Unfinished Business with the Duke

‘What’s the matter?’ Maxi asked, sounding concerned. ‘You’ve gone white as a sheet.’

‘I do know someone. He’s a duke.’

‘A duke!’ Maxi bounced up. ‘You’re friends with a duke, and we haven’t approached him for sponsorship yet?’ She waved the comment away as she rushed to Issy’s desk, her eyes bright with newfound hope. ‘Does he have a passion for theatre?’

‘Not that I know of.’ And they weren’t exactly friends either.

Heat rose up her neck and her nipples pebbled painfully as the memory she’d been trying to suppress for a week burst back to life.

No, they definitely weren’t friends.

‘But he is loaded,’ she added, not wanting to extinguish the excitement in Maxi’s gaze.

Or she assumed Gio was loaded. She had absolutely no idea what he did for a living, or even if he did anything. But he was a duke. And he kept a room at the swanky gentlemen’s club. And hadn’t he said something about renovating Hamilton Hall? Surely it made sense to assume he must be loaded?

Issy crossed her arms over her chest as her breasts began to throb. Something they’d been doing on a regular basis for days, every time she thought about Gio and his hot, insistent lips…She shook her head. Those thoughts had been coming a lot thicker and faster than she wanted to admit. And not just those thoughts, but other ones—which involved his lips and tongue and teeth and hands on the whole of her naked body, driving her to untold…

Issy squeezed her pulsating breasts harder as all her nerve endings started to tingle.

‘When are you going to see him again? Can you contact him today?’

She tensed at Maxi’s eager question.

‘What’s wrong?’ Maxi asked, the light leaving her eyes. ‘You don’t look all that enthusiastic.’

‘It’s a long shot, Max. At best.’

More than a long shot, if she were being totally honest. She’d told Gio she detested him, for goodness’ sake. Like a spoilt child. And, while it had given her some satisfaction at the time, and she doubted he cared what she thought of him, it wasn’t going to make begging him for money any easier.

Maxi cocked her head to one side, looking concerned. ‘Exactly how well do you know this duke? Because you’ve gone bright red…’

‘Well enough.’ Maybe too well.

She needed a strategy before she saw Gio again. A foolproof strategy. If she was going to have any hope of winning a stay of execution for the theatre—and keeping even a small part of her dignity intact.

Issy felt as if she’d travelled back in time as she stepped off the train at the tiny Hampshire station of Hamilton’s Cross and walked down the platform. It was a journey she’d done dozens of times during her childhood and adolescence when her widowed mother Edie had been housekeeper at the Hall.

Seeing her reflection in the glass door of the ticket office—which never seemed to be open then and wasn’t now—Issy congratulated herself on how much her appearance had changed from that dumpy schoolgirl with the fire-engine red hair. The chic emerald silk dress with matching pumps, accented with her favourite chunky necklace and designer sunglasses, looked a good deal more sophisticated than the ill-fitting school uniform, for starters. Teased into a waterfall of corkscrew curls instead of the unruly fuzzball of her childhood, even her vivid red hair now looked more Rita Hayworth than Little Orphan Annie.

The thought gave her a confidence boost as she headed for the newspaper booth which doubled as a mini-cab office. A boost she desperately needed after spending half the night struggling to figure out a workable strategy for her meeting with Gio.

If only she hadn’t told him she detested him!

Unfortunately the strategy she’d settled on—to be businesslike and efficient and not lose her cool—seemed disappointingly vague and far from foolproof as zero hour approached.

She tucked the stray curls behind her ear and gripped the shoulder strap on her satchel-style briefcase. Full of paperwork about the theatre—including details of the loans, financial projections, the stunning reviews from their summer season and her plans for next season—the briefcase put the finishing touch on her smart, savvy career-woman act.

Not that it was an act, per se, she corrected. She was smart and savvy and a career woman—of sorts. Unfortunately she was also a nervous wreck—after a sleepless night spent contemplating all the things that could go wrong today.

Having discarded the idea of informing Gio of her visit beforehand—fairly certain he would refuse to see her—she had surprise on her side. But from what she’d learned about Gio after scouring the internet for information, surprise was about all she had.

The startling revelation that Gio was now a worldrenowned architect, with a reputation for striking and innovative designs and a practice which was one of the most sought-after in Europe, hadn’t helped with her nervous breakdown one bit.

Okay, Gio was definitely rich. That had to be a plus, given the reason why she was here. But the discovery that the wild, reckless boy she had idolised had made such a staggering success of his life had brought with it a strange poignancy which didn’t bode well for their meeting.

And that was without factoring in the way her body had responded to him a week ago. Which, try as she might, she still hadn’t been able to forget.

She was here for one reason and one reason only, and she was not going to lose sight of that fact. No matter what. Or the theatre’s last hope would be dashed for good.

She had to stick to her plan. She would promote the theatre and do her absolute utmost to persuade Gio that investing in a sponsorship would give his company added profile in the British marketplace. If all else failed she’d remind him that he had offered her financial help. But under no circumstances would she let their history—or her hormones—sway her from her goal. No matter what the provocation—or the temptation.

‘Good Lord, is that you, Issy Helligan? Haven’t you grown up!’

Issy beamed a smile at the short, balding man sitting in the mini-cab cubicle. ‘Frank, you’re still here!’ she said, delighted to see a familiar face.

‘That I am,’ the elderly man said bashfully, as his bald patch went a mottled red. ‘How’s your mother these days? Still living in Cornwall?’

‘That’s right, she loves it there,’ Issy replied, grateful for the distraction.

‘Awful shame about the Duke’s passing last summer,’ Frank continued, his smile dying. ‘Son’s back you know. Doing up the Hall. Although he never saw fit to come to the funeral. ’Spect your mother told you that?’

Edie hadn’t, because her mother knew better than to talk to her about Gio after that fateful summer.

But the news that Gio hadn’t bothered to attend his own father’s funeral didn’t surprise Issy. He and his father had always had a miserably dysfunctional relationship, evidenced by the heated arguments and chilly silences she and her mother had witnessed during the summers Gio spent at the Hall.

She’d once romanticised Gio’s troubled teenage years, casting him as a misunderstood bad boy, torn between two parents who hated each other’s guts and used their only child as a battering ram. She’d stopped romanticising Gio’s behaviour a decade ago. And she had no desire to remember that surly, unhappy boy now. It might make her underestimate the man he had become.

‘Actually, I don’t suppose you know whether Gio’s at the Hall today? I came to pay him a visit.’

According to the articles she’d read, Gio lived in Italy, but his office in Florence had told her he was in England. So she’d taken a chance he might be at the Hall.

‘Oh, aye—yes, he’s here,’ said Frank, making Issy’s pulse skitter. ‘Came in yesterday evening by helicopter, no less—or so Milly at the post office says. I took the council planners over to the Hall for a meeting an hour ago.’

‘Could I get a lift too?’ she said quickly, before she lost her nerve.

Frank grinned and grabbed his car keys. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’

He bolted the booth and directed her to the battered taxi-cab parked out front.

‘I’ll put your journey out on the house, for old times’ sake,’ he said cheerfully as he opened the door.

Issy tensed as she settled in the back seat.

No way was she going to think about old times. Especially her old times with Gio.

She snapped the seat belt on, determined to wipe every last one of those memories from her consciousness.

But as the car accelerated away from the kerb, and the familiar hedgerows and grass verges sped past on the twenty-minute drive to the Hall, the old times came flooding back regardless.