One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents (81 page)

‘We're old friends and ex-lovers…' His smile sent a chill of fear racing along her spine. ‘Surely it would be fitting that we fill in the gaps in our respective lives now that fate has brought us back together?'

‘There's no point, Angelo.' She had to steel herself to look at him. She recognised the lines of his face, the masculine beauty that she had once found so compelling, but she still felt as though she was sitting opposite a stranger and a stranger who could barely conceal his dislike. ‘I came here to discuss, well, my ideas for a meal…for your wedding. I didn't come here to discuss the past.'

‘Which just goes to show that we should always be flexible, don't you think?' His drink had arrived, something strong in a short, squat glass, and he accepted it without taking his eyes off her face.

With a painful stab, she realised that he was enjoying himself, enjoying this unexpected encounter. His life had moved on and he was more than happy to watch her squirm in front of him. She really couldn't blame him. If her legs would only start functioning properly she would have denied him the satisfaction, but she had a sneaking suspicion that they might just pack up from under her if she tried to stand up. The sensible mineral water she had ordered twenty minutes before when she had arrived, eager and early, now seemed ridiculously lacking in any ability to fortify her.

‘What do you want to know?' she asked tightly.

‘Tut, tut. Anyone would think from your tone of voice that you weren't pleased to see me. Strange, considering you were the one who ended our relationship.' The old, familiar rage formed a knot in his stomach. ‘Let me see. What do I want to know?' He took a sip from his glass and stared at her over the rim, his sharp eyes taking in the jerkiness of her hand when she reached for the glass of water. Revenge was an unworthy emotion. He knew that, or at least the cool, logical, intelligent side of him knew it. Right now, though, he could taste the sweetness of it on his tongue and was inordinately pleased that he had not walked away when he had spotted her sitting at the back of the room.

‘I am surprised you gave up your very lucrative modelling career,' he mused. ‘What went wrong? Europe too small to contain the both of us?'

‘It seemed a good time to come back to England.' Francesca raised her chin stubbornly, refusing to let him push her into a corner. ‘I'd saved enough money to buy a small place of my own and I fancied a change of job.' Their eyes tangled and she felt hot and faint and agonisingly aware of the powerful effect he still had on her. ‘It's no bigger a life change than the one you've made,' she continued. ‘You've moved to London and become engaged. I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her and I don't suppose I will now, but good luck for the future.' Her mouth smiled politely but her eyes remained misty with a frantic desire to get away from his presence.

‘And you? Not involved with anyone?'

Francesca thought of Jack, who would be wondering how the meeting was coming along, and her momentary hesitation answered his question. It was an answer he didn't care for and Angelo felt base, primitive jealousy rip through him like a knife.

‘But of course, you would be,' he said smoothly. ‘A beautiful woman like yourself.'

‘There's no need to compliment me, Angelo,' she said sharply. ‘You hate me. Which is why I can't understand what we're doing here, pretending to make small talk.'

‘Hate? There is no mileage in hate. It's a counterproductive emotion.' He realised that his glass was empty and resisted the temptation to order another drink. Apart from the stupidity of drinking at this early hour, there was also the small technicality of a certain high-level dinner engagement later that evening. Which he was in danger of reaching late if he didn't make a move soon. He settled back into his chair and beckoned the waitress across. To hell with it. Another whisky and soda would be okay but he better make it a light one.

‘So indulge my curiosity and tell me about him. After all, you know all about my personal status.'

‘There's no one.' Poor Jack. She was pretty sure he wouldn't like being labelled as
no one
, not least because she had known him since her early teens, but she didn't want to start walking down the road of little lies. Although, did it matter any more? Once she left this place she would never see Angelo Falcone again. She certainly wouldn't be getting the plum job for which she had come so prepared. The wad of recipes she had painstakingly selected to bring with her were still sitting in her capacious bag, making a mockery of her high hopes.

‘Ah, Francesca.' He raised his glass to his mouth and sipped carefully. ‘You may have lied to me about your name—'

‘I didn't lie to you! Millband is my mother's name and Ellie was always my first name. I didn't conjure the name Francesca Hayley out of thin air!' One little truth.

‘But you're lying now. Who is he? Do you think I care?'

Of course he didn't care! Nor did she. On that very last evening he had told her that they were ships that crossed in the night. Now they were ships sailing different oceans. They no longer had any impact on one another.

‘His name is Jack,' she offered with a little shrug. ‘He works with me. We set up the catering business together, if you must know.' She stared down into the unappealing glass of water and then reluctantly took a small sip. It had been cold forty minutes ago. Now it was metallic and tepid.

‘Jack. And how did you meet him? An ex-model also seeking to expand his horizons?'

For the first time since she had sat down, Francesca smiled with genuine amusement. Jack might have once upon a time been the sought-after boy in town, in the way that bad boys often were to teenage girls, but an
ex-model
? She thought of his shaved head and the embarrassing tattoos on his back and grinned. She couldn't help it. Then she laughed. That warm, rich, full-bodied laugh that was so infectious.

‘I think he would be insulted if you called him that! Well, that would be after I'd picked him up from the ground in shock at the description!'

It was that laugh that did it. Took him back through the years, took him back to that place where he had been captive to her irreverent ebullience.
She
had certainly never tiptoed around him. More ran circles around him.

‘No ex-model?' Angelo smiled at her with cold indifference. ‘What, then? A businessman? Someone in a two-piece suit and a bowler hat?'

‘Your Italian ancestry's showing, Angelo. Men these days don't wear bowler hats.' And people shouldn't find their past creeping up on them stealthily like a thief in the night. ‘I really think it's time I left,' she said quietly. ‘I'm sorry. This has been a shock…'

‘But what about your menus?' Angelo asked. ‘I wouldn't want you to return to your little house without at least giving you the benefit of telling me what you had in mind for my wedding banquet…'

‘Stop it!' Two bright patches of colour had appeared on her cheeks. ‘I always knew you were hard nosed, Angelo. I never realised you were just downright cruel!'

‘Cruel? How am I being cruel? Explain to me. I meet you here after three years and am polite enough to ask you what you have been up to in that time. I offer to see your menus, which I assume you have brought with you. Hardly the definition of cruelty.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘I have no idea what you are talking about. Time has a habit of dimming our memory of past acquaintances and their expectations.'

There wasn't a flicker of warmth on his face. He had found himself in her company before he had had time to retreat unnoticed and had managed to dredge up some semblance of politeness because the situation demanded it. A show of interest in her menu cards was just extending the politeness to embarrassing levels as far as she was concerned. The anger and dislike was there, she could feel it simmering behind the mask, but it was anger that had been roused by seeing her out of the blue. She doubted that he had given her much of a passing thought over the years or, if he had, only insofar as she had damaged his ego. Now, to him, she truly was an ex-acquaintance with whom he had shared a few months of his life, off and on.

He was engaged to be married. He had found love and affection and was eagerly planning his wedding day. She took a deep breath and tried to control the emotions beating against their constraints.

‘You're right.' She ventured a smile which didn't garner a response. ‘Okay. You can have a look at the menu I've prepared.' She rummaged around in her bag, feeling his eyes on her, and extracted neatly collated, printed sheets of paper. A choice, she told him, focusing on the papers and not on his face. Several options for starters, main courses and of course there would be a selection of desserts. She had only a vague idea of numbers but assumed that there would be roughly two hundred people from what his fiancée had communicated to her on her answer machine. Was she right in that assumption?

It was bizarre, sitting here like this, pretending to talk about a job that would not materialise while her heart did crazy things inside her and her head reeled with a sickening slide show of images of the past. She must have stored up so much information and, like a computer, her mind was now downloading it all in every painful detail.

What a joke to be sticking a phoney smile on her face and pretending that they were just two people having a normal conversation about a normal topic.

‘What is she like?' It was spoken before she had time to think.

‘I beg your pardon?' Angelo looked up at her politely.

‘I'm sorry. I meant…well, I'm glad you've found someone you love, someone to settle down with. I'm really happy for you, Angelo…'

And she had found someone as well. Time had moved on. But he certainly wasn't happy for her, nor was he in control of his response. He inclined his head curtly in acknowledgment of what she had said and then returned to the menus. She had never been able to cook when he had known her. An omelette had presented a challenge. Now the array of food she had listed was exquisite.

‘I wanted to do something that had a career in it but wasn't office-based,' she said, tuning in to his thought patterns. ‘Hence the catering.' The fact that she had left school at sixteen without any qualifications to speak of had also dictated a life-plan that didn't include a university degree. That, she kept to herself. ‘Once I had bought my house and was grounded, I found that I actually had to prepare meals for myself and I discovered that I enjoyed it. It seemed natural to take it one step further.' And specialising in Italian food had seemed natural as well, all wrapped up as it had been in memories of him. It had been a wise choice, as it turned out, for more practical reasons, because not many caterers specialised and very few specialised in Italian cuisine. She had found a ready market among the many well-to-do Londoners who held dinner parties and office dos and either couldn't be bothered or preferred to have someone else do the catering for them.

‘How very resourceful. And how very puzzling that you were so eager to settle down. When we last spoke you were fighting the idea.' Or maybe, he thought icily, just fighting the idea of doing it with him.

‘I know. I still thought that I wanted the adventure of never being in one place for too long, but…well…'

He watched the faint embarrassed blush creep into her cheeks, the way she tried to conceal her expression by looking down. He saw the truth staring him in the face. She had settled down because she had found the right man and it hadn't been him. It had never been him and, who knew, maybe this other man had been on the scene all along? After all, it hadn't been as if he had kept tabs on her. They had spent many periods of time apart, pursuing their separate careers. There would have been ample opportunity for her to have had someone else in the background. Someone else making love to her, turning her on. It was a thought that had not crossed his mind before but, now that it had, it took root and rapidly sprouted poisonous tendrils that curled into every corner of his mind.

‘For the best,' he said into the tense silence. ‘As most things turn out to be, in my opinion. After all, have we not both found our perfect partners?' His head seethed with images of her betrayal. Three years and he was discovering that the rage he felt towards her had only been papered over.

Francesca looked at him uncertainly, wondering what was going on behind the polite words.

‘I have come to a decision,' he said abruptly, handing her back her papers and pointedly looking at his watch. A man on the move. A busy man who had only so much time to spend walking down a mildly interesting memory lane. He stood up and left sufficient money on the table to more than cover the cost of the drinks, ignoring her protests as she stuffed the papers back into her bag. He likewise ignored the businesslike outstretched hand as she half rose to her feet.

‘That's okay,' she said quickly. ‘I understand. Neither of us expected…Good luck with your wedding.'

‘You have the job.'

It took a few seconds for what he'd said to sink in, during which time Francesca stared at him in blank amazement. ‘What?' she stammered.

‘You heard me. You have the job. You'll be hearing from me within the next week.'