Chapter Eleven
THE small blonde whirlwind which was his wife flew at him as soon as he had let himself in and Giancarlo stared down into her flushed face and listened to the words which were tumbling over themselves in their hurry to be heard.
Lifting his hand as if he were quelling dissent at a board meeting, he shook his head. ‘Enough.’
‘But—”
‘I said enough, Cassandra,’ he reiterated softly. ‘Because I don’t give a damn if the trifle won’t set! And neither am I interested in the consistency of the gravy. That’s why I employ a housekeeper! Why the hell won’t you let Gina do it all—the way she always does?’
Cassie bit her wobbling lip. Why couldn’t he understand? Didn’t he realise that sometimes she felt useless—like some little child who needed to have everything done for her? ‘Because…because I want to do some of it myself—otherwise how can we possibly say that it’s our dinner party?’
Giancarlo looked at her anxious face with mounting frustration.
He’d agreed to a dinner party so that she could meet some of his friends—yes.
What had not been part of the deal had been a near-hysterical pregnant wife who was taking on an unnecessary amount of work and appeared to be failing spectacularly to complete any of it.
Picking things up and then putting them down somewhere completely different.
Changing her mind and then changing it back again.
But then, she’d been positively mercurial ever since they’d returned from their honeymoon—her moods varying wildly from sweet to tearful with a hundred variations in between.
His online pregnancy guide had informed him that women were victims of their hormones during this trimester—and that he must be patient.
Patience wasn’t an attribute with which he was particularly familiar, but he was trying.
He had even drawn a veil over her prying persistence and the intrusive questions she had flung at him in Rome.
His mouth hardened. Once things had calmed down she was going to have to learn he simply would not tolerate her raking up the past. But in the meantime he would humour her.
He studied her frozen little figure, his hands reaching out to massage away some of the tension in her shoulders. ‘Listen to me, Cassandra—I’ve told you a hundred times that you don’t have to prove yourself.’
‘But, I do! They’re your friends and they don’t know anything about me—and I want…
I want to make a good impression.’ Shaking herself free, Cassie walked over to one of the vases which stood on the hall table and gave a piece of foliage an unnecessary tug.
She had been gearing up to this dinner for days now and sometimes it felt as if she were taking an exam in social etiquette as she prepared to meet some of her husband’s buddies.
Hadn’t she been reading all the broadsheet newspapers for days in preparation—stuffing her head with facts so they wouldn’t think she was just some vacuous shop assistant?
Yet deep down she knew that much of her behaviour was because she wanted to prove to herself that Gabriella was wrong.
That Giancarlo’s friends wouldn’t all be wondering why he had married her.
That even when they found out about the pregnancy—which might very well be tonight, judging by her oddly distended stomach—they would still like her and think her the sort of person who was worthy of him.
She turned away from the vase to face him.
‘The meal will probably be a complete disaster,’ she moaned.
‘Just calm down,’ he soothed. ‘They’re not coming to judge you.’
But that was where he was wrong. Of course they would be judging her—it was human nature to judge, especially when a shop-girl married a much older man who happened to be a billionaire.
She dressed for dinner and re-jigged the place-cards—frighteningly aware that the guests had travelled a long way for this dinner.
Gianpiero and Serafina were Paris-based, and Nick and Kate were visiting from New York.
Only six of them—because she’d felt that eight might be a bit over-ambitious—and now she worried whether six might make the big table look awfully empty.
Cassie had organised the menu, knowing that Gina disapproved of most of it, but telling herself that she didn’t care.
Because this was about more than introducing herself to Giancarlo’s friends as his wife—it was about trying to define her role as his wife.
It meant gently showing Gina that she wanted to be involved in the running of the house and that she wasn’t just some docile little puppet of a woman.
But that was what she felt like. Sometimes she might almost have been invisible.
It was as if she didn’t count—as if she had no real place in a house paid for by her wealthy husband and run by his efficient housekeeper and his other members of staff.
And wasn’t this dinner also supposed to make Giancarlo see her as a partner, rather than an appendage?
Not just some fertile little blonde quietly growing her baby in the background while he carried on working with the same intensity and dedication as he’d done as a broke young lawyer who’d first arrived in London.
This was supposed to be their first outing as a couple. Because even though their sex life had resumed since that night in Rome she still felt no closer to him. Wasn’t this just another hurdle she had to leap over—to prove to him that she was someone he could trust? Someone he could confide in.
Fortunately, the simple dark dress she wore gave no hint of her burgeoning belly and she left her hair free to tumble over her shoulders. She’d chosen white hyacinths and tiny white narcissi with which to decorate the rooms and the whole house smelt heavenly.
And when Giancarlo emerged from his dressing room, looking formidable and yet heartbreakingly beautiful in a dark, dark suit which hugged the powerful body and drew attention to his muscular physique, she prayed that she would not let him down.
‘Stop worrying,’ he said as he saw the small frown furrowing her brow. ‘They won’t bite.’
Maybe they wouldn’t—but Cassie still felt terribly intimidated when the two couples arrived.
Kate was a sleek New-Yorker with a freckle-spattered nose, a lazy smile—and the most immaculate clothes Cassie had ever seen.
Her husband, Nick, was ‘something in films’—his suit was linen and slightly crumpled, but he exuded the indefinable air of the truly powerful.
As for Serafina—she left Cassie wondering if there was such a thing as a plain Italian woman, and her banker husband was equally good-looking.
While having pre-dinner drinks in the drawing room, Cassie was so nervous that she slopped champagne over Kate’s silk jacket.
‘Oh, gosh. Oh, no. Oh, I am so sorry!’
‘It doesn’t matter. Honestly.’
‘It only cost nine hundred bucks, didn’t it, honey?’ joked her husband.
‘Sit down, Cassie,’ said Giancarlo gently. ‘And let Gina serve the drinks.’
She felt like a child who had been reprimanded—but maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth.
In many ways her life experience was as insignificant as a child’s when compared to theirs.
She didn’t even get a chance to talk about the articles she’d read in the papers—or the news bulletins she’d tried hard to memorise.
This rarefied group were all ten to fifteen years older than her and they seemed to want to talk about things she’d never heard of.
Or people she’d never met and probably never would.
Giancarlo’s age had never seemed a barrier—but now, with this laughing glossy posse of friends, he seemed to have stepped even further beyond her reach.
Maybe Gabriella had been right after all.
Her decision to serve a traditional English roast dinner was as ill advised as Gina had hinted.
Cassie saw the slight narrowing of Giancarlo’s eyes as a dish of misshapen Yorkshire puddings made their appearance—and she distinctly overheard Serafina asking Gina whether she still made her delicious home-made pasta.
‘But I thought we’d try something different for a change!’ said Cassie brightly.
Four pairs of curious eyes were trained on her.
‘So where did you two meet?’ questioned Gianpiero as he politely ladled a couple of sprouts from the dish.
‘I was…I was working in a store, actually.’
A brief silence was filled in by Serafina. ‘Oh! Which store?’
‘Hudson’s.’
‘Hudson’s? Honey, isn’t that where you picked up that suit?’ asked Nick.
Kate smiled back. ‘It is indeed. Why, you might even have served me, Cassandra.’
‘I doubt it. You see, I worked in the candle section,’ said Cassie doggedly, just wishing that the floor would open her up and swallow her.
‘Don’t tell me Giancarlo was buying candles?’ drawled Nick.
‘No, I was much more interested in the person selling them,’ he murmured, and they all laughed.
But the revelation about just how lowly her job had been made Cassie sink even further inside herself and the rest of the evening passed by in an embarrassing blur.
The food tasted like stodgy sawdust and was only saved by some brilliantly strong Italian coffee and the expensive dark chocolate bought by Serafina.
By the time the guests had left in a flurry of goodbyes and air kisses—she felt completely drained—as if all the life and energy had been sucked from her.
Giancarlo bolted the front door and looked at her as she slumped tiredly against the wall. ‘So what was all that about?’ he questioned softly.
‘Which bit are you referring to?’ she snapped. ‘The complete flop of the meal or the fact that I sloshed wine all over a thousand-dollar suit?’
‘I’m talking about the way you sat there looking as if you were a witness at your own execution!’
‘Can you blame me? Your friends don’t like me.’
‘That’s complete rubbish. You didn’t really give them a chance, did you?’