The Sicilian's Mistress

Then, just as she came off the roundabout on the outskirts of town, her searing headache became suddenly so much worse that her vision began to blur. Immediately she pulled off the road and parked. Perspiration beaded her short upper lip.

And then it happened. As if somebody was staging a sudden slideshow inside her head. A picture slotted into her mind. She saw herself clutching a phone like a lifeline, and then her awareness shifted and she was suddenly inside that self.

‘Gianni…I haven’t seen you in three weeks,’ she was saying, and tears were stinging her eyes, but she was working really hard at keeping her voice light and teasing because like any workaholic Gianni hated it when she nagged.

‘Book yourself a seat on Concorde.’

‘OK…’ she agreed with studied casualness, furiously blinking back the tears.

‘I didn’t realise it had been three weeks.’ Gianni paused, and then continued with innate superiority and instinctive attention to detail. ‘No, it hasn’t been three weeks, cara. Don’t you remember I stopped over one night before I went to Rio?’

‘Gianni, much as I love you,’ she groaned, ‘there are times when I just want to reach down this phone line and hit you! You were here for less than five hours!’

And then, just as quickly as it had come, the picture vanished and Faith was left sitting behind the steering wheel of her car in complete shock. But every emotion she had experienced during that slide back into the past had stayed with her, and the revelation of those powerful emotions now took her by storm.

Winding down the window with a shaking hand, Faith drank in great gulps of fresh air. It had happened, this time it had really, definitely happened, and she had genuinely remembered something. But that tiny slice of the past she had relived had been incredibly disturbing.

She had loved him. She had loved Gianni D’Angelo! She had had a capacity for emotion then that had virtually eaten her alive. Until now Faith had never dreamt that at any stage of her life she could have experienced such strong feelings. And it was even more devastating to be forced to accept that once she had adored Gianni D’Angelo, lived from one day to the next on that love, needed him as she needed air to breathe, felt she was barely existing when he wasn’t around…

Emerging from that shattering new awareness, Faith tried to block it out again. It had already been a hell of a day. Tomorrow she would take it all out again and deal with it. Not now.

She drove through town and parked at the rear of Petals, the flowershop she ran with Louise.

Gianni D’Angelo’s mistress. If she had once been that crazy about him, she could even begin to see how she might have ended up trapped in such a relationship. Love had made a fool of her. Love, she told herself urgently, was a lot more presentable an excuse than avarice.

But how was she to tell Edward? Edward was such a conventional man. Faith’s heart sank. Edward had chosen to assume that some flash young man had seduced her and then abandoned her when she fell pregnant. That was how Edward had dealt with getting engaged to an unwed mother. He had effectively excused her from all real responsibility and decided to view her as an innocent victim.

But being kept by Gianni D’Angelo as a mistress was a very different kettle of fish. And how could she not tell Edward, when Gianni was here in the flesh demanding to meet his son? It was all going to come out. Nothing she could do could prevent that. Gianni D’Angelo’s mistress. It was sordid. Why had she tried briefly to persuade herself otherwise? Edward and her parents would be extremely shocked. And Gianni wasn’t likely to sink back into the woodwork again. Climbing out of her car, Faith paled at that awareness.

The shop was empty of customers. Louise was dusting shelves and humming to herself. Her partner turned round, and as Faith moved into the light she frowned. ‘Heck, what’s happened to you?’

Faith stiffened defensively like a hedgehog under sudden attack. ‘Nothing…nothing’s happened to me.’

‘What have you done with your hair?’ Louise demanded. ‘My goodness, I never realised you had that much of it!’

‘I had a headache…have a headache,’ Faith corrected awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry. I should’ve called you to tell you that I would be out for so long.’

‘Nonsense. Go back home this minute. You look awful,’ Louise told her bluntly.

Relieved by that advice, Faith went back out to her car and drove slowly home to the rambling old farmhouse her parents had bought and renovated when she was a child. In the cosy front hall, the scent of beeswax polish and the ticking of the old grandfather clock enveloped her like a healing blanket.

Connor ran out of the kitchen, loosed a noisy whoop of welcome and flung himself at her. ‘Mummy!’ he carolled.

Faith reached down and lifted her son. She hugged him so tightly he gave a yelp of protest. Instantly she loosened her grip and pressed an apologetic kiss to his smooth brow. A great gush of love had just engulfed her, but for the first time there was a piercing arrow of fearful insecurity inside that love.

He was a gorgeous little boy. The combination of her blonde hair with his dark brows, sparkling brown eyes and golden skin tone was unusual. But all of a sudden Connor wasn’t exclusively her little boy any more. He was the son of a very rich man, who wanted a share of him. How much of a share?

Her mother emerged from the kitchen. ‘Are you taking the rest of the afternoon off?’ she asked, and then frowned. ‘Oh dear, what’s happened to your hair?’

‘I lost the clasp.’

Davina Jennings, a small, comfortably rounded woman with short greying fair hair and an air of bustling activity, sighed. ‘You should take time off more often. You do look tired, darling.’

‘Do I?” Averting her head, Faith lowered Connor to the floor.

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