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CHAPTER THREE

FATE, Francesca repeated to herself. She knew about the power of fate. Fate was what Angelo maintained had brought them together. She refused to accept that this… force she was being hit with here had any familiarity with Angelo’s fate.

It was then that she remembered tonight’s party and that this man had been invited. She’d even written the invitation herself. Carlo Carlucci and Guest, she’d scribed in Italian.

Which brought up another thought that sent her eyes slewing sideways to glance inside the open-top car expecting to see some raving dark beauty sitting in the passenger seat. To think of Carlo Carlucci without his usual female appendage was impossible, so she was puzzled to discover the seat was empty.

When she looked back at him he’d lifted those lashes higher and was watching her. ‘I do travel light on occasion,’ he said lazily, reading her like a gauche open book.

‘Does the fact that you’re here and not in Milan mean that you’ve tired of making Angelo’s life a misery and let him come back too?’ she threw back.

He smiled at this attempt on her part at acid sarcasm but his reply when it came was deadly serious. ‘Angelo deserved everything he got from me, Francesca, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.’

‘I suppose you’ve never overslept and missed a meeting.’

‘Not even after a heavy night with a beautiful woman in my bed,’ he replied. ‘Although…’ his eyes moved over her ‘… I can appreciate that the cause in this case was worth the consequences…’

He was inferring that she was what had caused Angelo to oversleep that morning, Francesca realised, and opened her mouth to deny the charge only to close it again when she realised that Angelo must have used her as his excuse for missing his flight. A frown creased her brow and she lowered her eyes to the ground while she tried to decide how she felt about that. She didn’t think she liked it. It smacked too hard at the male ego conjuring up a night of erotic sex with his lover as a way of getting himself out of an awkward situation. Her mind even threw up a picture of Angelo standing in some faceless office in Milan, casually boasting to this man of all men about something that should remain private to themselves—if it had happened at all, which it hadn’t.

‘I’ve got to go.’ She spun away, not wanting to continue this line of discussion. Not wanting to be here at all. She was cross now with Angelo—cross with Carlo Carlucci for placing a cloud across her golden image of the man she loved.

There was a hiss of impatience, a scraping of shoe leather on the road surface. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, and began striding towards her across the lane.

Her shoulders tensed, her clenched hands jerking out of her pockets as those now familiar prickles began really asserting themselves the closer he came. A hand curved around her arm, long fingers gently crushing sun-warmed denim against the skin beneath that began to burn like a flame. She jumped in response to it, her breathing snagged. He turned her to face him and she found herself fascinated by the discovery that her eyes came level with his smooth brown throat.

‘I embarrassed you. I apologise,’ he murmured huskily, and she watched his throat muscles move with the words. ‘It was unforgivably crass and insensitive of me to say what I just said.’

Yes, Francesca agreed. It had been crass and insensitive—but which man had been the most crass and insensitive?

‘Forget it,’ she said, but both of them knew she was only mouthing words she did not mean.

‘If it helps, he did not mention you by name,’ he offered.

‘Meaning what?’ she flashed. ‘That he left it open to interpretation as to whether he was sleeping around or not? Great. Thanks.’ She gave an angry tug at her arm.

He refused to let go. She could feel his anger, the pulse of his frustration because his bit of light teasing had gone so wrong.

‘I apologise—again,’ he bit out finally.

Francesca glared daggers at his chest. ‘I suppose you think it’s all just jolly good fun to swap sexual experiences across some office desk,’ she said shakily. ‘Men being men,’ with lots of phews and wows and you’d have overslept too if you’d been there. She’d heard the men at work talking like that, having no idea how cheap they made their lovers sound. ‘Egotistic cockerels crowing about their prowess,’ she muttered, not realising she’d said the words out loud until he laughed as if he couldn’t help himself.

‘Don’t laugh at me!’ she snapped out hotly.

‘Then don’t say such comical things,’ he threw back. ‘You sound like some outraged virgin.’

But she was an outraged virgin—that was the whole point! ‘Did you tell him all about the way you propositioned me on the Corso just to even up the score a bit?’

‘No,’ he denied. ‘But the interesting point here is—did you tell him?’

‘Why, are you worried that he might damage your famed sexual ego by telling him how you made a play for his woman and got turned down flat?’

It was reckless. She shouldn’t have said it. His eyes turned as black as bottomless caverns and his other hand came up to capture her other arm. Hard fingers crushed the denim fabric as he drew her closer.

‘Did you turn me down?’ he prompted. ‘Or did you run like a frightened rabbit because you were already so turned on you didn’t know how to cope with it?’

‘That’s not true!’ she gasped in shocked horror.

‘Shall we test that?’

She saw in the dark glitter of his eyes what he meant to do next and drew in a sharp breath. Suddenly something dangerous was dancing in the air, spinning silver spider webs of tension into the golden sunlight.

Then a twig snapped somewhere, bringing the whole episode clattering down as both heads turned to stare across the top of her great-uncle’s wooden gates. Trapped in a trembling force field that held her breathless, Francesca searched the wilderness in some wild, weak, pathetic hope that her great-uncle was about to appear to rescue her from this.

It didn’t happen. No dapper old gentleman wearing a wine-red velvet smoking jacket appeared on the twig-strewn driveway. The dappling light from the afternoon sun quivered amongst the heavily leafed branches of the tangled trees and vines and played with peeling ochre paint, but otherwise the wilderness garden remained at peace.

She sighed as she thought that, the action parting her lips to release the sad sound. He moved, she looked back at him without thinking and met head-on with a pair of dark, brooding eyes that told her things she didn’t want to know—or feel the way she was feeling them.

It was better to look away. ‘Please let me go,’ she whispered shakily.

His fingers flexed against the denim and for a horrible moment she thought he was going to ignore her plea and just continue from where he’d been interrupted. Her throat ran dry. She tried to swallow. The promise of tears bloomed across her eyes.

Then his grip eased and slowly lifted. She stepped back—went to turn her back, desperate now to get away.

‘You are acquainted with Bruno Gianni?’ he asked.

‘What…?’ She blinked, lifting slightly unfocused eyes back to his face. ‘Oh, n-no,’ she denied, and quickly lowered her eyes again—not because of the lie she’d just uttered but because she didn’t want him to see the threatening tears.

She shoved her hands back in her pockets, swung away and made another attempt to leave.

‘Strange …’ he murmured. ‘I could have sworn I saw you posting a note in the letter box as I drove up.’

And she froze all over again. ‘Y-you mistook what you saw,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was admiring the garden, that’s all.’

‘The garden,’ he repeated and uttered a soft laugh. ‘Cara, that isn’t a garden, it is a neglected mess!’

‘And what would you know about a real garden?’ she swung round to slice at him, not sure if she was responding to his derision or the near kiss she had just escaped. ‘I bet your idea of a beautiful garden has to be something filled with straight lines and must be manicured to within an inch of its life!’

‘Bruno Gianni obviously doesn’t feel like that,’ he pointed out.

He was laughing—still laughing at her! He’d even leant a shoulder against one of the gateposts—right next to her letter box! And he’d folded those wretched arms again, tugging that jumper up over the bronze stud at his waist. She hated him, really hated every hard, mocking inch of his sardonic, handsome—sexy stance!

‘Well, neither do I,’ she declared, uttering this next halflie as she tried very hard to put her temper back under wraps. ‘And I like this garden,’ she added within a tightly suppressed breath. ‘I like the way it’s been left to do its own thing. It has soul and atmosphere and—and—’

‘An irresistible hint of romance about it,’ he inserted when she stammered then stalled. ‘We could even say it possesses a kind of lost-in-time mystique about it that some may love to weave secret fantasies around. We could even imagine Sleeping Beauty lying in one of the cobweb-strewn rooms inside waiting for her prince to come and waken her with the all-important kiss.’

‘Oh, very droll,’ she derided. ‘Next you will be telling me you believe in fairies.’

‘Why not?’ he quizzed. ‘We should all believe there is magic out there or we would stop bothering to look for it and that would be sad, don’t you think? Oh, come on, Francesca,’ he sighed out impatiently when she stiffened up in offence. ‘I was teasing you. Stop prickling.’

‘I’m not prickling,’ she snapped, prickling even as she denied it.

He uttered a short laugh. ‘You remind me of a very beautiful but temperamental tabby cat,’ he told her. ‘Every time I look at you I can almost see the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.’

‘You don’t know me well enough to know anything of the sort,’ she hit back, saw the amusement lurking behind those glossy eyelashes, went to stiffen up some more—then sighed heavily instead. ‘You enjoy winding me up.’

’Sì,’ he acknowledged.

So she was a game, Francesca concluded. An easy game.

Carlo studied her beautiful face as she stood in her own pool of sunlight and wondered grimly if she had any idea how hurt she looked by his last comment. Anger gripped him, along with a hot and bloody frustrated urge to grab for her again and impress on her why his barbs could hurt so much.

Easy, he thought inwardly in grinding contempt and flicked a hard glance at the crumbling Palazzo Gianni hiding inside its romantic wilderness. Sleeping Beauty she was not; Cinderella more like, so damn starved of ordinary love and affection that she left herself wide open for any no-good adventurer to take advantage of.

Damn it, he cursed to himself and straightened away from the gatepost. ‘I suppose,’ he started, ‘if I offer you a lift, you will throw the offer back in my face.’

He was right and she would. ‘Take no offence but I will enjoy the walk.’

The sound of his dry laughter brought her reluctant gaze back to his face again. ‘That was so beautifully English and polite, cara.’ The mocking man was back, she saw.

‘I am English.’

‘Mm,’ he murmured as if even that amused him now. Then he surprised her by abruptly striding back to his car. ‘Like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day,’ he threw over his shoulder as he opened the door then swung his long body into the seat. ‘Very—contradictory.’

‘Thank you—I think.’ She frowned.

Carlo just grimaced and gunned the car engine. ‘I will see you later,’ he said by way of a farewell.

Francesca sent him a perfectly blank look.

‘Your engagement to the mistreated Angelo?’ he prompted and was truly rewarded when the blank look changed to one of dismay because that look told him she had not given a thought to her wonderful Angelo beyond those first few seconds of this encounter.

Having to be satisfied with achieving that much, he put the car into gear and sped off down the lane, leaving her to stew alone on his final heart-ruthless barb.

Francesca watched him go with the sunlight clinging to his satin black hair again and his last sardonic punch making her eyes blink. How could she have become so drawn in by him that she’d completely forgotten the most important event in her life was about to take place tonight?

Another twig snapped somewhere behind her and she turned to glare at her great-uncle’s wilderness as if all of this confusion she was feeling was his fault. And maybe it was, she thought as she turned away again. If he’d been a kinder man he would have accepted her hand of friendship and her pathetic need to maintain contact with him would not have driven her to walk here to post him silly little notes. Then she would not have been standing here like a prime target for Carlo Carlucci to amuse himself with—again.

Easy, he’d called her. And she flinched, ashamed of herself—disgusted with him for playing with her as if she was a toy.

Well, she wasn’t anyone’s toy. She wasn’t easy either—and it was about time that she remembered that! Her chin came up, her hazel eyes glazing over with contempt for the hateful Carlo Carlucci. What was he after all but just one man among many that believed all women were fair prey?

She began to walk, feeling better now she’d managed to snatch her shaken pride back from the brink.

Villa Batiste came into view, its white marble walls drenched in the coral warmth of the late-afternoon sun. The contrast between it and Palazzo Gianni was so pronounced that Francesca pulled to a stop for a moment, struck by the sudden realisation that she did not like this beautiful place. It was all too neat, too shiny and pampered; even the elegant gardens had been groomed to within the tips of their hard edges.

But what the heck? It was a great place to throw a party, she decided, and with a lighter step she began walking up the long, straight driveway with its ceremonial guard of cedar-tree soldiers flanking her approach. She was just walking around the circular courtyard in front of the house when she saw Angelo come through the front door and a light came on inside her that quite simply lit her up. He was wearing jeans and a loose-fitting white sweatshirt and his hair shone golden in the sun.

She began to run to him, and he opened his arms and grinned as she raced up the shallow flight of steps. She fell into those open arms—and fell into his warm, familiar kiss. Oh, she loved—loved—loved this beautiful man, she thought happily.

‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you,’ she sighed when the kiss eventually ended.

‘I think I got the message,’ he grinned.

It was then that she noticed the tiredness around his eyes and the hint of strain tugging at his mouth. ‘Bad day?’ she asked softly, running a gentle finger along a newly arrived groove at the corner of his mouth.

‘Bad week,’ he grimaced, then added with feeling, ‘I never want to get on the wrong side of Carlo Carlucci again.’

Oh, Francesca could sympathise with that. Then she remembered to be annoyed with him for what he’d said to Carlo Carlucci and was just about to tackle him about it when the sound of a car horn grabbed their attention and the embrace was broken so they could turn to watch a minibus come hurtling up the drive.

She smiled in recognition, relaxing into the warmth of Angelo’s circling arms as she watched the minibus pull to a stop at the bottom of the steps. Doors were flung open. People began piling out. Francesca’s friends and work colleagues had arrived, having commandeered one of the company tour buses so they could travel here en masse. They were staying overnight in a hotel in the town but they’d stopped here first to drop off Sonya, who, like Bianca and several others, had had to work today or she would have travelled here with Francesca and Angelo’s parents.

There were fifteen people in all, and every one of them had eyes round like saucers as they scanned the magnificence of Villa Batiste, making suitably impressed comments to each other and tossing teasing ones at Francesca and Angelo.

Sonya was the last one to climb out of the bus. She was wearing a simple white shift-dress that clung to her slender figure and left a good portion of her long legs on show. As she took her time turning a full circle to view her surroundings the late-afternoon sun placed a pale copper gloss on her flaxen hair. She really was beautiful. Everyone said so—except Angelo. He said that her looks were spoiled by her own vanity. That too many compliments had given her a hard edge. The fact that Sonya held much the same views on Angelo was a classic sign that they were two people whose strong characters just did not mix.

When Sonya finally lifted that delicate, heart-shaped face to look at them, Francesca felt an instant pang of irritable despair as she read the sardonic expression in her wide-spaced baby-blue eyes because she knew Sonya was mocking the overt display of wealth here.

Angelo must have seen it too because his arms tightened around her and he uttered something nasty beneath his breath.

‘Oh, wow, this place is amazing!’ one of the others exclaimed. ‘Why isn’t it on our tour list?’

‘Don’t let my mother hear you say that,’ Angelo responded drily. ‘She will send you all back the way you have come before you have a chance to do more than gasp.’

Group laughter rippled into the late-afternoon sunlight. One of the many things Francesca loved about Angelo was his willingness to send up. He might be a fully paid-up member of Rome’s wealthy set but he had never allowed that to tarnish his attitude to her less advantaged friends. He was easy-going and warm and generous. He liked to be liked.

Unlike someone Francesca knew who did not give a care what anyone thought of him. He simply strolled through his life, upsetting anyone he wanted to upset and to heck with the consequences. But then, Carlo Carlucci was a fully paid-up member of the very upper echelons of Rome’s wealthy set. A cut above the rest in other words—a very large cut.

Oh, stop thinking about him, she told herself crossly and was glad to have her thoughts diverted when a mass migration back into the minibus began to take place. Angelo strode down the steps to take Sonya’s overnight bag for her, and the two exchanged stiff if polite words then came to join Francesca to wave the minibus off.

A silence fell. Sonya was pretending a deep interest in the garden while Angelo became engrossed in his shoes. Standing between them, Francesca glanced from one to the other then uttered a heavy sigh. She’d never managed to find out exactly what it was that had started hostilities between the two of them but she did know that it was getting worse.

Angelo shifted, his square chin rising. ‘Shall we go in?’ he said politely then he turned and strode into the house with Sonya’s bag. The atmosphere cloyed as they followed him into the sheer grandeur of the green and white marble reception hall and walked together up the imposing curve of the white marble staircase. Pushing open a door to one of the bedroom suites, Angelo stood back to allow the two women to enter a place fit for visiting royalty.

Sonya walked forward and stood with her back to them. Angelo remained standing stiffly by the door. ‘If I plead very hard, will you please be nice to each other for tonight?’ Francesca burst out.

‘Excuse me,’ Angelo said. ‘My father is expecting me in his study.’ Then he left, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

Sonya turned to look at Francesca. ‘Don’t blame me for that,’ she said. ‘I never did a single thing!’

‘I know you didn’t,’ Francesca agreed with her. ‘I apologise for him.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Sonya said irritably. ‘He’s just…’

Mad at me, Francesca found herself finishing the sentence and then began to frown because she didn’t understand why she would think like that unless…

It hit her then, just what this war between Sonya and Angelo was all about. ‘It’s the married man you’re seeing,’ she declared suddenly. ‘Angelo knows who it is, doesn’t he?’

To her grim satisfaction Sonya gasped out a choking responsethen spun away from her in a way that all but confirmed her accusation. Things suddenly began to fit. Their barbed comments to each other, the heated exchanges they had in quiet corners that lasted less than thirty seconds but always managed to destroy a pleasant atmosphere. And more relevant was that the hostilities had only started two weeks ago, which, according to Bianca, was when Sonya’s new affair began. Two weeks ago Angelo had asked her to marry him. When she said yes, he’d arranged a celebration dinner at one of his favourite restaurants. It was the first time that Sonya had come into contact with Angelo’s family. She cast her mind back, searching that sea of new faces, hunting out the married ones and trying to decide which one might be willing to cheat on his wife.

How did I miss all of this before? she asked herself. But she knew how. She had spent the last two weeks so engrossed in her love for Angelo that she hadn’t been able to see anything beyond it.

But there was worse to come as yet another thought hit. ‘He’s going to be here tonight, isn’t he?’ she challenged. ‘He’ll be coming here with his wife and you’re going to think you can sneak off with him somewhere for a little while!’

‘That’s so much rubbish,’ Sonya denied.

No, it wasn’t. ‘I know you, Sonya,’ she said. ‘I know how common sense shoots right out of the window when a new man comes into your life.’

‘You sound like my mother again.’

She did, Francesca acknowledged and this time didn’t care. ‘Angelo is worried that you’re both going to risk causing a scene tonight. I bet he even asked you both not to come.’

‘You’re so way off the mark, it’s sad to listen to you.’ Sonya bent to collect her bag.

‘Then why is Angelo mad at you?’ she demanded outright.

Sonya didn’t answer but just walked across the room and threw open the first door that she came to. The fact that it happened to be the bathroom was due to luck more than anything, but as she went to slam the door shut so she didn’t have to have this discussion, Francesca got in one final plea.

‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid tonight, cara,’ she begged anxiously. ‘I need your assurance—please.’

For a moment she thought Sonya was going to go on protesting her innocence, then it was as if all the fight just trickled out of her and she released a heavy sigh. ‘So long as you promise to keep Angelo away from me,’ she bartered. ‘And don’t try to get out of me who the man is!’

The bathroom door swung shut. Francesca winced as she turned back to the main door. She was just stepping out onto the landing when she heard the sound of raised voices echoing in the hall below. She paused, her heart beginning to beat faster when she recognised Angelo’s angry tones.

‘Do you think I am a fool? Of course I am not going to risk everything now! Your business is safe, Papa, take my word for it,’ he said bitterly. ‘And don’t forget which of us is paying the price for it!’

Angelo’s father spoke then but she couldn’t hear what he was saying because he wasn’t as angry as his son. Then a door closed and she could hear nothing else, but she was left wondering if the Batiste business was in trouble.

Had Carlo Carlucci lived up to Alessandro Batiste’s worst fears and threatened to remove his business and take it elsewhere?

The wretched man was beginning to cast a very long shadow over almost everything that was important in her life, she mused grimly as she stepped into her own room next to Sonya’s and closed the door. If he was a married man she would have to start wondering if he was Sonya’s new lover! Sonya’s reed-slender beauty being most definitely his type!

And on that truly caustic note she took herself off to the bathroom to indulge in a long, hot, tension-relieving soak before she had to present herself downstairs to help welcome the other guests that Angelo’s parents had invited to stay overnight at the villa.

‘I promised myself I wasn’t going to do this.’ She frowned at the mirror.

‘Do what?’ Sonya was standing behind her, busily fixing a beaded comb into the twisted knot she’d fashioned with Francesca’s hair that now felt as if it had left her creamy shoulders and neck vulnerably exposed.

‘Buy something that moulded.’

She was no raving beauty and had never pretended otherwise to herself. She might be tall and slender with passably attractive legs, but she possessed curves—oldfashioned curves like a waist and hips and full, firm breasts that sort of pouted whatever she wore. They were doing it now, pushing up above the straight edge of the bodice as if they were trying to escape.

‘Oh, dear,’ she sighed, and with a shimmy and a tug tried to pull the bodice up a bit.

‘You’re too critical of yourself,’ Sonya mumbled from behind her. ‘Have you any idea how many women shell out thousands to get C cups like yours?

‘They can have mine for free,’ Francesca muttered.

She’d gone shopping for classic black sophistication that would put her on a par with her super-elegant guests tonight and come back with this sultry dark red creation that was supposed to skim not cling to all those places she did not want to accentuate. The silk organza skirt was its saving grace with its ankle-length handkerchief edge. It was singularly the most expensive item of clothing she had ever bought, and, ‘I look like a lush.’

‘Idiot,’ Sonya chided. ‘You look like the lovely belle at your own ball, which is how it should be.’ She finished securing the hair comb then stepped back to study the overall look. ‘Gosh, that colour suits you.’

‘It reminded me of the ruby setting in my ring,’ she explained, which was why she’d bought it instead of nice, safe black. ‘Do you think Angelo will like it?’

‘I think Angelo will adore it,’ Sonya replied without a single hint of her usual caustic spoiling her tone. Then she turned away to pick up the fine chiffon scarf that came with the dress. ‘Here, let’s drape this around your shoulders just so and—presto, we have a princess.’

‘We have an overdressed Barbie doll.’

‘No.’ Sonya appeared beside her in the mirror wearing a short skimpy blue satin slip dress that matched the colour of her eyes. ‘I’m the Barbie doll around here, cara,’ she pronounced. ‘Complete with twenty-four-inch spiked shoes.’

They both fell into a fit of the giggles, which was nice because they hadn’t done much laughing recently—not since Sonya and Angelo fell out. ‘I’m going to miss having you around when I’m married,’ Francesca confided softly once they’d both calmed down again.

There was a silence—a stillness, both short, both tight. Then Sonya uttered a different kind of laugh. ‘You must be joking. You’ll be too busy doing something else to miss me.’

She was talking about making love but the moment that Francesca tried to visualise that Rubicon moment all she saw was a deeply sardonic dark, handsome face. It shook her so badly that she actually gasped.

‘What?’ Sonya demanded sharply, staring at her suddenly whitened face.

‘Nothing,’ she dismissed because how could she confess to Sonya what she had just seen? She would laugh—and why not? To her it would be one in the eye to her favourite enemy, Angelo, to learn that another man could arouse hot visions of lust inside his sex-shy fiancée.

She frowned again. It was beginning to worry her that she could feel like this about another man when she was about to commit herself to Angelo.

There was a knock at the door then. Sonya went to answer it. It was Angelo, come to escort Francesca downstairs. With a stiff smile and a mumbled, ‘See you down there,’ Sonya left them alone, pulling the door shut behind her as Francesca was turning from the mirror.

The moment she looked at him all her worries faded. He was wearing a formal black dinner suit and bow-tie and he looked so handsome that she felt herself melting inside. He was smiling at her, he was warm, he was all sunlight not mocking darkness. I’m just suffering from pre-betrothal nerves, she told herself and found her own smile when he sighed and said, ‘Ah, bella—bella, mi amore. You take my breath away.’

And that was all that she wanted, she told herself as she moved towards him. She wanted to take Angelo’s breath away. She wanted to bask in the warmth of his love.

Which was exactly what she did for the next few hours, as the villa slowly filled with people and Angelo rarely left her side. The official announcement of their engagement was to take place at midnight and until then everyone was encouraged to sample the banquet buffet laid out in one of the grand salons or dance to the music provided by a group of live musicians in another grand salon. By ten the villa was throbbing with music and laughter and the more elegant hum of conversation.

She noted Carlo Carlucci’s arrival at around ten o’clock. Who didn’t note it? she thought sourly as she watched surreptitiously the way he drew people to him without him having to do more than stand by the main salon doors. He’d arrived without the usual beauty hanging on his arm, which surprised her. And he also made no effort to come anywhere near her, which was also a surprise since it wasn’t very polite of him to keep his distance.

But it was an even bigger relief. She didn’t want him using one of his mocking smiles on her, or worse—letting it drop that they’d met by accident a couple of times and exposing the fact that she hadn’t mentioned those meetings to Angelo.

She would do, she promised herself. Tomorrow maybe when this was all over. But for now she was happy—happy—happy again and wanted to keep it that way.

Sonya, she saw, was behaving herself and sticking close to their own friends and work colleagues. If her new lover was here tonight—and Francesca was certain that he was here somewhere—she couldn’t tell from Sonya’s manner who the man was.

And foolishly she relaxed enough to drop her watchful guard on her friend. She was too busy being passed from one partner to another to be whirled beneath glittering crystal chandeliers. She was showered with beautiful compliments and teased and flirted with as only the Italians could do with such stylish panache. It was such a novelty to be the centre of everyone’s attention like this that she began to feel intoxicated by it—or was it the champagne?

Each time she paused for breath someone placed a long, fluted glass in her fingers and bid her a toast that demanded she sip. Her cheeks had discovered a permanent rosy hue and her eyes sparkled beneath the overhead lights. Angelo was being treated to the same kind of attention. They would whirl by each other occasionally and share a laughing comment, but that was all they were allowed.

It was as if there was a conspiracy afoot to keep the two lovers apart until the bewitching hour and when she challenged one of her partners with the suspicion he laughed and whirled her away. No one would know from observing this glitter-bright gaiety that the whole thing was about to shatter with the same spectacular force you would get if one of the huge chandeliers suddenly dropped to the floor.

Francesca was taking a moment to catch her breath when she happened to see Sonya quietly slipping away behind one of the gold-embossed curtains that had been drawn across a wall of French windows that led outside. Her antennae began to sing, sending her eyes flickering quickly around the room to see if anyone was going to follow her out.

It had to be her misfortune that her eyes clashed with those belonging to Carlo Carlucci. He was still holding court by the salon doors, standing with his dark head slightly tilted to one side as he listened to whatever the person with him was saying to him.

But his dark eyes were fixed on her.

That prickling sensation arrived, scoring tight frissons down her back, and she quickly dragged her eyes away from him and began weaving her way towards the French windows, determined to put a stop to the clandestine meeting she was now absolutely certain Sonya had arranged.

Sonya had left one of the doors slightly ajar. Slipping quietly through the gap, she walked across the wide marble terrace towards the stone balustrade beyond which the garden began to drop in a series of stylised tiers. It was cold out here, the late-spring chill in the air sending her hands up to rub at her bare arms as she paused to scan the darkened gardens in search of Sonya and her new man.

She heard them before she saw them, her slender body twisting towards the sound of scuffling feet and hushed voices filtering up from the terrace below. They were standing by the lower balustrade, and she was surprised to see that it was Angelo who was gripping one of Sonya’s arms while she was trying to tug herself free.

‘Let go of me!’ she heard Sonya hiss out angrily.

‘No,’ Angelo rasped. ‘I won’t let you ruin this, Sonya—’

‘I’m still going to tell her,’ Sonya lashed back. ‘She deserves to know the truth before this charade goes any further. I will be doing her a favour.’

She was threatening to confess her affair to her lover’s wife! Oh, dear God, Francesca thought. She couldn’t let her do that! She was about to move towards the steps to go down there to add her own pleas to Angelo’s—when Angelo’s harsh reply stalled her feet.

‘You think she will be grateful to you for your big confession, heh, cara? Do you think she will fall on your neck and forgive you, her closest friend, for sleeping with me, the man she is heart and soul in love with…?’

And that was the point where everything shattered, sprinkling around her like fine crystal shards that lacerated her flesh as they fell.