for her, then swept her off to a church to put a ring on her finger. But he was a man, not a fantasy character. A man, moreover, who had known pain and loss and who had been taught to hide his emotions.

      Despite his past and his self-acknowledged difficulty in revealing his emotions Cesario had admitted that she made him happy. He had said he wanted a relationship with her, and just because he hadn’t said it with hearts and flowers she had put her pride before her love for him and gone away to sulk.

      She had never told him how she felt about him, Beth thought guiltily. Maybe he wouldn’t want to hear her confess her feelings for him, and maybe he would tell her he did not want a mistress who was in love with him, but that was a risk she would have to take—because she wasn’t ashamed of loving him and she was no longer prepared to hide her feelings.

      * * *

      Teodoro could not hide his surprise when he opened the front door and saw Beth. ‘The master is at the stables,’ he told her as she handed him the baby carrier in which Sophie was fast asleep. ‘You should hurry to find him,’ he called after her as she ran down the castle steps. ‘He is due to leave for England this evening.’

      The way to the stables was familiar to her СКАЧАТЬ