Lucy Gordon - Her Italian Boss’s Agenda

When he came out the room was empty and he could hear her moving in the kitchen. He looked around her apartment and again had the sense of something missing. Now he realised what it was. Like herself, the place was neat, focused, perfectly ordered. But what else was she? What were her dreams and desires? There was nothing here to tell him.

He could find only one thing that suggested a personal life and that was a photograph of an elderly couple, their heads close together, smiling broadly. The woman bore a faint resemblance to Olympia. Grandparents, he thought. There were no other pictures.

Her books might give a clue. But here again there was nothing helpful. Self-improvement tomes lined the shelves, courses for this, reading for that. They had been placed there by the woman who wore mannish pyjamas and sleeked her hair back, not the witch whose black locks streamed down like water.

She emerged with hot tea. ‘Drink this, you’ll feel better. I hope you’re hungry.’

‘Starving.’

From the kitchen came the sound of a toaster throwing up slices at the same moment that there was a ring on the front doorbell.

‘Answer it for me, would you?’ she said, heading back to the kitchen.

At the door he found a young man in a uniform, clutching a large bouquet of red roses, a bottle of champagne and a sheaf of envelopes.

‘This stuff has just arrived on the desk downstairs,’ he said. ‘There’s a few others, mind you. The post’s always heavy on St Valentine’s Day, but the others are nothing to Miss Lincoln’s. It’s the same every year.’

‘OK, I’ll take them.’

The roses were of the very best, heavy with perfume, clearly flown in expensively from some warmer location. He managed to read the card.

To the one and only, the girl who transformed the world.

He returned to the main room just as she appeared from the kitchen.

‘You seem to be very popular,’ he said.

He was stunned by the look that came over her face as she saw the roses. Her smile was tender, brilliant, beautiful with love.

‘Who are they from?’ he couldn’t resist asking.

‘What’s the name on the card?’ she said with a laugh.

‘There’s no name,’ he said, and could have kicked himself for revealing that he’d read it.

‘Well, if he wants to keep his identity a secret,’ she said carelessly, ‘who am I to say otherwise?’

‘There’s a bottle of champagne and several cards.’

‘Thank you.’ She took them and laid them aside.

‘You’re not even going to read them?’

She shrugged. ‘What’s the need? None of them will be signed.’

‘Then how will you know who sent them?’

‘I shall just have to guess. Now, let’s eat.’

Breakfast was grapefruit, cereal and coffee, which suited him exactly. While he was eating she relented enough to put the red roses in a vase, but seemed content to leave the cards unopened.

Could any woman be so truly indifferent? he wondered. Were her admirers really surplus to requirements?

Or was this another facet of her personality?

But she was a witch, he remembered, a strega magica, changing before his eyes to bemuse and mystify him. And he had no choice but to follow where she led.

OVER coffee he said, ‘Considering the mess I made of your car last night, you’d have been quite justified to have abandoned me to my fate.’

‘Yes, I would,’ she said promptly. ‘I can’t think why I didn’t.’

‘Perhaps you’re a warm-hearted, forgiving person?’

She considered this seriously before dismissing it.

‘That doesn’t sound like me at all. There must be some other reason.’

‘Maybe you preferred to keep me around so that you could inflict dire retribution?’

‘That sounds much more like me,’ she said triumphantly. ‘How did you come to have such a nasty accident?’

‘I forgot that the English drive on the wrong side of the road.’

His droll manner made her laugh again, but then she said, ‘You really do spend most of your time in Italy, then?’

‘A good deal. I’m at home in many places.’

‘And you’re part of Leonate, and that’s why you’re over here?’

‘Uh-huh!’ he said vaguely.

‘And then you have to report back?’

‘I shall certainly describe what I find, but I think, for the sake of my dignity, I’d better leave yesterday’s events out of it. I wasn’t trying to trap you. I just acted on impulse. I have a peculiar sense of humour.’

‘I have no sense of humour at all,’ Olympia said at once.

‘That would account for it,’ he said. ‘I’ll make a note of that for my report.’ He pretended to write, reciting the words slowly. ‘No-sense-of-humour-at-all.’ He seemed to think for a moment before adding, ‘Problem-to-be-considered-at-later-date. Suggest-dinner. Then-duck.’

‘Get outa here,’ she said, laughing reluctantly.

‘Do you mean that literally?’

‘No, I guess you can finish your breakfast first.’

They shared a grin, and he wished Luke could have been here to see him now. Luke often accused him of having no sense of humour, and that was true enough-with any other woman.

But this one brought laughter welling up inside him, filling the world with light and warmth. It was strange that she could be a witch as well, but he would solve that mystery later. Or maybe he would never solve it. For the moment he just wanted to be here.

‘So what do you say?’ he asked.

‘About what?’

‘About dinner. Shall I duck, or make a reservation at the Atelli Hotel?’

She was impressed by the name of London’s newest luxury hotel.

‘That sounds delightful,’ she said. ‘But only if you’re well enough to go out.’

‘I’m fine now. We’ll have to see about the cars this morning. Where do you take yours for repairs?’

‘There’s a good place about a mile away. Are you sure about paying?’

‘Quite sure,’ he said firmly. ‘Enough of that. Aren’t you going to open those Valentine cards?’

He had resolved not to ask, but his will, so often a source of pride to him, seemed suddenly to be pitifully weak.

‘I guess I might,’ she said casually.

The first one was an elaborate confection of red satin and lace which had clearly cost a fortune. The message inside read,

I’ll never forget. Will you?

He glanced at her face, but beyond a faint smile it revealed nothing.

Slowly she opened the other two. Both were large with pictures of flowers. Neither bore a name or a message.

But her face changed as she looked at them, growing soft, tender, with a smile that was pure delight. When he spoke to her she didn’t hear him at first.

‘I’m sorry, what was that?’ she asked, sounding as if she’d been awoken from a dream.

‘I said, you obviously know the two guys who sent those cards.’

‘I know who sent them, yes,’ she agreed, hoping he wouldn’t notice how she’d changed the words.

‘And they must feel fairly sure that-I mean-’

‘They’re both people I’m very fond of, and they know that.’

‘Yes, that’s what I figured. But doesn’t it get a bit complicated?’

‘Why should it?’

‘Well-do they know about each other?’

‘Of course they do. What do you take me for?’

He was beginning to wonder.

‘Which one of them sent the flowers?’

Olympia shrugged mischievously.

She made no further comment, but when she rose to go to the kitchen she lingered a moment to caress the velvety roses and inhale their scent with her eyes closed and a look of exhilaration on her face.

‘I’ll go and get ready,’ he said abruptly.

When the bedroom door had closed behind him she slipped into the bathroom and took out her cellphone, which she’d made sure of taking with her. Before dialling she turned on the water so that there was just enough noise to muffle her words.

She heard the ringing tone, then a familiar male voice. ‘Hallo!’

‘Dad? They’re beautiful.’

‘Ah, they got there.’ His voice faded as he turned away and she heard him say, ‘They arrived OK,’ followed by a woman’s squeal of excitement.

‘And the cards,’ she said. ‘They’re both lovely, but you shouldn’t be so extravagant.’

‘We couldn’t decide between them, so we sent both.’

‘You’re mad, the pair of you.’ She chuckled. ‘What other parents send their daughter Valentine cards?’

‘Well, like we said, darling, you changed the world, being born like that, when we’d given up hope. Here, your Mum wants to talk.’

Her mother’s cheerful voice came down the line. ‘Do you really like them, darling?’

‘It’s lovely, Mum-as always. But what about you?’

‘Oh, I got roses too.’

‘So I should hope.’

‘And next year-maybe there’ll be a real young man.’ Her mother’s voice was hopeful. ‘Oh, I know you said never again, but your father and I are keeping our fingers crossed.’

‘Don’t hope for too much, Mum. You married the only decent guy around. After Dad they broke the mould.’ Then an imp of mischief made her add, ‘Actually, there’s one here now.’

‘You mean a man who stayed the night?’

‘Yes.’

‘In your bed?’ Her mother sounded thrilled.

‘Mum! You’re nearly seventy. You’re supposed to be old-fashioned and puritanical and tell me to save it for marriage.’

‘Your Dad and I didn’t. Anyway, one must move with the times.’

‘Yes, he was in my bed, but don’t get too excited. There’s only one bed in the apartment and he had a concussion so I looked after him, and that’s all.’

‘Is he good-looking?’

‘That really has nothing to do with it.’

‘Oh, nonsense dear! It has everything to do with it.’

‘Well-all right, yes, he’s good-looking.’

‘As how?’

‘He’s in his late thirties, tall and-well, his eyes are-really quite something.’