Page 36 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

The pulsing in her head and roiling nausea in her stomach flared up again as she followed him inside the villa.

‘I’m going to get my things together,’ she said quietly when they’d crossed the reception room.

He jerked a nod and uttered his first words since telling her to get dressed. ‘I will get Frank to bring your cases down.’

‘No need. They’re not heavy.’ Hating his remoteness, and hating that she hated it, she tried to inject some humour. ‘Well, theyareheavy, but I’ve lugged them up and down the stairs so many times recently that I’m in danger of developing muscles.’

His dimples didn’t even pretend to appear at this. ‘Where will you go?’

‘Home.’

His jaw clenched. ‘England?’

‘It’s my home.’

His eyes closed, face almost seeming to suck in on itself before he bowed his head and stepped away from her. ‘I will get the paperwork for the shares ready for you.’

‘The transfer’s already been done?’ There was still an hour until the deadline she’d imposed. In the back of her mind she’d imagined him dragging it all out until the last possible minute.

He turned back to look at her. ‘I received the notification of completion when we were eating our breakfast.’

‘This morning?’

There was no apology in his stare. ‘Consider my failure to tell you another mark against my name.’

If Rebecca put all her stuff by the front door one more time she thought an indent might just appear in the terracotta flooring. Through the window at the side of the door she saw the large black car had reappeared, parked in the same spot as yesterday, ready to whisk her away.

As she padded barefoot across the reception room she blinked away the image of shattered marble that flashed in her eyes and then, as she entered the main living area and found Enzo at the bar pouring himself a Scotch, a wave of déjà vu hit her.

Full circle.

‘Gin and tonic?’ he asked, keeping his back to her.

‘No thank you. I’ll just take the shares and get going.’ No more excuses. They’d dragged it out—she’ddragged it out—long enough.

If he hadn’t had her passport in his safe, she could have followed her instincts and fled immediately to England from the cathedral.

But if she’d done that, she would never have experienced the heaven of making love with Enzo.

Whether she would live to regret that joy, only time would tell. Right now, she didn’t want to think about it. She just wanted to go while she still had control of herself, without making a scene.

He turned, and held up a gin glass practically filled to the brim. ‘I’ve already made it. You might as well drink it. The shares and business documents are on the sideboard. There are things about them I need to discuss with you.’

She spotted the envelope they were contained in. ‘We’ve had plenty of time to discuss them.’ She didn’t add that he could have told her over breakfast that the deed had been done and that they were hers and discussed whatever he thought needed talking about then.

‘It wasn’t the right time before.’

Not responding, she pulled the documents out of the envelope and gave them a quick scan. He’d stuck by his word and transferred them. For that alone, she would give him some credit.

‘You are welcome to get a lawyer to check it all over for you but I assure you, everything is in order. They have already been digitally transferred into your name. You are officially my business partner.’

That took her aback. She’d never considered it like that. Not in those terms.

As if reading her mind, he gave a wry smile and raised his full tumbler of Scotch. First taking a large drink of it, he then placed her gin on the glass table next to the squishy sofa she favoured and sat himself stiffly on an armchair she’d never seen him use before. ‘I did consider transferring the whole of Claflin Diamonds to you but it would have been meaningless. You would just have seen it as another performance.’

Yes, she thought. She would have seen it like that.

He nodded at her drink. ‘Please. Sit. Drink. What I have to tell you should not take long. I have booked a flight for you to England that leaves in three hours. The ticket’s been sent to your email. You will still leave here by one and have plenty of time to reach the airport in good time for it.’

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