‘WHAT DO YOU say to Nanny Ellie?’ Johnny’s mother prompted.
‘Thank you!’ exclaimed the little boy, gazing at the cover of the jigsaw box, which depicted an unfeasibly cute dinosaur.
Eloise had bought it in Manhattan, having taken a day’s leave to travel in.
As Johnny lifted off the lid and emptied the wooden pieces on to the table Laura turned to Eloise.
‘Well, how did it go?’ she asked.
There was both friendliness and concern in her voice.
‘Fine,’ said Eloise. ‘No problems. It’s all “steady as she goes”.’
‘That’s great!’ Laura said warmly. ‘When’s your next appointment?’
‘Next month—unless something crops up.’
‘Let’s hope not,’ said Laura. ‘Keep up the plain sailing!’ She smiled. ‘Now, why don’t you go and put your feet up? Take the evening off. Johnny and I can get stuck into this jigsaw, and John’s promised to be home by bathtime.’
‘Yay!’ contributed her son enthusiastically. ‘I like bathtime with Dad. He lets me splash!’
‘Does he, now?’ said his mother severely, and exchanged a woman-to-woman look with Eloise. Then she turned back to her son. ‘OK, so first we need to find the edge bits—especially the corners. Have you got any of those?’
Eloise left them to it, slipping away to her own generous quarters. There was an ache in her that had nothing to do with the day’s journey in and out of Manhattan. Johnny was a happy child, and his parents were warm and loving, united in their love for each other and both devoted to their son.
The kind of family Eloise longed to make for herself. The kind of family she’d once thought she might make with Vito—
No! Don’t go there! Don’t think about those naïve hopes that you once wove into the baseless fabric of your stupid dreams.
She had told myself that maybe their romance was like champagne—warned herself that one morning she might wake to find it flat and stale.
But it hadn’t turned flat and stale—it had turned to bitter, bitter gall.
A gall she must swallow. Drink down all her life.
At least she had her mother’s support. And there was an irony about that that Eloise found only added to that bitter taste.
‘It won’t be easy, Eloise, but who said being a woman was ever easy? Certainly not when some selfish male has messed up your life!’
No, it wouldn’t be easy. But it had to be done. Her love would have one focus now—one focus alone.
As she closed the nursery door behind her a peal of laughter broke out from Johnny, echoed by his mother. That ache smote her again.
A happy little boy, with a happy, loving family surrounding him, a doting mother and father in a happy marriage together...
That can never be for me. Not now.
Sadness pierced her, haunting the blue of her eyes. She had dreamt all her life of making a happy family...not like her own...and yet now that was beyond her for ever.
* * *
Vito threw himself into the chair behind his desk and deep desolation filled him. The board meeting he’d just emerged from had been bruising—slamming into him just what he had done.
What Marlene had done.
She had fulfilled her threat—sold Guido’s shares to Nic Falcone. Sold them the very day Vito had walked out of the church. And just now Nic Falcone had sat arrogantly across the boardroom table from him, demanding his pick of the Viscari portfolio—as befitted the new half-owner of Viscari Hotels.
The resulting discussion had been...difficult. Grim-faced, along with the rest of his board, Vito had played hardball as much as his position allowed, and finally a memorandum of agreement had been achieved. But the loss of every property that Falcone had taken from him drove a dagger into Vito’s heart.
He sat now, a bleak, brooding expression on his face.
Only one prospect could lessen that grievous loss.
Finding Eloise.
I will not give up on her! I cannot!
He had to find her, to discover whether he could salvage anything from the hideous mess he’d made of things, something that was worth fighting for.
The long, grim months without her had only shown him what he had lost when she’d left him. So he’d renewed his efforts to discover where she’d gone, reactivating all his lines of enquiry. But all had drawn a blank. Only one—a wild, maverick attempt—remained. Would it work? Could it work? To this point it had not.
His sense of desolation deepened. His expression sombre.
The sound of his phone ringing hardly made him stir. Until the caller started to leave a message. Then, as if an electric current had suddenly galvanised him, Vito snatched up the phone. Heard out the caller.
When the call ended, he promptly summoned his PA. ‘I need you to book a flight for me tonight,’ he told her.
And then, and only then, did his eyes light with animation. With relief. With an emotion that had not been there for long, deadened weeks.
With hope.
* * *
‘Wowee! Wowee! Come and see!’
Johnny’s exuberant call drew Eloise to the nursery window, where her charge was gazing out onto the carriage sweep. The long, low scarlet automobile drawing up with a throaty growl of its powerful engine made her start.
Vito had driven a car just like that...
Instantly memory bit. Her and Vito, cruising along the autostrada, her eyes on him. He’d looked so impossibly glamorous and gorgeous, with his designer dark glasses, his hands curved around the wheel, revelling in the power of the steering...
She forced the memory from her head. Vito was an ocean away from her and she had to get on with her life without him—make the future that awaited her now without him. What was the point of thinking about their time together?
She stared bleakly down as the car door opened. As the driver got out.
Faintness drummed at her, and a disbelieving gasp was wrenched from her throat.
It was Vito.
Vito here—now—outside the house. Walking up to the house, disappearing from view under the porch she could not see from the angle of the nursery window. She felt numb with shock.
Johnny raced to the nursery door. ‘I want to go down and see the car!’ he exclaimed.
The next moment the house phone was ringing, and Johnny dashed to snatch it up.
He turned excitedly to Eloise. ‘The car man wants to see you! Come on, come on, come on!’ He tugged her towards the door.
His little hand made no impact on her total immobility. Her total inability to think, to pull one shred of rational usage from her brain.
Only one phrase existed in it.
It’s Vito—it’s Vito—it’s Vito...
But it couldn’t be. It was impossible. Completely impossible. Vito was in Italy. In Rome. With his wife. It could not be him because he did not know where she was. So how had found her? And why—?
Raggedly, her mind zig-zagged incoherently, her thoughts flying everywhere, borne on emotions that were tumbling about crazily inside her, like rocks in a washing machine. Urgently she sought to get a grip on herself, to fight through the shock smashing through her.
Johnny let go of her, yanking open the door, haring out. With a start, she hurried after him—he was her charge and she must look after him. But at the top of the stairs she froze.
Vito was in the hall below, talking to Giuseppe. She heard Italian, saw Giuseppe shake Vito’s hand. Saw Vito turn his head as Johnny tugged urgently on her hand to go downstairs. Saw the expression on Vito’s face.
‘Eloise!’
He had taken off his dark glasses and he was just staring at her. Staring at her and drinking her in with his eyes as if she were water in a parched, parched land.
‘Eloise...’ He said her name again. A faint, exhalation of breath, like the sighing of the wind.
She met his gaze. Felt herself reel with the force of it.
Then, from the door at the back of the hall, the rotund figure of Maria erupted, rushing up to Vito, breaking into voluble Italian. Vito was smiling at her, and Eloise could hear him replying, his voice warm. Thanking her.
Numb still, Eloise let Johnny tug her downstairs. He broke free of her at the bottom and rushed to Vito, pulling at his trouser leg.
‘I need to see your car!’ he exclaimed.
Vito looked down at him, hunkered down beside him. Smiled at the little boy. Against her will, Eloise felt her heart skip a beat.
He used to smile at me like that.
No—she mustn’t think of that...mustn’t remember.
‘Do you, now?’ Vito was saying, obviously amused by his eagerness.
‘Yes!’ confirmed Johnny, oblivious, as only a four-year-old could be, to the tension, the atmosphere blazing all around him. ‘Come on, come on!’
He seized Vito’s hand with all the confidence of a well-loved child and made to drag him to the front door.
Vito straightened, gently disengaging his hand from Johnny’s. ‘In a while, OK?’
He ruffled Johnny’s hair, in a friendly, easy fashion, and again Eloise felt emotion scissor through her. But not memory this time.
No! Don’t think of that either—just don’t! Don’t!
She’d never seen Vito with children before—never seen this easy, unforced attitude. His obvious amusement. Enjoyment. As if it came supremely naturally to him.
The scissoring emotion came again.
Then Giuseppe was stepping forward. ‘Why don’t I show you?’ he said to Johnny, glancing at Vito for agreement.
Vito nodded, a grateful look on his face. Giuseppe swept Johnny away, and Maria bustled forward busily to open the door to the library, beckoning to Vito...and then to Eloise.
But Eloise could not move. Vito’s eyes went to her, rooting her to the spot. The easy smile that had been there for Johnny had gone. Now his expression was as grave and as stark as the tension visible in every line of his body as he walked towards her at the foot of the stairs.
‘Eloise—I have to talk to you.’
His voice was low and vibrant. With the same urgency in it that she had heard the day he’d told her that he was indeed marrying the woman who had stormed into their suite, stormed into her life, destroying everything in her path. Trampling over what they had...what they might have had.
Hideously aware of Maria, still holding the library door open, Eloise stumbled past her into the spacious room. Vito strode after her. Only when Maria had shut the door, giving them privacy, could she speak.
‘How did you find me? It’s impossible that you have!’ Her voice came out high-pitched, half strangulated.
‘Yes,’ Vito said, his voice stark, like stone scraped bare, ‘you made it impossible. And I know why, Eloise—I understand why you did.’
Her eyes flashed. However Vito had found her—and for whatever reason!—it was impossible for her to have anything more to do with him. She felt emotion sear in her. But it didn’t matter how her eyes were drinking him in, how faintness was drumming inside her just at the very sight of him, because everything was still impossible—totally impossible!
He was speaking again, and she made herself hear as he reached inside his jacket pocket, took out a much-folded piece of paper, colourful and glossy. He opened it out, and it looked to Eloise as if it had been torn from a magazine.
‘This is how. Maria saw it and got in touch with me.’
He held the page out to her. She wouldn’t approach. Her head went up. Emotions pounded inside her, but there was only one that she could allow. Anger. Only anger.
‘However you did it, you’ve wasted your time! If you’re here to tell me you’d like me to come back with you and be your adulterous little bit on the side, your convenient mistress, your poodle, you can forget it! Go back to your wife, Vito! Go back to her. Because I didn’t want to know then, and I don’t want to know now—I’ll never want to know!’
She could see a tic working in his cheek. ‘Please look at this, Eloise.’ He pushed the piece of paper towards her, across the table, rotating it so that it was facing her.
She could see the photo on it even from this distance. It was Vito—and her.
She was in evening dress, and Vito was standing beside her—it must have been at one of the endless round of cocktail parties during his hotel tour, when she’d followed him around like a trusting little poodle...
But there was another photo, too, on the facing page—just of Vito by himself. It was his head and torso, face-on, looking at her directly off the page.
And beneath it was a headline that blazed in huge letters—words in Italian. She knew the type of magazine it was—one of those ritzy, glossy weeklies that focused on celebrities and high society.
‘It says,’ Vito intoned, and there was something strange about his voice, ‘“Help me find her, my most beautiful Eloise!” I had to find you, Eloise. I had to. Because I have something to tell you—and something to beg of you.’
He walked towards her, his stride purposeful. His eyes were on her, never moving, not for a second, fixed on hers like a laser beam as he came up to her. There was only a metre between them. His closeness was unbearable. He was out of reach. Barred from her by marriage...by betrayal.
‘I don’t want to know! I don’t know want to hear!’ she cried, shaking her head as if to block out his voice. Trying to defend herself by going on the attack.
Emotions warred within her—the blaze of overwhelming reaction at seeing him again burning through her like a forest fire. Doused by the cold, fierce fury at what he had done to her.
She forced words through her narrowed throat. ‘I won’t go back to you, Vito! I told you that you were despicable—’
‘Yes,’ he said tightly, ‘I behaved despicably to you. But...’ He took a scissoring breath. ‘I didn’t intend to. I was...trapped.’
A bitter laugh broke from Eloise. ‘Yes, that’s what married men always say! Oh, don’t tell me, Vito—your wife doesn’t understand you, does she?’
There was vicious mockery in her voice. Fuelling her anger. Anger she had to keep fuelled, filled to the brim, spilling over into the hostile venom she was hurling at him.
Because if she didn’t feel anger at Vito, then...
No, I can’t allow myself to feel anything else! I can’t... I can’t!
His face had tightened even more. His cheekbones were exposed like carved marble, his mouth like a whip. She could see the steeled tension in the set of his shoulders, how he was holding his body rigid.
‘I have no wife.’ The words fell like stones from him. ‘The wedding never went ahead.’
The expression in his eyes made her breath stop. There was a starkness in them that was like bleached bone.
‘That’s why I am here, Eloise. To tell you that.’
Her face convulsed. For a moment—just a moment—emotion flared in her like phosphorus. A longing so intense it burned within her. She felt her hand flutter to her abdomen, felt the longing burn again. Longing to clutch at the dream that hovered, soaring now at what he’d just told her.
No wife—he has no wife! So could we—oh, could we...?
But then the flare was extinguished. What difference did it make? What difference could it make? After what he’d done to her.
‘And do you expect me to throw myself into your arms?’ she cried. ‘Tell you I forgive you for what you did to me? Is that what you expect?’
Vito’s mouth tightened. He shook his head. ‘I expect nothing, Eloise.’ He drew a heavy, leaden breath audibly into his lungs. ‘I have come here only to explain to you why I did what I did.’
He paused, not letting his eyes drop from hers.
‘I ask only that you listen to me now.’ He swallowed. ‘I know you refused to let me talk to you, refused to let me try and explain, and I can understand why—but now that...that I have no wife after all, I beg only one favour from you. To hear me out.’
His stark gaze bored into her again.
‘Will you grant me that favour?’ he asked.
Eloise felt her mouth tighten, her chin lift. She felt as heavy as lead.
‘You intend to trot out excuses for why you behaved the way you did? Is that it?’ There was a coldness in her voice she did not bother to hide.
He gave an infinitesimal shake of his head. ‘Not excuses—reasons. Reasons I had no chance to explain to you in Rome. Reasons I must give you now.’
He took a breath, hoping she would let him explain before she fled from him.
‘I agreed to marry my step-cousin, Carla,’ Vito said, as if cutting the words from himself, ‘because it would allow me to obtain the shares in Viscari Hotels that her mother, Marlene, had inherited from my uncle Guido—her late husband. That was the reason. The only reason.’
Eloise reeled back, her face paling as if he had struck her, as his words impacted on her. She stared at him, gall rising in her. ‘You traded me for a handful of shares,’ she said.
Her voice was hollow, her eyes distending. The bitterness in her throat burned like acid. In her head, thoughts tumbled like falling rocks. Each one smashing into her.
That’s all I was to him—all the value I had. Less than a handful of shares in his precious hotel chain! And for that—for nothing more than that—he agreed to marry another woman. Thinking I’d go along with it.
Pain knifed through her.
‘You traded me for a handful of shares!’ She hurled the words at him again, her face convulsing now. ‘That was why you put me through what you did! You agreed to marry someone for that?’
That tic came again in his cheek. ‘As you say,’ he said tightly.
She stared at him. ‘How could you, Vito? How could you stoop that low? With all your wealth, to want yet more—to be prepared to marry for it! Stringing me along while you did so, making a fool of me—bringing me to Rome right under the nose of the woman you were going to marry? And you really think that coming here and telling me all that to my face is going to make me change my mind about you?’
There was derision in her voice, open scorn. Raw anger. She had to put it there—because only that could quench that phosphorus flare of hope and longing.
He moved restlessly. There was about him an air of withdrawal, as if he’d shut himself inside himself. His eyes had blanked now—there was nothing in them, no emotion...nothing. He picked up the magazine page, lying abandoned on the tabletop, folded it mechanically, and slipped it into his breast pocket.
Then he looked across at Eloise again. ‘I’ve said what I came to say, Eloise,’ he said. ‘I’ve sought you out to say it—to explain to you why I behaved as I did. And,’ he went on, and now his voice was weighted down as if with lead, ‘for one other reason.’
He looked at her, and there was a bleakness in his eyes now that had not been there till this moment. A draining of hope.
‘I sought you out because I needed to know, Eloise, just what we had come to mean to each other. To discover if...if there could have been anything more to us than a summer romance.’ His expression twisted. ‘When we arrived in Rome all I wanted was to focus on you! But—’
She cut across him, her voice scathing, bitter. ‘But the little business of your marriage got in the way! So then I just turned into a prospective mistress, didn’t I? To be neatly stashed away in a love nest in Amalfi!’
Vito’s hand slashed through the air. ‘No! It was never that! Never. I just wanted—’
‘You wanted to get hold of some shares. Yes, you said.’
Eloise’s voice was harsh, grating. Her eyes as hard as stones. She couldn’t bear this. Couldn’t bear to have Vito saying such words to her. Vito who had callously set her aside for the sake of some extra shares...
But you could have him back! You could have him back right now—all you have to say to him is that you want him. Need him in your life. And that it’s not just you who needs him.
Temptation, overpowering and overwhelming, hovered in front of her.
I could have the dream! I could have Vito in my life...in my future. Making a family with me.
But then, like cold acidic water, came the knowledge that it was impossible. He was not a man whose values and choices she would ever want to understand. Not a man she would inflict on anyone, let alone—
She took a shuddering breath, her mind shearing away from the future that must be hers, and hers alone, with no one to share it with her. She made her voice indifferent.
‘Look, Vito—forget it. You made your choice—those shares were more important to you than I was. Well, they can stay that way.’
She took a step backwards. Claws were ripping into her, shredding her.
For one long moment he looked at her, his face unreadable, closed. Expressionless except for one tic high in his cheek, the pressure of his set jaw.
‘I’ll go,’ he said. His voice was staccato. Terse. Infinitely distant. ‘I apologise for disturbing you like this, and you have my assurance that I will make no further attempt to communicate with you. I accept that our time together is...gone. That there is nothing left between us. The fault for that is mine entirely. Goodbye, Eloise.’
He turned away, walked back towards the door of the library, every line of his body rigid as he disappeared from her view.
The claws inside her tore again, and her throat was as tight as drawn wire. For a single agonising second she wanted to hurl herself forward, catch at his shoulder, throw herself into his arms...
Beg him not to go.
But she would not let herself.
Somewhere beyond she was dimly aware of the sound of a car’s engine, and the scrunch of gravel beyond the library windows. She heard footsteps cross the hall, heard a murmur of Italian—presumably him speaking to Maria or Giuseppe—and then the sound of the front door opening. Dimly, in part of her consciousness, she was aware of conversation in English, of another male voice, one with an American accent. The other voice, low-pitched, was Vito’s, but then it was cut off by the closing of the front door.
And still she could not move.
Then suddenly, abruptly, there was more noise out in the hallway and the chatter of a youthful voice, and a moment later Johnny erupted into the library, rushing up to her.
‘Daddy’s home! He’s come home to play with me! We’re going swimming!’
Eloise jerked to life, like a statue animated. ‘That’s lovely,’ she said, but her response was mechanical.
Beyond the window she saw a flash of red, heard a throaty, familiar roar fading into the distance down the driveway.
‘Daddy!’ Johnny did an about-turn, seeing his father in the doorway. ‘Swimming! Swimming!’ he shouted excitedly.
‘Swimming it is,’ said his father with a grin. Then his eyes went to Eloise, their expression changing. ‘Well, well, you’re a dark horse, Nanny Ellie! Vito Viscari, no less! That’s some beau to have!’ He grinned down at his son. ‘Of course if you were Junior, here, his main attraction would be that very neat Ferrari he’s just roared off in—Johnny was trying to persuade Giuseppe to let him get into the driving seat.’
‘Vroom-vroom!’ chirped Johnny in happy agreement, and ran around the room as if steering a car.
‘But I suspect,’ John Carldon went on, addressing Eloise once more, with an amused look open in his face, ‘that for you it’s more likely to be the film star looks that a totally unfair Providence has heaped upon him! Laura will be mad as fire that she missed him!’
The amused look deepened.
‘Maybe, now that she knows he’s...ah...coming calling,’ he went on, ‘she’ll snap him up for a dinner party. Oh, and, of course,’ he went on blithely, ‘if you need time off to head into Manhattan now that he’s Stateside, just let us know. Presumably he stays at the Viscari when he’s in New York?’
He frowned suddenly. ‘Or maybe not. It’s not a Viscari Hotel any more, is it? That was one of the ones that went over to Falcone.’
He shook his head, not seeming to notice that his son’s nanny had frozen.
‘Bad business, that,’ he went on, his voice sombre now. ‘And pretty tough on the guy—seeing half his inheritance wiped out, just like that. It made quite a stir in the financial press—even over here. Half the entire company was sold over Viscari’s head by his uncle’s widow to his biggest rival. Nic Falcone has scooped up a real treasure pot—taken his pick of the prime locations. A blow that heavy will take some recovering from. But Viscari’ll do it, I’m sure. I can’t see him not fighting back. Trying to rebuild everything that’s been ripped from him.’
His expression changed, and the glint was back in his eye.
‘Of course he’ll be here for other reasons, too, won’t he? Other attractions!’ He grinned at her.
But Eloise did not smile back. Could not. Could not move a muscle. Could only hear her employer continue talking as he caught his son’s hand to stop his peregrinations.
‘Hotels aren’t my usual investment sector, but if Laura gets her dinner party I’ll make sure some of the guests are useful to him. After all,’ he said teasingly, ‘if Vito Viscari’s your beau we should keep him sweet. We don’t want to lose you before we have to!’
His expression changed again, and he glanced down at his son, who was tugging on his hand.
‘OK... OK, Junior—no need to pull my hand off. Swimming it is—see you later, Nanny Ellie.’
He headed off, Johnny still tugging at him excitedly, chattering away.
Slowly, very slowly, Eloise turned away, walking up the stairs back to the nursery quarters on legs that did not seem to be hers any more.
* * *
Vito opened the throttle, letting the powerful engine roar. Wanting the noise to drown out everything that was knifing through him. The bitter, bitter taste of total defeat.
I should never have sought her out! Never!
Because to have seen her again, to have his gaze rest on her in the flesh, not just in his memories, had opened the floodgates within him!
He had spent all those precious weeks in Europe with her, wondering if he dared believe she could be the one woman in the world he could fall in love with. He had spent these last brutally grim weeks missing her with an intensity that was like a knife in his guts.
Finally finding her, seeing her, had been like a brand on his flesh. Making everything crystal-clear to him.
Emotion had surged within him. He had been desperate to get her to understand why he had done what he had. Desperate to win her back.
But it had been a disaster—a catastrophe. Smashing his hopes to pieces.
Did I really expect more?
He railed at himself, his grip tightening on the wheel of the car.
Did I really expect her just to fall straight back into my arms as if the past nightmare months had never happened?
He should have known better. Should have realised how impossible that was.
In his head her scathing accusation rang again.
‘You traded me for a handful of shares!’
His hands clenched again around the wheel.
Dio, I messed up from beginning to end! And I’ve lost everything I wanted to keep—everything!
Bleakness seared across his mind as he faced what he’d done, what he’d lost. He’d wanted to keep Eloise in his life—discover exactly what she meant to him—and now he’d lost her for ever. She’d made that clear enough! He’d wanted to keep his promise to his dying father—and he’d broken it. He’d wanted to keep the Viscari legacy intact—and he’d had it smashed it to pieces.
It’s all been for nothing—less than nothing... I betrayed Eloise’s trust in me and I’ve betrayed my father’s trust in me.
He drove on, filled with bleakness and despair. He would leave New York tonight...fly down to Ste Cecile. That hotel, at least, was still his, for Nic Falcone already had a strong existing presence in the Caribbean, and wasn’t interested in the Viscari project there—though he’d helped himself to the pick of the rest of the Viscari North American portfolio. Including the uber-prestigious Viscari Manhattan.
Out of loyalty to his former manager there, Vito was staying in his usual suite—though every sign of the Falcone rebranding was like a whiplash across his shoulders.
But I can’t give in—and I will not go under!
His jaw steeled, eyes hardening. If Falcone was mopping up existing Viscari Hotels—well, there would be new Viscari Hotels opened. It would take time, but time was something he would have a great deal of now. So much gaping time to fill...
Time to rebuild his legacy. Restore what he had lost.
Pain sliced through him again, severing his flesh. What else could he do now? What else was left for him?
Her name cried through his head like a fleeing ghost.
Eloise! What use was it to find you and lose you all over again...?
Fool! Fool that he had been! To hope for her forgiveness—her understanding.
To hope for reunion...
* * *
‘Mum, I need your help.’ Eloise’s voice was urgent as she spoke on the phone from her room at the Carldons’. ‘Can I stay at your apartment tonight? I have to go and see Vito this evening.’
‘Vito?’ Her mother’s voice sharpened down the line. ‘Eloise, do not tell me he’s the waste-of-space Italian you got so disastrously involved with—’
Eloise’s throat tightened. She had never told her mother Vito’s identity, and her mother had never asked—had specifically told her that, given Eloise’s decision, she had no need to know, and that it was irrelevant anyway.
‘Yes,’ she admitted grittily. ‘Vito Viscari. He found out where I was working and—’
Again her mother interrupted her, in her usual forthright manner. ‘Viscari? As in...Viscari Hotels?’
‘Yes,’ said Eloise.
She did not want an inquisition about Vito’s identity. All she wanted right now was her mother’s help in a very practical way. But her mother’s attention had snapped on Vito’s name.
‘Vito Viscari! Good grief! I had no idea.’ There was open surprise in her voice. Then her tone changed. ‘Why are you meeting him?’ she asked sharply.
‘I...I have to talk to him,’ Eloise got out.
‘Well, make sure that’s all you do! This is no time for rushing into anything! You’ve been quite rash enough as it is—’
She broke off, and Eloise could hear a voice in the background. Then her mother was back on the line, her voice crisp and brisk.
‘Eloise, I have to go now. Let yourself into the apartment—I’ll be working late.’
She rang off. Slowly, Eloise replaced the handset. Emotion was roiling within her. Phoning her mother had been the easy phone call to make...
With slightly shaking fingers she dialled the number for the Viscari Manhattan. He would be staying there—wouldn’t he?
But it isn’t even his hotel any more...
She felt a stab in her stomach. That stab came again as the voice down the line intoned, ‘Falcone Manhattan—how may I direct your call?’
She made herself focus on what had to be done, and left the message she had to leave.
‘My name is Eloise Dean. Please tell Mr Viscari, when he arrives back at the hotel, that I urgently need to see him. I’m coming into Manhattan tonight and will be at the hotel at eight.’
It was all she could bring herself to say. All she could bring herself to hope.