The Runaway Bride And The Billionaire

‘Love you, too,’ Julie said.

Immi had just finished packing the last of Stephen’s stuff into a box when her phone beeped again. This time it was Portia.

OMG. When did this happen? Want me to come home and scalp him?

Immi laughed and texted back,

Tonight. I’m fine. Going to tape his pic to punchbag at gym tomorrow. You OK?

Yes.

Good.

Need a hand with cancelling stuff?

No, I’ve got it. But thanks.

Right at that moment, Immi really missed her sisters and she would’ve liked nothing better than to spend an evening with the four of them curled up by the fire with mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of brownies, talking about nothing in particular. But her sisters all had busy lives. And she wasn’t going to drag everyone back to Cambridge just because her own life was taking a bit of a wobble.

See you soon, yes?

Laters, Portia texted back.

So that was the first hurdle dealt with, Immi thought. Now she needed to put her list together of people she needed to call to cancel the ceremony, the reception, the dresses and the flowers, the photographer... And she might just take her little sister up on her offer of a bolt hole in a month’s time. Facing everyone this week would be tough enough, but the week when she was supposed to have been married? That was the week she’d rather be as far away from here as possible.

And in the meantime she had work to do.

CHAPTER TWO (#uc9b9894d-55db-5ce6-bd02-d6a675a26020)

A month later

IMMI PAID THE taxi driver, thanked him and collected her bags from the back of the car.

The Villa Rosa loomed before her in all its pink faded glory.

The last time she’d come here to L’Isola dei Fiori had been for Andie’s wedding. When she’d still been engaged to Stephen...while he’d been seeing someone else behind her back.

She shook herself. Enough of the pity party. It was bad enough that she was behaving like the Runaway Bride—actually running away from things on the week she should’ve been getting married. But she really couldn’t bear to be in Cambridge facing everyone’s pity right now; plus her father was back at the helm of Marlowe Aviation, so it wasn’t as if she was letting him down. And she really needed time away from the whole situation to decide what she really wanted from life.

Thank God Posy’s godmother Sofia had left her this place. It had been a gift to Sofia years ago by her besotted lover Ludano, the King of L’Isola dei Fiori; and Sofia had bequeathed it to her goddaughter, the youngest Marlowe girl.

OK, so the house needed some work doing. A lot of work, Immi amended, given that the stucco was faded and there were even weeds growing out of a crack in the wall. But it had been a bolt hole that all of Posy’s sisters had needed this spring and summer. Andie, giving her time to come to terms with a life-changing event. Portia, when her career was teetering on the brink. And now Immi herself, giving her space to decide what she was going to do with her life now her marriage wasn’t happening.

Best of all, the garden here had run pretty much wild. Which meant that Immi could spend her days doing what she loved second-best in the whole world—working in a garden—and it would make her so physically tired that she wouldn’t be able to brood about the might-have-beens. She could just concentrate on the plants and let a few ideas bubble in her subconscious.

The keys were right where Posy said they’d be, underneath a flowerpot in the back garden, and she let herself in.

The house was clean—as Immi had expected, given that her older sister Portia had been staying here—and there had definitely been some work done: the cracked glass panels in the double-height conservatory had been replaced, meaning that the room was pretty much watertight again. Several other walls had been replastered, though not painted, and the once-gorgeous painted drawing room still had a crack running through the fresco; it had been repaired, but nobody had touched up the paint.

She hauled her bags into the kitchen. Just as she remembered from the weekend of the wedding, the room was large and comfortable, and she thought she could probably use it as her base. The oven was ancient but in working order, as was the fridge. The kettle sitting on the worktop was the kind you had to boil on top of the stove, rather than the electric kind with a light that switched off when the water had boiled, but again it was workable; the pans, although worn and not the non-stick kind she was used to, were serviceable enough. The place felt as if it had been stuck in the early nineteen-seventies, but it had a certain charm.

There was a note propped against the kettle; she picked it up and read it.

Posy said you were coming. Have put milk in fridge and bread in the cupboard. We’re in the white cottage down the lane if you need anything.

Matt Stark

Matt.

Immi remembered that almost-kiss at the wedding and caught her breath. Back then, she hadn’t been free to act on that unexpected and unfair surge of desire. Now she was. Though right now she wasn’t in a place where she wanted to get involved with anyone. Just let it go and chalk it up to the actions of a kind neighbour, she told herself.

And it was kind of Matt to have brought her some milk and bread. She’d planned to go shopping once she got here, but her flight had been delayed and she’d missed her original ferry crossing from the mainland to Sant’Angelo, meaning that she’d arrived at the villa much later than she’d intended. She knew the shops in the village would be closed now; hopefully Portia had left some cereal or something in one of the cupboards, but if not then toast and milk would see her through until tomorrow. She’d call in and thank Matt for his kindness in the morning.

But how good it was right now not to have to talk to anyone.

It felt as if she’d spent the last month doing nothing but talking, cancelling every single thing she’d arranged for the wedding and uninviting all the guests. Everyone had wanted to know why the wedding was off. She’d squirmed at the idea of telling people the truth, not wanting to have to face all the pity; but not telling the truth left her open to all the gossip and speculation, and even the blame—flighty Imogen Marlowe changing her mind and cancelling the wedding at the last minute, leaving poor Stephen devastated.

Ha. The only flying she was doing was in aeroplanes; and Stephen wasn’t devastated at losing her. He was devastated at losing his chance to run Marlowe Aviation.

She’d fudged her way through it, simply saying that Stephen had let her down badly over a really important issue, and the marriage would’ve failed. Better to call it off now than to go through with it and then end up with a messy divorce.

Work had been harder.

Facing him, every single day, had been tough. The first few days, Stephen had started trying to charm her round, bringing her fresh flowers for her desk every day. When she hadn’t given in, he’d moved on to blaming her for his behaviour, saying that he’d only strayed because she hadn’t been enough for him. Words that had cut deep because they’d brought back her old teenage fears of being inadequate. He’d probably said it just to hurt her when she’d refused to take him back, but the barb had landed on target. She’d been close to punching him, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of slapping her with an assault charge.

The blaming had been followed by a week of sneers and nasty little digs. Immi had managed to ignore them, for the most part, but when he pushed her to almost her breaking point she’d asked Priya to send him a formal letter about standards of professional behaviour in the office. He’d backed off after that.

But then there had been a week of fielding the tension between her father and Stephen, once Paul and Julie Marlowe had returned from their extended trip to India. Immi had had to try to stop her father going off at the deep end and leaving himself open to having to pay Stephen massive compensation at an industrial tribunal—because having to pay compensation to the man who’d cheated on her would’ve really added insult to injury.

Being away from that whole toxic situation was bliss; and, even though she still worried that her father would lose his temper, Immi knew that Priya would sit him down and talk him through the legal issues. With Priya not being his daughter, there was a chance that Paul Marlowe might actually listen to her.

A few days here on L’Isola dei Fiori, on her own, and she might be able to work out exactly where she went from here. What she was going to do with the rest of her life. With no internet—and spotty mobile phone reception only on some parts of the island, if she was lucky—she wouldn’t have to answer any questions until she was ready. Though it might be an idea to take selfies of herself eating and send them to her sisters and her mother, just to reassure everyone that she wasn’t slipping back into her old ways. She’d need to wait until tomorrow, when she had a little more than just bread and milk in the cupboard.

To her relief, Portia had left decent instant coffee and hot chocolate.

Immi made herself a mug of coffee, unpacked her stuff in Sofia’s faded yet comfortable downstairs bedroom, then headed for the garden with a notebook and pen so she could walk round and start making a list of what needed doing and where.

Alberto, Sofia’s old gardener, was too old and frail now to keep everything under control. According to Andie, one of his and Elena the housekeeper’s sons cut the grass every spring, and it didn’t tend to grow much during the summer. The shrubs and the roses, however, were well out of control, overgrown and with whippy stems that could catch the unwary and draw blood. It was just as well that she’d brought her own secateurs and gardening gloves from home, and she might need something even sturdier than that to tackle the thicker stems. Hopefully there was a saw or something in the garage.

She found an ancient and slightly rusted wheelbarrow in the garden shed, and hauled it over to the border nearest the house. Might as well get a bit of weeding in; and then tomorrow she’d put her list in order and start working her way through cutting back the tangle.

The physical work did her good; by the time she’d spent a couple of hours weeding, she was tired and ached all over.

Bath and an early night, she decided. She made herself some toast, then waited for the massive bath to fill. Back in the day, this must’ve been really special, she thought. Now, the bath had patches where the enamel had worn away, and several of the sumptuous peacock-blue-and-gold tiles had cracked. The grouting was nothing short of horrible, and no amount of scrubbing was going to fix it. Some of the black-and-white-chequered lino had cracked. The whole place was going to need a lot of love to bring it back to its former glory—and probably more money than she, Posy, Portia and Andie had between them.

Unless maybe Portia could use some of her contacts to get a television programme made about the restoration, with experts and tradesmen giving their time and labour in return for the national or even international exposure on TV... Immi made a note on her phone to suggest it to Portia, then stepped into the bath and scrubbed herself clean.

Without a shower, she’d had to use a jug from the kitchen to rinse the shampoo from her hair; she tucked a towel sarong-style around herself and wrapped her wet hair in a smaller towel before going back to Sofia’s bedroom, where she tripped over something and pitched head-first onto the bed.