Dreaming of Italy: A stunning and heartwarming holiday romance Read online

  ‘I look forward to meeting him.’

  Dexter was once again talking sotto voce in his boss’s ear. Nodding in approval, the big man looked back across the desk at Emma. ‘And you can meet him tonight. My wife and I are throwing a party at our place this evening and we’d like you to come.’

  In spite of her reservations about JM’s son and this whole project, Emma was genuinely overwhelmed to find herself invited to the legendary Villa Milagro, built for silent movie star Harold Lloyd, briefly occupied by Greta Garbo, and now home to one of the richest men in Hollywood. She knew that very, very few of her colleagues at JMGP had ever been inside the place and that this was an honour bestowed upon only a very select few.

  And now this number was going to include Emma Taylor from a tiny little village in Norfolk, daughter of Sid and Martha Taylor who ran the local post office and shop. Twelve years earlier, her mum had been very doubtful about the wisdom of Emma’s decision to head halfway across the globe to work on another continent, but there could be no doubt now that the decision had been the right one. What, she wondered, would they think when she told them their only child was going to be mixing in such rarefied circles? That would come later. For now, she didn’t hesitate.

  ‘That’s very kind, sir. I’d be delighted.’

  ‘Great. Eight o’clock. We’ll send a car. Dexter has your address.’

  For the second time that morning, the pilot fish spoke out loud. They were only two words, but they struck fear into Emma’s heart.

  ‘Black tie.’

  Chapter 2

  Emma wasn’t the sort to panic, but she was as close to freaking out that afternoon as she had ever been as she raced home from work to get ready for her boss’s party. She had been to a number of formal events since coming to Hollywood to work, but never anything at this level. For the men this just meant buying or renting a tux, but for women it was more complicated, much more complicated. She knew she was going to find herself in the midst of untold wealth, unimaginable beauty (often the handiwork of the most expensive cosmetic surgeons on the planet), and extravagant designer clothes and jewellery.

  She still had all her own skin, no surgical enhancement, no valuable jewellery and a seriously limited stock of ‘smart’ frocks. Her job had always been more important to her than her social life and she didn’t really enjoy all the palaver involved with dressing up and, as she had always told herself, she saw no reason why she should dress up to attract a man when that was the last thing on her mind.

  However, as she fought her way through the rush hour traffic in her Mini, she found herself toying with the idea of breaking all her resolutions and dashing into one of the big-name boutiques to pay a small fortune for a dress she would probably only wear a handful of times in her life. Of course, dressing up tonight was a work imperative. Her boss would expect her to make an effort, and turning up in jeans and a T-shirt would no doubt impact very poorly on her career. No, there was no question about it. She was going to have to slap on the war paint and suit up. The question was what to wear and her apprehension grew once more. Fortunately, as she spotted a police car in her rear-view mirror and lifted her foot off the gas, she came to her senses.

  There was no way she could, or should, try to compete with the rich and the famous. For a moment she reflected that she and Dexter, the pilot fish, probably had more in common than she had hitherto realised. He would only be there because he worked for JM and she was only going to be there so that she could meet JM’s son, whatever his name was. Nevertheless, she had to look smart – that much was clear – but that was that. As she carried on driving at a more sedate pace across town, in her head she ran through the contents of her wardrobe, such as it was, and decided to go for one of the only two long gowns she owned. Fortunately, she was tall and this meant she would be able to wear comfortable shoes and not find herself having to totter about on the sort of high heels some of the other ladies would be wearing.

  By the time the doorbell rang, a few moments before eight, she was as ready as she could be. She was scrubbed and polished and she had even managed to put her hair up for once, although she had cricked her neck trying to check the result with the hand mirror. She was no longer close to panic, but there was a cold empty feeling of nervousness gnawing at her gut. Even after more than ten years here in Hollywood, she knew she was going to be far outside her comfort zone tonight. Her apprehension grew as she came downstairs and stepped out onto the sidewalk in her scruffy, but wonderfully comfortable, sandals. The ‘car’ JM had promised was almost as long as the whole block. A uniformed driver gave her a smart salute and opened the rear door.

  ‘Miss Taylor? Good evening, ma’am. My name’s Luis. I’ll be your chauffeur tonight.’

  She climbed gingerly into the massive limousine, doing her best not to crush her gown – or display her ‘sensible’ shoes as she did so. As she sat down, so the glass partition in front of her hummed smoothly down and Luis’s smiling face appeared.

  ‘Can I get you anything, ma’am? A glass of champagne, maybe?’

  Emma shook her head. One thing was for sure, she was going to need to keep a clear head tonight. Getting hammered was not an option – however tempting it might be. ‘Thank you, Luis, but I’m fine. How long’s it going to take us to get to Mr Miros’s house?’

  ‘Traffic’s not too bad tonight, ma’am. Half an hour, tops.’

  He was dead right. It took exactly twenty-six minutes for them to get to the neo-classical gatehouse of JM’s palatial home. Here they were met by a bulky security guard with a pistol in a holster at his side. More frightening than the pistol, however, was the sudden explosion of flashes as photographers materialised around the car, some even pressing their lenses right up against the double-glazed window beside her. Clearly, JM’s not so little bash was going to be plastered all over The Hollywood Reporter and the internet by morning. Emma sat back and surreptitiously wiped the sweat off her palms against the leather upholstery beneath her.

  After checking her name on the list, the guard waved them through and the limo glided smoothly up the winding drive to the house. This ran between meticulously trimmed box hedges, behind which there was a subtropical extravaganza of exotic plants and trees. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see monkeys swinging through the branches, maybe even followed by Tarzan himself. This was quite some place.

  The front of the villa was bathed in floodlight and she did her best to keep her shoes out of sight as she stepped from the car and murmured a quiet ‘thank you’ to Luis. To her surprise, he gave her a big smile and allowed himself a personal comment.

  ‘You look great, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying. Just great.’

  She smiled back at him, genuinely grateful for the morale boost.

  ‘Thank you, Luis. I needed that.’

  As she started to make her way up the broad stone stairway to the front door, an immaculate servant appeared, dressed in a smart grey waistcoat and freshly-ironed white shirt. He gave her a little bow.

  ‘Welcome, Miss Taylor. If you’d like to come with me, I’ll take you to Mr and Mrs Miros.’

  Vaguely wondering how he had recognised her, Emma thanked him and followed as he led her into the marble-clad lobby and onwards into an enormous lounge. In spite of its size, the room was crowded, and within just the first few seconds she recognised no fewer than half a dozen A-list celebrities. The waiter led her to the centre of the room where she immediately saw JM’s head looming above the others around him. Alongside him, barely reaching his chest, was his wife. Unsurprisingly, stationed at his other side was none other than Dexter, the pilot fish. As Emma approached, the little man leant forward and drew JM’s attention to her arrival. Excusing himself from none other than the Governor of California, the great man held out a welcoming hand towards her.

  ‘Emma, good evening. Thanks for coming.’

  His lips even curled into a pretty good approximation of a smile and she wondered if the glass of champagne in his hand ha
d maybe helped to relax his face muscles.

  ‘Thank you so much for inviting me to your gorgeous home, sir.’ For a moment, she came close to curtseying, but managed to control the impulse.

  ‘Let me introduce you to my wife, Rachel. Rach, honey, this is Emma, She’s the young lady who’s gonna be accompanying Richard to Italy. She’s one of the brightest talents in the company.’

  The elegant blonde lady produced a smile of her own and extended her hand, politely ignoring Emma’s blushes at her boss’s compliments. As they shook hands, she glanced back at him.

  ‘Jan, you didn’t tell me how pretty she is.’ Even through her embarrassment, Emma registered the first time she had ever heard her boss addressed by anything other than his initials. ‘It’s good to meet you, Emma.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Miros. You have a wonderful home.’

  Mrs Miros directed another reproving look at her husband. ‘And you also didn’t tell me she’s English. I do so love an English accent.’

  As she spoke, Emma studied her surreptitiously. She knew for a fact that she was nudging sixty, but there wasn’t a line on her face. If her hair was dyed, it had been done amazingly well. She was wearing a simply stunning light grey silk dress and she looked little older than Emma herself, who only the previous month had reached the ripe old age of thirty-five.

  ‘Rach, have you seen Richard?’ JM’s eyes were scouring the room from his high vantage point, but without success. ‘I want him to meet Emma.’

  For a second the smile on Mrs Miros’s face slipped a notch, but just for a second. ‘I haven’t, Jan, I’m afraid. I suppose he must be outside in the garden.’ She glanced across at Emma. ‘He’s not a great one for crowds. I expect he’s gone into hiding.’

  That sounded strange and unexpected and was followed by a momentary silence. Emma decided to help out. ‘I’m sure you have lots to do welcoming all your guests.’ She followed the direction of Mrs Miros’s eyes and spotted open French windows at the end of the room. ‘Why don’t I go and look for him? I can introduce myself.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘You’ll just have to tell me what he looks like.’

  To her surprise, it was Dexter who responded. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll come with you.’ He shot a quick glance at JM, presumably to seek his permission, and then came over to Emma and pointed towards the French windows. ‘The garden’s this way.’

  ‘See you later, Emma.’ JM gave her a little wave. ‘And, Dexter, get the girl a drink. She looks like she could use one.’

  As they walked away through the crowd, Dexter added under his breath. ‘I think we could both do with one.’ Although she knew he was originally from England, just like her, his accent now was completely neutral, which perfectly suited somebody whose job it was to melt chameleon-like into the landscape. In fact, she had no idea even of his age. He could have been forty or he could have been sixty and she vaguely wondered if he somehow magically morphed into whatever role he happened to be playing at the time. This was Hollywood, after all.

  A passing waiter supplied two glasses of freshly poured ice-cold champagne and Emma took one willingly, pausing to clink it against Dexter’s before taking a sip. She didn’t know a lot about wine but she had no doubt this would be real French champagne, and the expensive stuff as well. She gave Dexter a smile.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Dexter.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Emma. Listen, there’s something you need to know about Richard.’

  Emma was immediately intrigued, mainly by his somewhat hesitant tone, and the fact that his voice had dropped to almost a whisper. He led her across to the far corner of the room where they were able to take up station behind the massive white grand piano, out of earshot of everybody. After a surreptitious look around, he launched into his exposé.

  ‘Richard’s been in a spot of trouble. The thing is, the reason he’s only now graduated from college is that he disappeared off the grid for a few years in his early twenties and since then he’s been in rehab, on and off, for quite some time, trying to break a serious drug habit.’

  Wow, Emma thought to herself. ‘And how old is he now?’

  ‘He’s twenty-seven. He’ll be twenty-eight any day now.’

  ‘And his drug problems, are they all behind him now?’

  Dexter shrugged. ‘We can only hope. The fact that he’s managed to get himself together enough to finish his studies is a positive sign, but it’s still early days.’

  As she listened, Emma was turning over in her head the ramifications of this disclosure. So she was going to be expected to act as nursemaid to a recovering drug addict. What was he going to be like and, more to the point, what would his father’s reaction be if Richard were to fall back into the habit while on Emma’s watch? Suddenly her forthcoming tour of Italy was looking less and less inviting. She toyed – only for a moment – with the idea of telling her boss she didn’t feel like taking the job after all, but she had no doubt what the result of that act of rebellion would be. Like it or not, she was going to be stuck with Richard or she would torpedo her whole career. She took a deep calming breath and followed it up with a very welcome mouthful of champagne. Beside her, she saw Dexter reach into his top pocket and pull out a card.

  ‘Listen, Emma, here’s what we’re going to do. This is my personal cell number. You can get me on that any time of the day or night.’ He caught her eye. ‘But I’d be grateful if you kept that number confidential just between the two of us. Okay?’

  ‘Okay, it’s a promise. Now, just so we’re clear, what you’re saying is that you want me to notify you, rather than JM, if anything happens in Italy involving his son, is that right?’

  ‘Exactly. You tell me and then I’ll break it to JM in the best possible way.’ He produced a little smile. ‘You should be pleased. I’m volunteering to be the messenger. I get shot instead of you if it all goes belly up.’

  ‘And you think it will?’

  Again he shrugged. ‘Who knows? Richard’s not a bad boy. I’ve worked for his father for twenty years now and I’ve watched Richard grow up. He was a pretty naughty kid, but it was only when he went off to college that it all fell apart for him. I think his problem was that he came from a family background where everything was done for him, where he could have whatever he asked for, but ultimately, it was always his father who called the shots. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no doubt both his parents thought and still think the world of him but, whatever the reason, he went AWOL. On the face of it, he had everything, but in the end he just rebelled and the results were ugly. He disappeared so effectively that everybody thought he was dead at one point.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Europe, apparently, and some very unsavoury parts of it from what I hear. Ironically, the very fact of having so much money made it all too easy for him to afford the drugs that have had such a devastating effect on him. In the end it was by following the money stream that his parents finally managed to locate him again. He was found in some squalid slum in the suburbs of Berlin, I believe.’

  ‘Wow, what a mess!’ Emma nodded in sympathy. The poor little rich boy syndrome was all too common in this glitzy world of excessive wealth. ‘And what about after-effects? Has he done himself any permanent harm?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I hope not. I haven’t spoken to him much since he came back home a few weeks ago. He seems pretty much his old self again now, but just a whole lot less bubbly, more introspective – quieter. You heard what his mother said. He hates crowds and finds even the most superficial conversations challenging. He used to be the absolute opposite – always going to parties, having parties, and wanting to be the life and soul of them. But not any more.’ He swilled the last of his champagne around in his glass before swallowing it. ‘You needed to know that before you met him.’

  ‘Thanks, Dexter. I owe you. Tell me, does his father know you’re telling me this?’

  Dexter nodded. ‘He’s the one who asked me to tell you. To be honest, I would have said something to yo
u anyway, but he took me to one side this evening and made me promise to tell you the whole story.’

  Jan Miros went up in Emma’s esteem. ‘If I don’t get a chance to talk to JM alone, please will you thank him? You’re right. It’s much better for Richard, and for me, that I know.’ She finished her drink and set the glass down alongside his on top of the piano, hoping they wouldn’t mark the pristine surface. She slipped the card with his phone number into her purse and gave him a big smile. ‘Thanks, Dexter.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now, if you’re ready, let’s go and find Richard.’

  Mrs Miros was right. Richard had indeed chosen to hide. As they walked down to the enormous pool, hidden from the view of the other guests by a high hedge and a bank of sweet-scented lavender, Dexter caught her by the arm and pointed. ‘That’s him there. Want me to introduce you?’

  At the far end of the pool, sitting on a springboard at the water’s edge, was a figure dressed in a dark tuxedo. Emma made a quick decision.

  ‘No, that’s fine, Dexter. Thanks a lot. I’ll take it from here.’

  He nodded and turned on his heels, while Emma set off down the side of the pool to the far end. As she reached the springboard, the figure stirred and looked up. Emma took a good look at him as she approached. He was a good-looking man with thick, dark hair like his father’s, but he had inherited his mother’s fine facial features. Yes, he was handsome all right, and with his wealth she had no doubt he could have had the pick of any available girl in Hollywood – and there was no shortage of them. His face was only marred by dark rings below his eyes. As he saw her, an expression of recognition crossed his face.