CATHERINE GEORGE - Italian Attraction - The Italian Tycoon's Bride / An Italian Engagement / One Summer in Italy...

Most of the time Maisie went along with her mother’s demands, for an easy life, but there had been a few issues over which she’d dug her heels in. The first had been her decision not to apply for a degree course in one of the areas her mother had deemed suitable. The second had been to take up relatively low paid employment simply because she liked the work, and the third—over which her mother was still smarting —had been her resolution not to move up north when her mother had announced her plans to move to Sheffield three years ago. It had been high time to finally cut the umbilical cord. Maisie had seen it clearly, even though her mother had not and probably never would.

‘I’m going to Italy for a while to take care of some animals for a branch of Jackie’s family,’ Maisie repeated patiently. ‘It’s a good opportunity to get away and assess where I want to go from here. To take stock of my life.’

Her mother snorted. She’d got it down to an art and it was the most irritating sound in the world. ‘You would be far better served to move up here with me and get a decent job. You’re too old to go gallivanting. Your Aunt Eva only said the other day that this thing with Jeff was probably a sign for you to be here with us all.

Maisie was glad they weren’t connected by camera phone. ‘Us all’ meant her mother’s branch of the family, which consisted of three sisters and their families all living in and round about Sheffield. All her aunts were like her mother, and Maisie would have considered it hell on earth to be up there. She had made a rude face but now she took a deep breath and said evenly, ‘I don’t see it that way and, like I’ve said before, all my friends are here, Mum. I like living in London.’

‘Is that why you’re skedaddling off to Italy?’

‘I’m going for a couple of months or so—a short break, that’s all—and when I come back I’ll find another job. It’s no big deal.’

‘And what if this Italy thing doesn’t work out?’

‘Then I’ll be back sooner than I expected.’ Maisie decided to cut the phone call short; a quarrel was brewing and she wasn’t in the mood to continue in saintly mode. ‘I’ll talk to you again in a day or so but I have to go now. OK? Bye, Mum. Take care.’ She put down the receiver before her mother could object.

Having been satisfyingly assertive, Maisie sat staring round her bedsit once she had finished the phone call. It was dreary, although she’d tried to make the best of a bad job with bright cushions and pots and throws to brighten the place. The trouble was that it needed some money thrown at it to make it anything like light and modern, and if anyone did have any money they wouldn’t choose to live here in the first place. Why spend time and effort on a rented property if you had some spare cash which meant you could perhaps take on a mortgage?

‘I don’t want to live here any more.’ Maisie spoke the words of truth which had been hovering in her subconscious for some time, now she thought about it. With Jeff’s ring on her finger and their marriage in view she had thought her days here were numbered. Now she found she wasn’t about to compromise.

It was a revelation. But a good one, she decided, after the distinctly iffy ones concerning Jeff and the beanpole. She hadn’t engineered this but she had already discussed the rent of the bedsit with Blaine, and she had a hefty cheque in her bag right now to cover her four months sojourn in foreign climes. She wouldn’t complicate things by explaining she had decided to move home, but simply bank the money after giving her landlord notice here in the next day or so. And once she was back in England in the autumn she would reconsider her position. London was expensive, horrifically so, and she could easily up sticks and move elsewhere. Not Sheffield—never that—but there were other places where her family wouldn’t take over and she would be allowed to live her own life. She would still continue to keep in contact with her real friends like Jackie, and the rest of them didn’t matter in the overall scheme of things.

The intrusive ring of the telephone cut short her musings. It could only be her mother, determined to have the last word. Excusing the words that came to mind by telling herself she hadn’t actually voiced them, Maisie snatched up the phone. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.

There was a succinct pause. ‘Something tells me I’ve rung at an inopportune moment?’ Blaine drawled softly.

You’d think he’d done it on purpose. Well, she wasn’t sure he hadn’t, Maisie snarled to herself. She counted to ten before she said, ‘Blaine, sorry. I’ve just had some milk boil over. You know how it is.’ Of course he didn’t. He had the air of a man who had never had to do anything domestic for himself in the whole of his life.

‘Cocoa?’

‘What?’

‘The milk. It’s eleven o’clock at night. I thought it might be cocoa you were making. I understand it is a passion of you British at bedtime.’

She ignored the curls in her stomach that his intonation of the word passion had caused and breathed through her nose. He was being nasty. She just knew it. Insinuating that she had nothing better to do at night than drink cocoa.

Because her brain wouldn’t compute milk and the uses thereof, she said, ‘Is there a problem?’ Please don’t say you have changed your mind, not now I’ve called my mother.

‘No problem,’ he said lazily. ‘Just to let you know I’ve reserved your tickets and you’re flying out on Tuesday afternoon. I trust you can tie up any loose strings here by then?’

There wasn’t enough to merit a knot. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Good.’ A brief pause ensued. ‘I’ll meet you at the airport and take you to the house.’

‘There’s no need for that. I can get a taxi.’

‘I’m sure you can, Maisie.’ It was dry. ‘Nevertheless I shall meet you. You are a guest in my country.’

‘I’m an employee.’ She didn’t want him to think she had any expectations.

‘Not my employee,’ he said silkily.

She floundered, the image of a long lean body and wickedly handsome face flashing on the screen of her mind. ‘You … don’t have to.’

‘I know.’ The deep voice and accent was an unfair combination. ‘I want to. You are Jackie’s dearest friend, after all.’

He was laughing at her. She couldn’t see his face but she was sure he was laughing at her. Stiffly now, she said, ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

This time the throb of amusement was unmistakable. Maisie glared at the receiver. The telephone in the bedsit was antiquated. She had seen the state-of-the-art whizkid mobile phone he’d used earlier—it added insult to injury. ‘Goodbye,’ she said tightly.

‘Goodnight, Maisie.’ His tone was easy and relaxed. It told her more blatantly than any words could have done that she could indulge in her little tantrums and he didn’t give a damn. And then she realised she’d got it wrong again when he added, ‘His loss, Italy’s gain. The guy was a fool, Maisie. Don’t waste time thinking about him. He isn’t worth it.’ And the phone went dead.

When Maisie exited Naples airport on Tuesday afternoon she was tired and more than a little apprehensive. It hadn’t been until she was actually on the plane that the enormity of what she had let herself in for had hit her, along with the fact that she would be in effect homeless once she returned to England. But that was all right, she told herself firmly as she shaded her eyes with her hand and glanced round for Blaine, berating herself for not buying a pair of decent sunglasses before she left England. A friend was storing her few bits and pieces and personal belongings in a spare room until she returned home, and Sue had been very enthusiastic about Maisie staying with her until she fixed up a job and somewhere to stay. So she wouldn’t exactly be destitute. Far from it, in fact, with Blaine’s very healthy cheque having plumped up her bank balance, which hopefully would be added to while she was in Italy.