‘Oh, goodness, look! Over there. Montelli. He’s been following me around.’
‘Shall I leave you free to talk to him?’
Rinaldo made to rise but Alex stopped him with a hand on his arm.
‘Don’t you dare. I rely on you to get rid of him for me.’
‘Thus confirming my poor reputation. Do you know that I’m commonly held to have taken you prisoner and kept you apart from the world?’
‘Well, that was the original idea, wasn’t it?’ she teased.
‘I really can’t remember,’ he said self-consciously.
Montelli reached them, beaming in a way that didn’t hide his anxiety. He would have taken Gino’s seat but Alex dumped her bag on it too quickly for him.
‘Signorina, what a pleasure! It’s so hard to reach you these days.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid I keep my phone turned off,’ she said. ‘You must blame this lovely country which is taking all my attention.’
‘Indeed, Italy is ideal for a vacation, but perhaps a fair-skinned northerner shouldn’t live here permanently.’
‘How kind of you to be concerned for my welfare!’ Alex said, with a dazzling smile. ‘Would it really trouble you if I decided to stay?’
At this hint that she might not sell at all, Montelli paled visibly.
‘Well of course we should all be delighted-good heavens, you’re drinking tea. Is this fellow too mean to buy you a proper glass of wine?’
‘Far too mean,’ Rinaldo said in a voice that suggested he might be enjoying himself.
‘How shocking. Signorina, let me take you somewhere and buy you champagne.’
His hand clutched her arm determinedly. The next moment his yell split the air and he was frantically dabbing hot tea from his trousers.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Alex exclaimed unconvincingly. ‘I can’t think how it happened.’
He gave her a look of wild accusation but was too wise to speak, and scuttled away.
‘Why didn’t you come to my rescue?’ she demanded of Rinaldo.
‘I never saw a woman less in need of rescue,’ he said, with a grin. ‘I could hardly have thrown tea over him.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘Of course. I’ve had a few such accidents myself.’
‘I’ll bet you have!’
Now the procession had finished and the streets were full of revellers. Somewhere in the distance they could see Gino, flowers in his hair, dancing with three partners at once.
‘What does he think he’s doing?’ Rinaldo demanded.
Alex chuckled. ‘I think he’s making sure that he won’t commit sacrilege the next time he goes to church.’
‘Shall I fetch him for you?’
‘What for? He’s a free agent.’
‘And you? Are you free? With a fiancé in England?’
‘Yes,’ she said hastily, struggling to remember David’s face. ‘I meant that-Gino-’
‘Gino and you spend a lot of time together.’
‘Only because you put him up to it,’ she retorted with spirit. ‘Leave him alone. Let him enjoy himself.’
A dancing couple nearly crashed into their table.
‘If you’ve finished your tea, perhaps we should move,’ Rinaldo said. ‘It isn’t very safe here.’
She followed him out of the piazza and down side streets until they reached the river, where a blessedly cool breeze was blowing. He took her arm to steer her to the water’s side, and they stood there for a moment enjoying the night air.
Looking down into the waters of the Arno, Alex wondered at the change in herself. Her light tan made her dark blue eyes seem larger. She could see that much in the ghostly figure who looked back at her from the dark water.
No, she thought. Not so much a ghost as an echo of another self that she might have been. Perhaps still might.
‘What are you thinking?’ Rinaldo asked suddenly.
‘About myself,’ she said, still looking down into the water. ‘Wondering who I am.’
‘I too have wondered that. You are not the person I thought at first.’
‘Nobody could be that woman,’ Alex said, looking at him with a faint smile. ‘She came out of a horror story.’
He nodded. ‘I never thanked you.’
‘For what?’
‘Looking after Brutus. Seeing things about him that I ought to have seen. I let him live too long. I should have done it weeks ago, but I blinded myself to the signs because I couldn’t bear to part with him.’
‘Was that why you asked him to forgive you?’
‘Yes,’ he said in a low voice.
‘He was your wife’s dog, wasn’t he?’
‘I suppose Gino told you.’ His lips curved in a tender, reminiscent smile. ‘Maria came to our wedding clutching this ridiculous puppy, and she held onto him all through the service because if she put him down he wandered off, and if she handed him to someone else he cried. She said he was the start of our family, that we would have many children and many dogs. But it didn’t happen that way.’
He did not add that now he had nothing left of his wife, but Alex sensed that he did not need to. One by one, those he cared for had been taken away from him. Only Gino was left, and despite the brothers’ affection she sensed a distance between them, born of the fact that they were opposites.
‘You must be so lonely,’ she said impulsively, reaching out to touch him.
He looked at her, then at the place where her hand lay on his arm. For a moment she thought he would put his own hand over it, but then a smile came over his face. And when she saw it she knew she had blundered.
It was as implacable as an iron door slammed in her face.
‘Not at all,’ he said cheerfully, moving his arm away from her. ‘Not at all.’
She cursed her own stupidity for going one step too far with this awkward man. At the last moment he had flinched away from her sympathy, as she should have known he would, retreating into mistrust.
Through the silence she was intensely aware of the unease that swept him as he recalled everything he had confided to her, the way he’d lowered his guard, forgetting that she still represented danger.
She thought vainly for something she could say to bring his mind and heart back to her, but it was too late. He had turned and was heading away from her, along the narrow street.
‘Let’s go and find Gino,’ he called back over his shoulder.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘NEVER mind Gino,’ she said desperately. ‘I don’t own him, and he’d be the first to say so.’
‘Is that why I see the two of you fooling around together all the time?’ He spoke ironically, and there was a touch of the old edge in his voice as he added, ‘I wonder what you’ll tell your fiancé.’
‘I shan’t mention it at all. There’s no need.’
‘What a very cool race the English must be. If you were my woman I’d want to know that you’d been flirting with another man.’
If I were your woman I wouldn’t be flirting with another man.
The thought flashed across her mind before she could stop it. Then it was gone, whispering away into the shadows.
‘I wonder if you really would want to know,’ she said.
‘Yes, because then I could do something about it.’
She understood his meaning perfectly. She should stop him here. But she didn’t want to.
‘I doubt if you could,’ she dared him.
The next moment his arm was across her chest, preventing her going any further, urging her gently but firmly back against the wall.
‘Listen to me,’ he said softly, his hot breath flickering against her skin. ‘I will not be played games with, do you understand? Don’t try to tease me. I’m not some callow boy to come begging.’
‘How dare you accuse me of teasing you?’ she demanded in a shaking voice.
‘You’re up to something. I’m not a fool, Circe.’
‘And neither am I. You set Gino on to me, remember? How stupid do you think I am? Now, will you let me go?’ She tried to push his arm away but it was like steel across her chest, not pressing her, but implacable.
‘Not yet. We have things to talk about,’ he said, speaking in the same low voice that sent warmth scurrying across her skin.
‘I can’t think what.’ She tried to keep calm but the powerful body holding her still was communicating its heat to her, and that was mingling with the rising excitement inside herself.
‘You did very well tonight,’ he murmured.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes, you do. You were subtle, very subtle. Nothing obvious. Just be nice to the brute and watch him melt. And you came close, until you over reached yourself.’
There was a sudden fierce note in his voice.
‘Every man has to want you, doesn’t he? Gino satisfies your vanity, the man in London satisfies your ambition. And me? What would I satisfy?’
His words were like hot lava pouring over her, illuminating the world, so that for a searing moment she knew the answer to his question. He would satisfy a deep, aching need that had been there, unacknowledged, in her loins, from the very start.
How long could she have gone on refusing to see it if he hadn’t forced it on her?
But hell would freeze over before she would let him suspect.
‘You flatter yourself,’ she snapped. ‘If you weren’t so conceited you’d remember I didn’t say a word to you that I couldn’t have said in front of Gino.’
‘I’ve already admitted that you were clever. Far too clever to be blatant. Circe weaves her spells and has a different face for all of us. Subtlety wouldn’t work with Gino, but it damned near worked with me.’
She didn’t answer. Words would no longer come. A warm languor pervaded her, making her limbs heavy and her senses vague. Yet she was burningly aware of the faint touch of his lips against the skin of her neck.
Pride made her turn her head away but there was no escaping him. Putting her hands on his shoulders she tried to push him off, with no success.
He didn’t try to kiss her mouth, merely rested his lips against her throat, then just beneath her ears, causing a storm inside her that was almost alarming in its violence.
He was warning her not to take him on, because if she did, this was what he could do to her. He could make her flesh defy her mind, defy her very self. He could make her want him when she was determined not to. He was daring her to risk it.
Either the heat of the night or her own feverish urgency was making her react in a way she didn’t recognise. It took all her strength not to yearn towards him, seeking new and more deeply intimate caresses.
She could not allow this to happen, but it was happening anyway. There was danger everywhere, but suddenly danger was her natural element. The hands she’d raised to push him away changed course and curved, almost touching him but not quite.
But then-yes-her fingers just brushed his neck of their own accord. There was no stopping them. And his lips were on her face, not kissing her mouth, kissing everywhere else, driving her wild with soft, teasing caresses that left her unsatisfied because she they made her want so much more.
They were no longer alone in the street. A laughing, singing crowd swirled by, but nobody took any notice of them. One more pair of lovers among so many!
He drew back a few inches and stopped, breathing hard, his mouth close to hers. He could see her reaction, she thought desperately. There was no hiding the rise and fall of her breasts under the thin red silk, or the pulse beating in her throat. He must be able to feel her breath against his face, as heated as his own.
‘Get-away-from-me,’ she gasped in a voice that shook.
He did so, stepping back sharply. She saw his face, one instant before the shutters came down, and saw it ravaged, burningly intense.
And afraid. It was too late for him to lock her out and he knew it.
He turned and strode away toward the main street, leaving her leaning against the wall, trying to calm down. After a moment Alex followed him slowly.
When she had nearly reached the Piazza, Gino came flying to meet her, flowers in his hair, not entirely sober. He embraced her eagerly.
‘There you are, carissima. Why aren’t you with Rinaldo? Don’t tell me you two are fighting again?’
Alex never forgot the journey home, with Rinaldo driving the car and herself and Gino in the back. Gino was too sleepy to talk, which was a relief, but left her staring out into the darkness, accompanied by thoughts that she didn’t want to think.
As soon as they reached the house she bid the brothers a brief goodnight and went upstairs. She needed to be alone to control her feelings, and to understand exactly what those feelings were.
There was anger, partly at him and partly at herself for being caught off guard.
It had been there all the time. Desire. Basic, brutal, almost uncontrollable desire, not connected to any sympathy of mind. Uncivilised. Alien to her well-ordered world. The kind of feeling that she had never really believed existed, waiting to spring out and make a fool of her.
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