Charlene Sands - Special Deliveries - Her Nine-Month Secret

‘I… I’m not sure where to begin…’ Her voice sounded unnaturally high and tinged with guilt. She hadn’t expected to be thrown in at the deep end, made to feel unwelcome, granted none of the usual pleasantries that might have put her a little more at ease. He acted as though she had been the one to blame for the break-up of their relationship! As though he hadn’t been the guilty party… the man who had lied to her and led her up the garden path!

Hard on the heels of that thought came the realisation that he could behave however he chose because in his head he was probably guilty of nothing. So he had lied to her, but he certainly wouldn’t feel mortified at that because to feel mortified, he would also have had to care about her and he hadn’t. That was the bottom line. Her soft mouth firmed.

‘Shall I give you a helping hand?’ Luiz queried in a silky-smooth voice that somehow managed to get her back up and reduce her already scattered ability to think even more.

‘How could you do that? You don’t know what I’ve come here to say,’ Holly intoned in a nervous whisper.

‘I can take a guess…’

‘How?’ Confusion tore into her as she tried to fathom out how he could possibly suspect the reason for her visit. Was he a mind reader? He had always been spectacularly good at placing her moods and had always seemed to instinctively know what she was about to say. Plus, she had gained weight. All over there was just… more of her. She had gone up a bra size, and that was underestimating things. Self-consciously, she felt her breasts tighten and she shifted a little. For a man who could take in every detail of a woman’s body in seconds, he would have spotted that in a flash. She thought that it might make her job a little easier if she didn’t have to spell it all out in black and white. Caving in to his superior knowledge, and not doubting for a second that he had guessed why she was there, Holly sagged. ‘I suppose it’s pretty obvious.’

‘It is to me. For God’s sake, Holly, why don’t you take that ridiculous jacket off and sit?’

‘You don’t have much time. I wouldn’t want to impose… I just wanted to say what I have to say… leave you to mull it over…’ But she awkwardly removed the anorak and slunk into the chair opposite his desk.

Luiz gave a sharp intake of breath. He would have had to be blind not to see how those luscious curves were even more tempting now. Her generous breasts were more than evident underneath the baggy dress. His jaw hardened as he fought to contain a crazy urge to lock the office door and discover for himself just how voluptuous she was underneath the unappealing clothing.

‘What’s there to mull over?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Just tell me what you need the money for. What’s gone wrong at the sanctuary? High winds wrecked some of the enclosures? Or is it the cottage? That damn building’s so ancient that you might as well resign yourself to the uphill task of finding money to fix things forever more until you decide to sell it.’ He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a cheque book. ‘For old times’ sake, I’ll give you however much you want, but after this the well is dry…’

Holly looked at him in a daze, not quite following what he was saying to her.

‘You think that I’ve come for money? ’ Yet why was she so shocked and hurt? Hadn’t he told her weeks ago, when they had parted company, that in his eyes all women were gold-diggers unless their fortunes could match his? Including her? Was it any wonder that he was looking at her now, ill-dressed and nervous, and jumping to all the wrong conclusions?

‘What else?’

‘You really are the most cynical person I’ve ever met, Luiz. I don’t suppose I would have liked you at all if I had met… the guy sitting in front of me right now, waving a cheque book around and asking me how much money I had come for. When we were together, you never behaved like an arrogant bore who thought that he could throw money around and get whatever he wanted.’

Luiz flushed darkly, caught off-guard by the pained bitterness in her voice. He leaned back and folded his hands behind his head. If she wanted to get to her point via a circuitous route, then he would let her but, the ‘arrogant bore’ label rankled.

‘But the arrogant bore sitting in front of you is the guy I really am,’ he murmured smoothly.

‘You were never arrogant when you were with me,’ Holly said in a strained voice.

‘But then, I was Luiz Gomez when I was with you. Here I am Luiz Casella, and I don’t have time to go round the houses with you, so why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here and have done with it?’ Arrogant bore… More than anything, he loathed the disappointment and pity in her face when she had said that. When he had walked out, he had left her angry and hurt. Now, surrounded by the trappings of his vast empire, she wasn’t impressed, she was disenchanted. Wealth didn’t seem to make him more of a man in her eyes.

Nerves making her fidgety, Holly glanced away and said abruptly, ‘I read somewhere that you’re going out with… someone now.’

Luiz’s immediate thought was to ask whether she was jealous… jealous enough to trek all the way down to London to confirm a rumour… jealous enough to realise that she had lost a good thing, whatever her high-minded reasons might have been at the time.

‘Where did you read that?’ he asked.

‘On the Internet.’ Holly blushed at the admission.

‘Really? I’m surprised that you were interested enough to try and check me out.’ But he had to admit that it gave him a kick to think that she had been.

‘I wanted to find out who the person I’d been seeing for the past year and a half really was,’ she said defensively. ‘You’re famous.’

‘I’ve acquired some standing in the business community.’

‘I felt like I was reading about someone I didn’t know. You own properties all over the world; your have companies and businesses all over the world. What on earth did you ever see in me? Didn’t I bore you to death?’

‘You were…’

‘A novelty,’ Holly bitterly filled in the blanks. ‘A change of scene—and a change is as good as a rest, isn’t it? And your usual scene when it comes to women are glamorous models and celebrities. There were reports and pictures about the new woman in your life… Cecelia Follone. I guess she’s the sort of woman you described as your ideal long-term partner…the right background…the right look .’

‘And that’s why you came here? To find out whether there was any truth behind the rumours?’ He had temporarily forgotten about Cecelia and didn’t care for the reminder that she was supposed to be his ‘ideal long-term partner’.

‘No,’ Holly said quietly. ‘I’m sure there’s a lot of truth behind the rumours. And I haven’t come here because I care. I don’t. The Luiz I cared about and fell in love with disappeared and was replaced by a Luiz I don’t know.’

And yet, even as the words poured out, she was drawn and shaken by the fierce tug of familiarity, of somehow knowing that, underneath the polished surface veneer, there would surely be the person she had grown to know. She shoved aside the wimpish, craven urge to see the three-dimensional man, to marry the two sides of the coin, and instead reminded herself of the undeserved suspicions he had levelled against her. The distrust that had shaken her belief in him, the ease with which he had written her off as a potential opportunist when, after all the time they had spent together, he should have known that he was miles out in his assumptions.

‘Your somebody else,’ she said, drawing in a deep breath.