Rebecca Winters

Rags To Riches Collection


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pulled on his trousers and took a clean shirt from the wardrobe before he walked over to the bed.

      ‘We’ll discuss things when I get back,’ he murmured, leaning over her and brushing his lips across hers.

      Maybe a few days away from her would clear his mind and help him to decide what he actually wanted, he thought. He knew he had surprised Beth when he’d asked her to stay with him. Hell, he’d surprised himself. It wasn’t unreasonable of her to want to know if he had a timescale in mind, but, strangely, the more he thought about it the more insistently the words for ever pushed into his brain.

      The sound of the helicopter landing in the courtyard was almost a relief. He had four days of intense business negotiations ahead and he needed to focus, concentrate—not let his mind wander to a girl with green eyes and a smile that turned his insides to jelly.

      He kissed her mouth, lingeringly, and wondered briefly if he could send one of his top executives to Japan in his place. ‘Four days isn’t long.’ He did not tell her it sounded like a lifetime. He picked up his jacket and walked across the room, but hesitated in the doorway and turned back to her.

      ‘Hurry back,’ she said softly.

      ‘I will. Tesoro…

      And suddenly everything made sense to Cesario. He stared at her, his heart pounding, but then his phone rang and he knew it was his pilot reminding him he had to leave now if he was going to make it to the airport in time to catch his flight to Japan. This wasn’t the moment to ask Beth about for ever.

      His eyes held hers. ‘I didn’t say it earlier, but you make me happy too,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ll see you soon, mia bella.

      * * *

      The castle felt empty without Cesario—and so did Beth. She kept reminding herself that he wouldn’t have told her she made him happy unless it was true, but in the long sleepless hours of the night her doubts multiplied like weeds after a rain shower. She did not doubt that he cared about Sophie. And the way he had looked at her before he had left for Japan made her think that perhaps he even cared about her a little too. But could she really live as his mistress, knowing that one day in the not too distant future he would tire of her?

      He phoned once, but sounded distracted. He’d spent a long day in the boardroom, he explained, and now he was relaxing at his hotel. The woman’s voice that Beth heard in the background probably belonged to his PA, she told herself. But the gremlin inside her head reminded her that Cesario hadn’t made any promises of commitment to her and she had no right to ask him who he was relaxing with.

      Cesario’s affairs never last for long. Allegra Ricci had told her that the night they had gone to the ballet. So how long was long? Weeks? Months before his desire for her died? Her old insecurities returned. She was the care home kid who had always been overlooked by foster parents. No one had wanted her then, and once Cesario’s sexual interest in her faded she would become an encumbrance, tolerated only because he felt some misplaced sense of duty towards Sophie.

      * * *

      Cesario felt a cramping sensation in his gut as the car swept into the castle courtyard. Nervous tension was not something he’d ever suffered from before and the experience was not pleasant. He was dog-tired, but that was hardly surprising when he had worked eighteen-hour days in order to push the Japanese deal through early. He ran his hand over the stubble on his jaw and gave a rueful grimace. He needed a shower, a drink, and Beth—in reverse order, he acknowledged as he felt the familiar tug of anticipation in his groin.

      He wondered if she had missed him as much as he had missed her. The car drew to a halt, and when his driver opened the door he took a deep breath before he climbed out. He recalled the unguarded expression in Beth’s eyes when she had asked him to hurry back, and he slipped his hand into his pocket to curl his fingers around a small square box.

      Dio! Butterflies wearing clogs were dancing in his stomach. But he had never put his heart on the line before—and the prospect of what he was about to do was frankly terrifying.

      He nodded to his driver and ran up the front steps. He was disappointed that it was Teodoro who walked across the hall to greet him, not Beth, but, Madonna, the mood he was in he was almost tempted to kiss the elderly butler, who had been more of a father figure to him than his own father had ever been.

      It took a few seconds for him to realise something was wrong. Teodoro’s usually inscrutable face was visibly upset.

      ‘What is this?’ he demanded as the butler handed him an envelope. ‘Where’s Beth?’

      ‘She left the castle with the bambina yesterday.’

      Cesario stared at his name written in Beth’s neat handwriting. The butterflies in his stomach had gone, leaving behind a hollow nothingness. For a moment he was seven years old again, running into the castle to see his mother. Teodoro had handed him a letter then too—a brief note from her, telling him that she was sad she’d had to leave him but promising that she would always think of him. He didn’t know if she had kept her promise because he had never seen her again.

      He dragged his mind back to the present. There could be a number of reasons for Beth’s unexpected departure, he told himself. But his hands shook as he ripped open the envelope and skimmed his eyes down the page.

      The agency I used to work for phoned to offer me an interview for a job as nanny with a family on the south coast of England. It sounds ideal as they are happy for me to combine caring for Sophie with looking after their two children. The position comes with my own living accommodation, and it will be a wonderful place to bring up Sophie and allow me to be independent. You have no responsibility for either of us, and I could not live as your mistress indefinitely.

      Thirty years after reading the note from his mother, Cesario once again experienced a gut-wrenching sense of abandonment—but this time he could not burst into tears and cling to Teodoro. Big boys don’t cry, he reminded himself grimly, and Piras men never revealed their emotions.

      Instead, he screwed Beth’s letter up in his fist and avoided the sympathetic expression in Teodoro’s eyes as he strode into his study and took a bottle of bourbon from the drinks cabinet. Clearly, he had been wrong to think Beth had feelings for him, to hope that she loved him. It was lucky he hadn’t revealed his feelings. Lucky he hadn’t made a fool of himself by telling her. He laughed bitterly and stared at the little square box on the coffee table in front of him. He’d chosen emeralds to match her eyes, and diamonds because, like her, they were pure and sparkling and utterly beautiful.

      He leaned back and rested his head on the top of the sofa. His throat ached. Maybe he was coming down with a virus? His eyes felt gritty and he squeezed them shut, ashamed of the hot wetness that seeped beneath his lashes.

      Maybe there was something wrong with him—something that made him unlovable and drove the people he cared about to leave him? His mother, his wife. He hadn’t loved Raffaella when he’d married her; they had both married for duty. But after their son had been born they had grown closer, and the discovery that she was having an affair had hurt him—although he had never shown it.

      He drained his glass, feeling the alcohol seep into his frozen blood. Raffaella and Nicolo were dead, and now Beth had gone, leaving him alone once more.

      Something brushed against his leg and he opened his eyes to find Beth’s scruffy dog sitting at his feet. ‘Okay, not completely alone,’ he acknowledged, reaching out to stroke Harry. The dog flopped down at his feet and howled mournfully. ‘You and me both, mutt,’ Cesario muttered, feeling the sound of the animal’s grief slice through his heart. ‘At least you know she cared about you.’

      Every time Beth had fussed over the dog and said ‘Love you, Harry,’ Cesario had felt a stab of envy as he’d imagined her saying those words to him.

      But why would she have done when he had never given her any real indication of how he felt about her? He poured himself another whisky, but instead of drinking it he swirled