A Proposal From The Italian Count
To repay an old debt… Deliciously handsome Count Vittorio Martelli's promise to repay his late father's debt leads him to penniless and unemployed Jackie Benton. So to start with, he offers her a prestigious job in Rome working for him!He'll take her as his fiancée! Jackie cannot believe her luck when an Italian stranger hands her a lifeline out of the blue. But when she gets there she discovers Vittorio also needs a convenient fiancée…and feisty, hardworking Jackie is the perfect candidate!
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To repay an old debt...
Deliciously handsome Count Vittorio Martelli’s promise to repay his late father’s debt leads him to penniless and unemployed Jackie Benton. So to start with, he offers her a prestigious job in Rome working for him!
He’ll take her as his fiancée!
Jackie cannot believe her luck when an Italian stranger hands her a lifeline out of the blue. But when she gets there she discovers Vittorio also needs a convenient fiancée...and feisty, hardworking Jackie is the perfect candidate!
‘Shall we dance?’ Vittorio asked. ‘And couldn’t you smile at me as though I was your heaven on earth?’
‘But what would that prove?’ Jackie asked. ‘Only that I’m one of the crowd chasing you. Now, if you smiled at me that would be better. But don’t worry. I do understand why you don’t want to.’
‘Don’t I?’
‘Your heaven on earth? Me? More like purgatory, driving you mad.’
‘Which is just how you like it.’
‘I can’t deny that.’
They laughed together. Those dancing near them observed that they were in perfect accord and exchanged significant glances.
‘Now we’ve really given them something,’ she teased.
‘And if they heard me tell you that you look wonderful tonight they’d enjoy that even more.’
‘No, don’t say that.’
‘But I want to say it.’ He raised his voice. ‘You’re lovelier than ever tonight.’
I have always loved traveling. Fascinating places all over the world have lured me in and provided the settings for my books. Nowhere is that more true than Italy, where I met the love of my life. It’s not a coincidence that so many of my books have Italian heroes and Italian settings.
It was a pleasure to write about Vittorio, an Italian count, whose glamorous estate is close to Rome. He was stunned by meeting Jackie, an English girl whose ideas about life were a revelation.
At first everything seems to be against them. His father did hers a terrible wrong, and Vittorio’s attempts to repay Jackie are met with rejection, something he’s never known before. From then on all he cares about is winning her over, and he discovers emotional aspects of himself that he’d never dreamed of.
We think of true love as a meeting of hearts, but love gains extra strength if it’s also a meeting of minds. For me, one of the crucial moments between Vittorio and Jackie comes when he says to her, “You understand things that nobody else could.”
He means that she understands him, and it draws him ever closer to her. His knowledge of her isn’t quite so deep, but his growing love leads him along the path to true unity. Their great moment comes when he finally manages to look into her mind and understand what he sees. After that their future is secured.
Best wishes,
Lucy Gordon
LUCY GORDON cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men. She’s had many unusual experiences, which have often provided the background for her books. Once, while staying in Venice, she met a Venetian who proposed in two days. They were married for forty-five happy years, until his sad death. Naturally this has affected her writing, in which romantic Italian men tend to feature strongly. Two of her books have won a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award. You can visit her website at www.lucy-gordon.com.
I dedicate this book to my Italian husband, Roberto, who taught me so much about Italy, and whose love inspired me to set so many books there.
Contents
‘I DID WRONG. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. All in a moment I found that I could be wicked.’
The old man lying on his deathbed spoke weakly, for his strength was fading fast. Vittorio, the young man sitting beside him, grasped his hand and spoke urgently. ‘Don’t say such things, Papà. You’re not wicked. You never could be.’
‘Try saying that to George Benton. He was the man I robbed of a million, whose life I ruined, although he never knew it.’
Vittorio rubbed a frantic hand over his eyes and said fiercely, ‘But that’s impossible. How could he not have known?’
His father’s eyes closed and he turned his head, as though too full of despair to say any more. Vittorio rose and went to the window, looking out onto the grounds. They were lavish, extensive, perfectly suited to the Counts of Martelli, their owners for five hundred years.
Franco, the present Count, lay still as his life slipped away. Vittorio knew that his father’s mind had often been confused recently. And surely this was merely another example. Yet there was a desperation in the dying man’s manner that warned him of something different; something fearful.
‘Don’t worry about it. Papà,’ Vittorio urged, sitting by the bed again. ‘It’s all in the past.’
‘It will never be in the past until it’s put right,’ the Count murmured. ‘We were friends. We’d met here, in Italy, when he came on holiday. We became friends, and when I went to England a few weeks later I visited him. He was younger than me, and that made him fun to be with. We enjoyed a good time, going out for the evening, having a drink, charming women. And we placed a bet. It was just innocent fun—until his gamble paid off! He didn’t know. He was too woozy with drink by then. So I cashed in his winnings, then supported him home and put him to bed.’
