McGillivray's Mistress Page 16

And he’d been misunderstood!

  He’d done what he’d done because it had been the only way to break the impasse. She’d turned down every other invitation he’d given her. She’d ignored every overture.

  What was he supposed to do?

  Besides, it wasn’t as if she didn’t want to make love with him. She’d been as eager—as desperate—as he had. It hadn’t been all one-sided, that was for sure!

  And it wasn’t as if it was all physical, either. He’d thought about her damn sculpture, hadn’t he? He’d given her the net because he took her sculpture seriously.

  She’d realize that when she came to her senses.

  He’d left the book lying on the porch. She could find it in the morning when, God willing, she was rational again. She could pick it up and recognize that he had always had her best interests at heart.

  Then she could come and apologize to him!

  SHE DIDN’T APOLOGIZE.

  A week went by and he didn’t hear a word from her.

  He heard a lot from everyone else on the island. Everywhere he went people wanted to know what happened between them.

  “I gave her a net I found,” he said. “She got upset. That’s it.”

  “That’s not exactly the way I heard it,” his sister Molly said flatly. “I heard you used it to get what you wanted.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Once, it might have been.

  Back when Fiona had been “the one that got away,” when he’d been attracted by her long legs and fiery hair, getting her into bed had been his goal. But somewhere along the line the legs and hair were only part of what attracted him to Fiona.

  He’d made love to her on the beach and in her bedroom. He’d made love to her fiercely and passionately, he’d made love to her slowly and tenderly. But he knew now that he could make love to her a hundred times in a hundred places in a hundred different ways, and it would never be enough.

  Because he wanted not simply to make love to Fiona, but to talk to Fiona, to walk with Fiona. He wanted to argue with her and laugh with her. He wanted to make up with her. He wanted not just to go to bed with her, but to wake up in the morning next to Fiona, to come home to her in the evenings. He want to spend the rest of his life with her.

  He had never really thought in terms of lifetimes before.

  He was a man with a ninety-minute attention span, according to the press. He had certainly never thought in terms of marriage, in terms of forever. Not with any woman—let alone Fiona Dunbar.

  But now he was thinking about it, and he had to make her understand. He loved her. And she loved him, damn it!

  He knew it. And not only because of the day they’d spent at Eden Cove and the night they’d shared the bed—and their bodies—in her bedroom. He knew it because of the way she sometimes looked at him, because of the way she listened to him, and smiled at him. He knew it because of the sculpture she’d made of him.

  It was him in the altogether, no doubt about that—Lachlan McGillivray, exposed.

  But he wasn’t the only one exposed.

  Fiona had exposed herself, too. She had used her considerable talent to sculpt him with both passion and compassion. In his terra-cotta likeness he could see strength and determination, power and intensity, vision and idealism, hope and promise.

  She had taken the best of him and given it form. She had seen him and sculpted him with eyes of love.

  He knew it. And he was sure she knew it—which was why she’d thrust the sculpture into his arms to get rid of it. She hadn’t wanted to face that love.

  “Well, you’d better tell her fast,” Molly said bluntly. “Because she’s leaving.”

  “What the hell do you mean, she’s leaving?”

  “Going to art school, remember? I saw her at the post office. She got the letter back today.”

  Oh, hell. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t!

  But he knew Fiona. She was just that stubborn.

  HE BANGED ON HER DOOR for the fourth time, then paced the length of the porch and banged again.

  “She be in there,” her next-door neighbor Carlotta had told him cheerfully when he’d come up the street. “You be goin’ to make up with her? Say you sorry?”

  He was going to say what needed to be said—if she’d open the damn door.

  He banged again. “I know you’re in there, Fiona,” he shouted. “And I’m not leaving, so you might as well open the door.”

  Watching avidly from her porch swing. Carlotta gave him a silent round of applause.

  He did not want an audience. But clearly Carlotta wasn’t abandoning the best seat in the house. In fact, he could see Miss Saffron making her way down the street as fast as her old legs could shuffle. He groaned and shut his eyes.

  The door creaked.

  His eyes snapped open again.

  Fiona stood in the doorway, hanging on to the door, making it very clear she was not about to let him in. She still looked pale and shattered, and he wanted to take her in his arms, but knew he had to say things first.

  “We need to talk.”

  “No,” she said. “We don’t.”

  “I need to make things clear.”

  “Things are clear.” Her voice was only slightly reedy. “You clarified them beautifully.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Regardless of what you meant,” she continued ruthlessly, “you made me realize that there are some dreams worth pursuing and some that were kid stuff and better left behind.”

  “Which means what? That you’re leaving? Molly said you got a letter. What are you going to do, just going to turn your back on what’s between us? Just go to England or Italy or wherever and pretend it simply doesn’t exist?”

  “I would if I could,” Fiona replied tonelessly, “but I didn’t get accepted. I’ll have to think of something else.”

  And she closed the door in his face.

  FIONA HAD ALWAYS KNOWN that art school was a long shot.

  But she’d had some encouragement, hadn’t she? David Grantham had thought her work was worth encouraging. He’d written a glowing letter on her behalf. So had both Nathan and Carin. Her work, of course, had spoken for itself.

  But it hadn’t said enough. And it had been too late.

  The three schools in England had told her very quickly that their enrollment was already full for the autumn session. She doubted they had even looked at her portfolio. Two had simply sent form letters. The third had suggested she apply again earlier next year.

  But Italy hadn’t replied. So she’d pinned all her hopes on Italy.

  That was the school she had always wanted to go to anyway. It had an apprentice program where you learned by working with a master the way sculptors had often learned in the past. There, she knew, the letters of recommendation would mean little. They looked at the work you sent and decided if your talent was worth nurturing.

  She’d dared to hope because it had been a dream for so long. And because she needed—desperately—to get out of Pelican Cay.

  The island wasn’t big enough for both her and Lachlan. Half a world seemed possibly far enough away.

  And then, this afternoon, the letter had come in one thin envelope. Fiona had opened it with trembling hands.

  “We find your work quite promising,” the director of admissions had written, “but unfortunately limited and commercial.”

  Which was only the truth. Her portfolio had contained shots of her best tourist-oriented shell and driftwood sculptures, some of her metal cutout sculptures, a few sand castles and half a dozen photos showing the concept, development and plans for The King of the Beach. She’d got David to take photos of some smaller wood carvings and even the lumpy clay pelicans she’d done last year, and she’d sent photos of them, too.

  But the dean was right. All her work was quick and commercial. She sculpted for the tourism market. It was a craft. She loved it, but she didn’t labor over it. She had nothing she’d taken time with, nothing she had expended vast amounts
of energy on. Nothing spectacular. Nothing noteworthy. Nothing she’d put her heart into.

  Nothing except the piece she’d done of Lachlan nude.

  That was the best thing she’d ever done.

  But she hadn’t been able to send photos of that. She had no photos. She’d promised him that no one would see it. They’d made a deal. She’d given her word.

  Fiona always kept her word.

  So she wasn’t going to art school. But she did need to leave Pelican Cay. One look at Lachlan standing on her porch this evening had told her that.

  She couldn’t stay here, seeing him day after day, wanting him the way she still wanted him, when she would always feel manipulated, when she could never trust the honesty of the feelings he had for her. She huddled in the rocking chair and tried to think.

  “What am I going to do, Sparks?” she asked when he ambled over and bumped his head against her calf.

  He looked at the refrigerator and then at his food bowl as if the answer were obvious.

  Fiona gave a laugh that might have been a sob and got up to do his bidding. “Well, yes,” she said, “but after dinner? Then what?”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE they didn’t accept her.” Molly was raging around the shop, looking like she was going to kick something.

  Lachlan, who had stopped by to ask Hugh to fly him to Nassau in the morning, knew his sister well enough to stay out of her way. Besides, he wasn’t displeased that they hadn’t accepted Fiona. As far as he was concerned it was a reprieve of sorts.

  She wasn’t leaving! He had a chance with her.

  “Just because she doesn’t have enough traditional stuff in her portfolio,” Molly groused on, banging a wrench against her palm.

  “What does that mean?” Lachlan hadn’t heard the reasons. He’d been too busy rejoicing to care.

  “Her work is ‘too consumer oriented,’ they said,” Molly spat, still stomping around. “It shows ‘creative energy but it doesn’t show commitment and discipline’! Shows what they know! If there is anyone more committed and disciplined in the world than Fiona Dunbar, I’d like to know who it is!”

  Lachlan frowned. “They said that?”

  “I read the letter. Idiots! So maybe she hasn’t had the time to be bloody committed to her sculpture. Did they ever think of that? Maybe she’s been so damned committed to people and responsibility—taking care of her dad for all those years—that she’s been too busy to focus on a piece of marble or a hunk of clay. I’d like to tell them a thing or two,” Molly muttered furiously. “The least they could do is give her a chance.” She smacked the wrench down on the workbench, then turned on Lachlan, blessedly unarmed. “What are you doing here?”

  He shook his head. “I…don’t remember.”

  “Did you want something?”

  “I… Never mind,” he said vaguely and wandered back out into the dusk.

  THE PHONE CALL CAME a week later.

  Fiona had just dragged herself out of bed in time to go to work at the bakery. She was bleary-eyed and fuzzy-minded from tossing and turning all night, and she didn’t understand the oddly accented English of the person asking to speak to her.

  “Oh, ha ha. Very funny, Hugh McGillivray,” she said, wishing his sense of humor were a little less juvenile and that he understood she wasn’t ready to joke about it yet.

  “No, zorry. You mizunderstand,” the voice insisted. “I call for Mz. Dunbar. Thiz iz Luigi Bellini, Direttore di Ammissioni di Tremulini, Scuola di Dipingere e la Scultura. I call to zpeak about your enrollment.”

  Fiona stopped breathing.

  This wasn’t Hugh. She’d heard Hugh try to speak Italian once or twice. There was no way.

  “Mr.—er, Signore Bellini. H-how are you?”

  “I am fine. I am thinking you will be fine too because I call to tell you we have one place left. For you.”

  “For me?” Abruptly Fiona sat down. “In your school? When?”

  “Now. I know is late but za Dutch student canzelled. We have an opening, and zo we offer ze place to you. We zee potential in you.”

  “You…you do?”

  Sparks jumped into her lap and she clutched him desperately, hanging on to the reality of his thick short soft fur, and wondering if she was dreaming.

  Signore Bellini went right on giving her the particulars about when classes started, who her master sculptor tutor would be, what she would be expected to bring and where she would live.

  “I will zend you all ze information on ze e-mail to reconfirm. Classes start in two weeks. You will be here, yes?”

  Fiona looked around the only home she’d ever known, then out the window across the quay to the dock, to the harbor, to everything that was familiar to her, and felt the quickening of panic in her chest.

  And then she saw two of the boys, Lorenzo and Marcus, kicking a soccer ball between them as they walked down the quay. Suddenly a man swooped past, kicked the ball lightly, stealing it away from them as easily as he’d stolen her heart.

  Lachlan.

  Grinning at the boys, he lifted the ball on his toe, kicked it up, then bounced it on his knee to his chest and headed it into the water. The boys jumped on him and they all rolled about laughing together.

  Fiona’s throat tightened. Her eyes filled.

  “I’m coming,” she told Signore Bellini. “I’ll be there.”

  HUGH WAS FLYING Fiona to Nassau where she would catch a plane to Frankfurt and then to Milan. From there she was getting a bus. She would have to transfer twice. But she had the Italian phrase book her brother Mike had bought for her and she was sure she’d be fine.

  “Of course she’ll be fine,” Lachlan said gruffly when Molly reported all this again this morning. He was sitting at his desk, staring out at the beach, at the spot where The King had stood only a few weeks ago. He didn’t miss it.

  And he wouldn’t miss her.

  He’d made up his mind about that.

  He could have taught her some Italian if she’d asked. He’d spent three years in a town not far from the one she was going to. He could have told her a lot about the area if she’d expressed any interest. She hadn’t.

  He hadn’t heard anything directly from her at all.

  He’d heard enough from Molly.

  For the past seven days, ever since she’d got the news from Fiona, he had been listening to Molly crowing about her friend’s talent, her accomplishments, and Molly’s own supreme satisfaction that Fiona was finally getting her chance.

  “Like we all had ours,” Molly said with enormous satisfaction. She’d come to his office on her way to see Fiona off.

  “Yeah,” Lachlan said for the hundredth time and went back to reading the spec sheet for the addition on the Sandpiper that Sylvester had just faxed him.

  Molly frowned, then paced his office, then stopped in front of his desk. “She’s leaving in half an hour, Lachlan. Why won’t you come to the dock and see her off?”

  Lachlan kept right on reading. “There’s no point.” And he had no desire to stand there and watch her fly away.

  “You could always come and stop her?”

  He looked up then. “No!”

  Molly sighed. “Fine. Be that way. I’ll tell her you had an emergency call, that you couldn’t get away, but that you’re happy for her. All right? She’ll want to know you’re happy for her.”

  Lachlan doubted that. But he shrugged. “Whatever.” He kept his voice neutral and his eyes on the page. They didn’t stray as long as Molly stood there, nor even as her footsteps receded and he heard the inn’s front door open and shut.

  Only when she was gone did he lift his gaze then and stare bleakly out across the pristine sand toward the empty horizon.

  He was happy for Fiona. Of course he was. He kept telling himself that.

  He just hoped someday he believed it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FIONA LOVED ITALY.

  She’d always thought she would.

  She was delighted with the village of Tremu
lini, high on a Tuscan hillside. For a Bahamian girl who didn’t know hills from mountains, Italy was a revelation. Fiona was fascinated by all the ups and downs. She was thrilled with the food and spent hours prowling the markets and sampling local dishes in little trattorias.

  She liked her classes, the hands-on introduction to media course—painting, drawing, sculpting and printmaking—that was required of all new students, the beginning sketching-for-sculptors class where she learned to undo all the bad habits her caricaturing had taught her, and the history-of-art-in-Italy overview, which sent her to churches and museums and town squares all over the region to absorb and reflect and study.

  But she knew that when Adela Dirienzo, the sculptor with whom she would do her apprenticeship, returned from teaching master classes in Amsterdam, her work would really begin.

  That was fine with her. Fiona was determined to be a sponge, soaking everything up, cramming each day full to the brim with new sights, new sounds, new ideas, new friends.

  Since she’d arrived a month ago, she had made a lot of new friends at school—Roberto from her sketching class, and Hans and Resi from her history class, and Maria, Guillermo and Dmitri from her media course. She’d made friends in the community as well. Giulia, the registrar’s secretary, had taken her under her wing, had found her a tiny flat above the wine shop her uncle Tommaso ran. Her uncle Pietro, a waiter in the local trattoria, plied Fiona with forty flavors of gelato and introduced her to other local delicacies, and Giulia’s cousins, Vittorio, Alberto, Franco, Giancarlo, Sophia and Marcelo took her into their lives and made her a part of the family.

  And a good thing, too, because Fiona needed family. Desperately.

  For as much as she loved Italy and her friends and her classes and all she was experiencing and learning, and as much as she looked forward to learning from Signora Dirienzo, she was homesick, too.

  She kept her days as full as she possibly could.

  But her nights were long and filled with memories.

  Nights brought dreams of soft pink sand beaches and warm turquoise seas, of conch fritters and pineapple soda and ice-cold beer, of pastel-colored houses and white picket fences and potholed streets.