“No.”

“Oh, baby …” He buried his face in her neck. “I love you … I feel like such a weakling.”

“You're not. You're only human. These things happen. I suppose,” she sighed wisely, “that they happen every day.” But nothing like it had ever happened to him before. He had never felt this confused. There were two women he wanted, and he had no idea which one was the right way to turn. “Come.” Serena stood up and took his hand then. And when he looked up at her, she seemed more a woman to him than she ever had before. The idea that she was only nineteen was preposterous. She was as old and as wise as time as she stood there, smiling gently, holding out her arms to him, and slowly he stood up. “You look tired, my darling.” She was aching inside, but she didn't let him see that. Instead all that she showed him was her love for him, and her quiet strength. It was the same strength that had allowed her to survive the death of her parents, her banishment to the States, and the loss of her grandmother during the war. It was the same strength that had allowed her to return, and live in the palazzo in the servants' quarters, scrubbing bathroom floors and forgetting that she had ever been a principessa. Now it was that strength that she gave to him. She led him silently into the bedroom, stood beside her mother's bed, and began to take off her clothes slowly. It was an evening ritual between them, and sometimes he helped her and sometimes he only watched, admiring the graceful beauty of her young body and long limbs. But tonight he couldn't keep his hands from her, as the moonlight danced in her platinum hair, and his own clothes lay in a heap beside him before she was undressed, and rapidly he lifted her onto the bed and covered her body with his warm, hungry lips.

“Oh, Serena darling … I love you so.…”

She whispered his name in the moonlight, and for long hours before sunrise they forgot that there was another woman, and again and again Serena was his.





9

“Hi, pretty girl, can I show you around Rome or is someone meeting you?” He kissed her playfully on the forehead and she giggled, turning her face up toward his with her dazzling Miss America smile.