CATHERINE GEORGE - An Italian Engagement

‘You made use of me today,’ Max began, his saturnine cast of feature very pronounced.

‘I had no objection to acting as your minder at the party. I enjoyed that. But I did object to the sexual experiment afterwards. You were obviously proving something to yourself when you asked me to make love to you.’

Abby’s eyes fell. ‘I was with you all the way until—well, until the last bit.’ She smiled wearily. ‘Maybe now you can see why life is so much easier for me without a man in it.’

‘I don’t scare so easily,’ he assured her, and got up to sit beside her. ‘I like a challenge. And you, Abigail Green, are very definitely a challenge.’

Dear Reader

I quite often receive letters from readers asking me to write about characters featured in minor roles in my previous novels. In response to these, and also because her story was just asking to be told, this one features Abby, who first appeared as the teenage sister of Laura Green in A VENETIAN PASSION. I’ve returned to Italy for part of the setting, but whereas Laura found romance among the canals and beautiful buildings of Venice, Abby runs into her hero, almost literally, on a steep hillside road in Umbria.

Abby played a small, but very important part in A VENETIAN PASSION. Now, at twenty-five, she takes the starring role in AN ITALIAN ENGAGEMENT. I hope you enjoy reading about her as much as I enjoyed telling her story.

Best wishes

Catherine

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

AFTER travelling the first stages by boat and train it was a relief to take to the road for the last lap of her journey. Abby checked the map, took a minute or two to familiarise herself with the hire car, then set off on a route which meandered through a sunlit Umbrian landscape with postcard views on all sides. But after a few kilometres the surface began to deteriorate. The road grew narrow and hair-raisingly steep, winding up in hairpin bends, each one tighter than the last. Abby crouched over the wheel, praying she wouldn’t meet any oncoming traffic, her eyes too firmly glued to the road to notice the warning light on the dashboard. Suddenly a geyser of steam spurted up from the bonnet, a smell of hot metal filled the car, and a despairing look at the temperature gauge confirmed that it was almost off the clock.

Abby pulled over as far as she could against the hillside, yanked hard on the handbrake to secure the car on the steep incline, released the bonnet switch and got out, eyeing the car with hostility. It was obviously too hot to touch, but in the afternoon sunlight it was unlikely to cool down any time soon, either. Using a clump of tissues to protect her fingers, she raked up the bonnet and jumped back to avoid scalding jets of steam. The radiator obviously needed water more than she did. Great. Abby took her phone from her bag to explain why she was late. And ground her teeth in frustration. No signal. No choice, then, either. She had to walk. She reached in the car for her hat, then shot straight out again as she heard the roar of a powerful engine somewhere up ahead. Acting on instinct, she darted in front of her car, waving her hat in frantic warning as a flame-red vehicle came surging round the bend through a cloud of dust. Abby jumped out of the way at the last minute, her heart hammering at her ribs as the car swerved to halt just a yard or so away, its heavy tyres scattering shale and pebbles in all directions. Shaken and breathless, she stood her ground as six feet of furious male jumped out and bombarded her with a spate of Italian so rapid and incensed she could barely understand a word of it.

Knowing she’d only get another flood in response if she uttered a word of her own very basic Italian, Abby held up her hand like a traffic policeman, took off her dark glasses and smiled ruefully. ‘I’m terribly sorry. My car’s broken down. Do you speak English?’

The man’s eyebrows shot up over aviator lenses. ‘Good God. You’re a Brit?’

‘Yes,’ she said, surprised, because so was he.

‘What the devil are you doing here? I could have killed you! This is a private road.’

Her smile faded. ‘I’m aware of that. I’m on my way to an appointment at the Villa Falcone.’

‘Oh, right. Another of Gianni’s fans,’ he said, in a tone which raised her hackles.

She gave him a frosty look. ‘My appointment with Mr Falcone is strictly business.’

‘That’s what they all say.’ He thrust a hand through his hair, scowling at her. ‘That was a damn stupid thing to do. Be grateful my brakes are efficient.’

Abby was used to dealing with people in her job, but she was hot, tired, late for an appointment, and in no mood for a lecture. ‘If this road is Mr Falcone’s private property are you a fan, or just a trespasser?’

‘For your information,’ he drawled, ‘it’s not Gianni’s private road. It’s mine.’

‘Oh.’ Abby’s hot face reddened in embarrassment. ‘Then I apologise. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.’

‘Obviously. Let’s take a look at your car.’

Abby raked the bonnet up again and stood back. He hooked his sunglasses in his belt and bent over the engine to investigate. She looked on without much hope, but when he straightened to wipe sweat from his forehead she frowned in surprise. The tanned, saturnine face looked familiar. She could have sworn she’d seen him before—Oh, come on, Abigail. How likely was that? Stress and heat were frying her brain.

‘Your radiator’s sprung a leak,’ he informed her. ‘A stone probably pierced it from underneath. You wouldn’t have noticed on this surface. My apologies.’

Abby smiled graciously. ‘Hardly your fault.’

‘The apology is for my suspicions. I took it for granted the breakdown was staged.’ His smile set her teeth on edge. ‘Gianni’s fans can be amazingly creative in their attempts to get at him.’

She needed this man’s help, she reminded herself. ‘I assure you that Mr Falcone is expecting me.’ She looked at her watch in dismay. ‘In fact I’m due to meet him in twenty minutes, but I can’t get a signal to tell him I’m delayed.’

‘You won’t in this spot. I’ll drive you back to my place to ring Gianni. He can send someone to pick you up.’ A pair of hard, deep-set eyes gave her a look she didn’t care for very much. ‘Were you expecting to stay at his house overnight?’

‘No,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m booked in at a hotel in Todi. After my meeting with Mr Falcone I’ll get back there by taxi.’

For the first time he gave her a genuine, megawatt smile. ‘Right, let’s go, then. My name’s Wingate, by the way.’

‘Abigail Green,’ she said, dazzled by the smile. ‘I appreciate your help, Mr Wingate.’ She collected her belongings from the car and locked it, wiped her hands on a tissue, jammed her panama low on her forehead and got into the passenger seat of what she could now see was a Range Rover sports car. The perforated leather of the passenger seat supported her in pure comfort after the cramped little hire car, but Abby sat rigid, eyes firmly averted from the drops below, while her reluctant Samaritan turned the car in a skilled, terrifying manoeuvre, then took off up bends which grew more hair-raising the higher they climbed. At last, to her infinite relief, they passed through a gap in weathered walls into the courtyard of a house built of pale, sun-washed stone.

‘Oh, how lovely,’ she said involuntarily. The infrequent windows were of different sizes and set in the walls with no apparent eye for symmetry, but the effect was utterly captivating. When she got out she could see that each window had been placed to look down on a different view of wooded hills and vineyards, interspersed with cultivated fields protected by serpentine rows of tall cypresses.