Читать книгу Second Marriage - HELEN BROOKS, Helen Brooks - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, HOLD on a moment, Grace, she’s just this minute walked in.’ As her mother thrust the telephone at her Claire’s fine eyebrows arched in enquiry, and in the next breath her mother whispered, ‘It’s Grace. She sounds... agitated.’

‘Grace?’ Claire almost snatched the receiver in her haste to talk to her friend, this friend who had endured so much in her twenty-five years of life but was now so happy—or had been the last time she had talked to her a week ago.

Don’t let anything be wrong. Please, please don’t let anything be wrong, she prayed quickly as she heard Grace speak her name. Let the baby be all right, let Grace be all right, let everyone be all right... Grace had lost a baby to cot death some years ago, when the child, a little boy named Paolo, was only six months old, and this was her first pregnancy since that terrible time.

‘I’m sorry to hound you the moment you get in from work,’ Grace said huskily, the strangeness in her voice emphasised by the miles separating them. ‘It’s just... I needed to speak to you.’

‘What’s wrong?’ There was something wrong; she knew it now. ‘You were going for your scan today, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, yes—and don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with the baby,’ the disembodied voice said quickly. ‘It’s just that it’s babies. Plural,’ she added as Claire didn’t speak.

‘Twins!’

‘Twins.’ Grace’s voice was flat.

‘But that’s wonderful,’ Claire responded enthusiastically, ‘isn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course it is.’ There was a little more animation in Grace’s tone now. ‘Donato’s over the moon, and I’m pleased—I am, really—but I just feel a bit overwhelmed, I suppose.’

‘But that’s perfectly understandable,’ Claire said softly, her big brown eyes darkening with a mixture of sympathy and concern.

Grace had been brought up in a children’s home and had never known the support and unconditional love of a mother, and although she had been very close to her husband’s mother, Liliana, almost from the first time she had met her, Liliana had died more than two and a half years ago. It was at times like this that it was reassuring to know that mothers, grandmothers, sisters were all at hand, but Grace had no immediate female family members to encourage her, Claire thought perceptively.

‘Claire—’ Grace stopped abruptly, and then, after Claire gave a gentle, ‘Yes?’. continued hesitantly, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might consider coming out here, is there? To live, I mean?’

‘To Italy?’ Claire stared across the hall in blank amazement, much to her mother’s irritation—she was hovering in the lounge doorway trying to make sense of Claire’s end of the conversation.

‘It doesn’t have to be straight away,’ Grace said quickly, ‘and it can be for as long or as short a time as you want, but I’d just love to know you’d be around when the babies were born. Oh, I shouldn’t have asked you,’ she continued in a little rush. ‘It’s not fair. I told Donato it’s not fair—’

‘Hang on—hang on a minute,’ Claire said slowly as she tried to feel her way in a conversation that had suddenly become extraordinary. ‘Are you saying you want me to come out and stay with you on a semi-permanent basis? More than a holiday or a long break?’

‘Yes.’ The reply was immediate. ‘For months, if you could. I’d love to have you here, I really would, and with you having trained as a nanny and everything—’ This time the sudden halt was even more abrupt, and Grace’s voice was hot with embarrassment when she went on, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Claire. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Claire said evenly, ‘I’m over all that now. But how would Donato feel about my coming to live with you?’

‘It was his suggestion,’ Grace said eagerly. ‘When we found out it was twins he thought I might need some help in the first few months, and he remembered you saying in the summer you were thinking of changing your job but weren’t sure what you wanted to do. He thought you could escape the worst of the English winter out here while you took the time to consider all your options, and we’d pay you for as long as you stayed so you’d have a little nest-egg behind you when you went back—’

‘No way,’ Claire interrupted firmly. ‘If I came it would be as a friend helping out a friend. I had that wonderful holiday with you in the summer, and Donato wouldn’t even let me pay for my airfare.’

‘Well, we’d see.’ Grace clearly wasn’t going to put any obstacles in the way of her coming at this early stage of the proceedings. ‘But do you think you might consider it, then? You could stay in the main house or with us—whichever you like—and Lorenzo would love to have you around for a while. He did miss you when you went home in September.’

‘I missed him.’ Claire smiled as she thought of Donato’s younger brother, who had just turned thirteen and was an enchanting mix of child and young man, with an infectious sense of fun that matched her own. ‘He’s a smashing kid.’

‘I’d love you to come, Claire,’ Grace said again, with a wistful note in her voice that was meant to charm. ‘I’ve lots of friends out here, good friends, but you’re different. I’ve always felt we should have been sisters.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Claire. And she did. The two women had only known each other for a few years, but almost from the first time they had met, when Grace had been estranged from Donato and living in England, the two of them had hit it off in a way that only happened once in a lifetime. Claire had five big, strapping brothers, but no sister, and Grace had filled a void in her life that she hadn’t even realised was there.

‘You’ll think about it, then? Look, here’s Donato. He wants a word with you too...’

All that had been eight weeks ago, and now it was the end of January, with the chaos of Christmas long forgotten. She had really left the raw winter chill of England far behind her, Claire thought happily as she emerged from Customs and looked around for Donato who was meeting her.

Her old job as receptionist in a doctors’ surgery, the bedlam of a home shared with her parents and the three remaining unmarried brothers, the memories of that awful time before she had met Grace—suddenly it all fell away, and she lifted her face to the mild sunlight streaming in through the plate glass windows of the airport terminal, its golden rays turning her sleek chestnut hair to glowing red silk.

‘Miss Wilson?’ The voice was cold, as was the face of the tall, dark man staring down at her, despite the polite smile that twisted the finely chiselled lips in a semblance of welcome. ‘Miss Claire Wilson?’

‘Yes?’ She wasn’t aware that the dreamy expression of delight had been wiped away, or that her velvety brown eyes were revealing her alarm and vulnerability, but the big man watching her so closely was aware of both, and it caused the chillingly handsome face to harden still further.

‘I am Romano Bellini—Donato’s brother-in-law?’ the heavily accented voice said smoothly. ‘He was called away unavoidably on a matter of great urgency this morning, and as he did not want Grace to drive in her condition he asked that I would meet you.’

‘He did?’ Her voice was a squeak, and she heard it with a burst of self-disgust, but somehow the overpoweringly masculine figure in front of her had robbed her of coherent thought. She had seen a picture of Donato’s brother-in-law and best friend, of course, taken some time before his young wife, Donato’s only sister, had died, but somehow the dormant image captured on film in no way resembled the flesh-and-blood man standing before her.

‘You would perhaps like proof of my identity?’ Romano asked quietly as she frantically struggled for words. ‘Or you would care to make the phone call to Grace?’

‘No, no, it’s all right,’ she managed at last, her voice breathless. ‘I’ve...I’ve seen a photo of you. I...I know who you are.’

‘This is good.’ He smiled the arctic smile again, but for the life of her she couldn’t respond in kind—her face, like her thought processes, frozen. ‘Then there is no problem, sì? I, too, have seen the photograph of you, taken with Grace in the summer? I understand you had an enjoyable time in Italy?’

‘Yes, yes it was lovely.’ Say something, talk back, make conversation, she told herself distractedly as he bent and lifted her two heavy suitcases—which she hadn’t been able to manage without a baggage trolley and obliging porters—as though they weighed nothing at all. ‘I... Grace is all right? There’s nothing wrong?’

‘Grace is very well,’ he replied smoothly, before inclining his head towards the exit doors and saying, ‘Shall we?’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She found herself scuttling along at the side of him as though she were an errant child, and the simile annoyed her.

It wasn’t just the austere way he had with him that was so intimidating, she told herself weakly as she glanced up at his handsome profile before stepping out into the mild air beyond the airport building, it was everything. His height, the broadness of the hard, masculine shoulders beneath the light jacket he was wearing, the dark, cold, enigmatic good looks, the almost tangible air of ruthlessness that permeated his aura like a black shadow. He was... He was frightening.

Frightening? Immediately her mind acknowledged the word she kicked against it with a force that tightened her soft mouth and tilted her chin. How ridiculous could she be? Frightening indeed! He was Donato’s best friend, and a good friend to Grace too, from all she had said in the summer, and he had lost his wife in tragic circumstances two and a half years ago. He was probably still devastated by her death; she had been very beautiful. No, he wasn’t frightening. Reserved, perhaps? Withdrawn?

She followed him over to the car, a regal, top-of-the-range BMW that swallowed her huge suitcases with consummate ease, and once inside glanced round at the soft grey velvety upholstery as he walked round to the driver’s seat after shutting her door.

Donato’s wealth and power had overawed her at first during the previous summer, and it looked as though Romano was of the same ilk, she thought warily as he slid into the car beside her. His clothes certainly weren’t the off-the-peg variety, his shoes were hand-made and the gold Rolex on his tanned wrist told its own story.

Talk about born with silver spoons in their mouths, she thought wryly. It was more like diamond-encrusted ones in this part of Italy. What a protected, privileged little world it was—unreal by normal standards.

‘Is something wrong?’

She hadn’t been aware of his eyes on her, but now, as she came out of her musing, she found the narrowed gaze was fixed on her face and flushed hotly. ‘No, of course not,’ she said quickly.

He continued to look at her as he turned more fully towards her, sliding his arm along the back of her seat as he twisted his body in the confines of the car. ‘No?’ he asked softly.

It took every ounce of will-power she possessed, and then some, not to start gabbling madly as the silence lengthened and stretched after she had shaken her head, his eyes holding hers in a way she had never experienced before.

‘How old are you?’ The fact that his words surprised him as much as her was apparent when he immediately followed them with, ‘Scusi, I had no right to ask such an impertinent question.’ He swung back into his seat and brought the slumbering engine to purring life, his face cold and withdrawn and his body language expressing the sort of outrage that might have suggested she was the one at fault.

‘It’s all right.’ She addressed the stony profile cautiously, feeling as though she had inadvertently caught a tiger by the tail and very much out of her depth. ‘I’m twenty-four, actually, although I know I don’t look it.’

‘No, you do not.’ He didn’t look at her as he spoke, negotiating the big car carefully onto the road, his black eyes narrowed against the sunlight which, although lacking in heat, was of a piercing brightness.

‘It’s genetic.’ She spoke brightly, although the flat comment had been if not exactly insulting then less than complimentary. ‘My mother looks years younger than she is in spite of having had six children, so I’m resigned to being a teenager until I’m in my thirties.’

The thick black eyebrows arched in wry acknowledgement of her words but he said nothing, and again she felt as though she had somehow been slighted. What an unpleasant individual! She forced herself to look out of the window, keeping her expression blank, although she couldn’t stop the warm colour staining her cheeks pink. What a very unpleasant individual.

She recalled the picture of his wife and felt herself shrink still further into her seat. The Italian woman had been beautiful—very beautiful—in a sensual, feline way that was both slinky and sexy and very, very grown-up. He obviously preferred his women voluptuous and sophisticated, she thought tightly, a description which most certainly didn’t fit her slight, boyish figure and lack of make-up and adornment. Not that she wanted it to, she added instantly, not at all. Romano Bellini was the type of macho man she found positively distasteful—the sort who had to have something decorative hanging on his arm as a reflection of his own masculinity.

‘I understand you worked with Grace when she lived in England?’ His voice was polite but uninterested, and it was clear he was making the effort of conversation without having any desire to do so. ‘As receptionist at a doctors’ surgery, sì?’

‘Yes.’ The reply was a little too clipped in view of the long car journey in front of them, so she modified it with, ‘Although we had both actually trained to work with children—a fact we discovered as we got to know each other better.’

‘This is so?’ He turned to her for one moment, and she felt the jolt of the glittering black gaze right down to her shoes before he concentrated on the road again. ‘But you found it was not to your liking?’ he asked softly.

‘Not really.’

‘You do not like children?’ he persisted.

‘Of course I like children.’ She wished this conversation, which was proving difficult for her, were being conducted with some space between them. The close proximity of their bodies in the car was...disturbing, and the expensive, delicious smell of him combined with the overwhelming maleness of the man was making it impossible to think clearly. ‘It’s just...something happened which made it...awkward to continue,’ she said carefully. Awkward? Impossible, more like. Terrifyingly impossible.

‘I see.’ The rapier-sharp gaze flashed her way again, but she had dropped her head a little, allowing the silky fall of her shoulder-length straight hair to hide her face. ‘Well, perhaps when the twins are here and you have had some practice again you may feel like continuing your career,’ he said quietly.

‘Perhaps.’ The tone and the word were dismissive, and she meant them to be. There was no way she was going to discuss any of this with a stranger. She couldn’t believe she had said as much as she had already, and she certainly wasn’t going to elaborate further.

Five minutes crept by in a silence that could only be called taut, and she was just contemplating breaking the crackling tension with a mundane remark about the beautiful countryside when Romano spoke again, his voice cool and contained. ‘I thought we would stop for lunch at a little restaurant I know along the coast. This is acceptable?’

‘Lunch?’

If he had suggested something obscene she couldn’t have sounded more horrified, and his voice acknowledged his awareness of her consternation as he said, ‘You do eat, I take it?’

Yes, she ate—of course she ate, Claire thought weakly, but the thought of having lunch with him, of being with him like that, was alarming. They hadn’t exactly hit it off—besides which, this invitation to lunch was clearly just part of the fulfilment of his duty to Donato and Grace as far as he was concerned. ‘I...I was expecting to eat with Grace,’ she managed after a few more painful seconds, ‘and I’m not really hungry.’

‘I, on the other hand, am starving.’ His voice held a thread of something she couldn’t quite place, slightly mocking, dry, with a darkness that made warmth trickle down her backbone, and as he spoke he shifted position slightly, bringing the material of his black trousers taut across his thighs.

Oh, help... She took a deep breath and forced her fluttering pulse to behave. What on earth was the matter with her? She’d been alone in a car with a man before, hadn’t she?

Yes, but not this particular man, her mind answered weakly. In fact she’d never met a man like this one before. He was threatening. No, not threatening, frightening. Her first instinct had been right, she told herself helplessly. He was frightening, and dangerous. Too... male.

‘So?’

As the cold voice spoke again she forced her eyes up and away from his body, and tried to bring her thought processes into working order.

‘You would not find it too...irksome to spare a few minutes to satisfy my appetite?’ Her eyes shot to his face now, but the chiselled features revealed nothing but bland enquiry, and the fact that she had put quite a different meaning on his words from their face value brought her colour surging again. ‘I think maybe Grace would expect that I feed you before delivering you safely to her maternal bosom?’

He was laughing at her! At the same time as the realisation washed over her a bolt of anger consumed her nervousness. How dared he? How dared he laugh at her? He clearly saw her as some small, pathetic mouse he found it amusing to ridicule, and now she was quite sure he had meant his previous words to be taken two ways. He had sensed the flustered disquiet he roused in her and was mocking it.

Oh... Her teeth clamped together as another thought hit her. He didn’t think she fancied him, did he? That she’d been bowled over by his considerable physical attraction and synthetic wealth and charm? She’d die if he did.

Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly the words were there, and flowing as coolly and bitingly as ever she could have wished. ‘Of course you must eat, Signor Bellini,’ she said icily, and he glanced at her again, caught by her tone. ‘I was merely anxious that Grace shouldn’t prepare a meal for me and then find I had already eaten, that’s all. I have months ahead of me with Grace and Donato, so time is immaterial today.’

And so are you. She hadn’t actually said the words but they hung in the air as clearly as if she had voiced them. She knew it and he knew it.

‘How gracious,’ he said with a silky smoothness that told her the gauntlet had been acknowledged and accepted. ‘Are all English girls so courteous?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you could answer that question better than me,’ Claire returned sweetly as she glanced with studied casualness out of the car window. ‘You must have known many women, English and otherwise, Signor Bellini.’

‘Must I?’

‘I thought I understood Grace to say your business connections stretch all over Italy and the States?’ Claire said with a wide-eyed innocence that didn’t fool the man at her side for a moment. ‘They must bring you into contact with a great deal of people, surely?’

‘My business connections... Ah, yes.’ The deep voice was wry, and she didn’t like the touch of amusement colouring the dark accent, or the way the undeniable sexiness of the Italian voice made her quiver deep inside. ‘My business connections do prove...tiring at times.’

‘I’m sure they do.’ Her voice was a little more tart than she would have liked; she mustn’t let him think he was getting to her, so she moderated her tone as she said, ‘But then I’m also sure you enjoy your work.’

‘I try, Claire, I do try.’

I bet. An elusively sensual whiff of aftershave touched her nostrils briefly as though to confirm the thought, tightening her lower stomach in a way she could well have done without. But he wouldn’t have to try too hard. Most women would fall into his lap like ripe peaches the moment those velvety dark eyes looked their way, she thought ruefully. But not this woman. Definitely not this woman.

‘Now we have determined what a hard-working man I am, may I ask how...busy you were in England?’ he asked in a soft, taunting voice.

‘Me? Oh, a doctors’ surgery is always pretty hectic,’ she said brightly, deliberately ignoring what he was really asking, ‘but interesting, which is the main thing. I really couldn’t stand a job where I was bored.’ She rattled on about the day-to-day routine and many panics for a few minutes, knowing he wasn’t in the least interested but hoping to divert further questions, but the moment she paused he seized the opportunity to speak, his voice smoky and cool.

‘And is there someone in England waiting patiently for your return?’

‘A boyfriend, you mean?’ she asked carefully.

‘Just so.’

‘No,’ she said flatly.

‘No?’ She shook her head and the dark eyes brushed her face again for a moment before he said, ‘And you are not going to elaborate further on that...enigmatic statement?’

‘Enigmatic?’ She forced a laugh that she hoped sounded derisory. ‘Hardly.’

‘But, yes. When a beautiful young woman of twenty-four speaks so determinedly—’

‘I wasn’t speaking determinedly, just factually, and you know as well as I do that I am not beautiful, Signor Bellini—’

‘Now that I have to take issue with.’ He interrupted her angry retort swiftly, and before she could say anything more continued, ‘And please, no more of the Signor Bellini? It is Romano, as you well know, and if you are going to stay at Casa Pontina for some time it will be more harmonious for everyone if we address each other by the Christian names, sì? It will make our relationship appear more civil when we meet.’

‘When we meet?’ This time the naked dismay in her voice was not met with the amusement it had provoked before, and his tone was icy when he said, ‘Donato and Grace are my friends, Claire.’

‘I know. I know they are—’

‘And one visits one’s friends, sì? Even in England I would have thought this pleasant pastime was still alive and well?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘So there will be occasions when we meet, share a meal and so on,’ he continued in a clipped, terse voice. ‘With Donato and Grace, of course, that is all I meant. I was not—what is the word?—propositioning you.’

‘I didn’t think for a minute you were,’ she said, aghast.

‘Good. The air is then clear.’ The mercurial change was complete; he had returned to suave, cool playboy again with a swiftness that left her open-mouthed and gasping as the powerful car pulled off the road and through a large flower-bedecked arched opening into a quiet courtyard.

‘However...’ he turned to her as he cut the engine, a slightly cruel smile curving the firm, distinctly sensual mouth and doing nothing to soften the power of his harsh bone structure ‘...I meant what I said. You are a beautiful young woman, Claire, as any male with discernment would tell you. I admire beauty, even if it is the most corruptive force known to man, as much as I abhor its potential treachery.’

‘Its treachery?’ she whispered faintly, unnerved by the stony glitter in the black eyes and aware that in a strange way his remark on her appearance was not complimentary.

‘But of course.’ A veil came down over the handsome face, and she knew he had made a conscious effort to hide all emotion as he smiled again, his eyes revealing nothing more than warm amusement. ‘Beauty is a wonderful lure which nature uses to full advantage, sì?

‘The belladonna—deadly nightshade—with its fragile mauve flowers and dainty poisonous berries, for example, or hemlock’s clusters of exquisite white blooms. And then something as enchanting as the flower-like sea anemone, which attracts fish and other animals to their doom, as does the translucent beauty of the Portuguese man-of-war, whose stinging tentacles beneath its shimmering charm paralyse its prey with deadly accuracy. Nature makes full use of illusion, Claire.’

But he hadn’t really been talking about plants and animals, she thought suddenly. She was sure of it.

‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ She stared into the dark cold face as her mind raced. ‘But beauty can be wonderful too—something to be marvelled at, to share, something that lifts the soul of man, like a magnificent sunset for example.’

‘But within a short time it has faded and is dead, and one is left with the blackness of the night,’ he said quietly. ‘Nothing lasts. Nothing is what it seems.’

He was talking about his wife being taken from him so tragically. As realisation dawned she stared at him in consternation, not knowing what to say. Bianca had been breathtakingly, wildly beautiful, and they had only had a few short years together before she had died. He still loved her... ‘But memories can be precious things, can’t they?’ she asked softly. ‘The sunset might die but the serenity and peace it gives can still live on.’

‘I have not found that to be the case,’ he said, with a dismissive coldness that told her this strange and disturbing conversation was at an end. ‘Now, shall we?’ He indicated the charming honey-coloured building in front of them with a wave of his hand. ‘You will find Aldonez has a variety of dishes to suit all appetites, so do not be perturbed if you are not hungry. I think it would be nice to sit outside, sì? There is a delightful garden at the back of the restaurant.’

He had left the car as he spoke the last words, walking swiftly round the bonnet and helping her to alight with a naturalness that told her his good manners were normal behaviour. She remembered Donato had had the same inherent courtesy when she had stayed with them for her two-week holiday in the summer, treating the female race as a whole with a gentleness and protective regard that was wonderfully refreshing in this modern age. But whereas she had just thought Grace’s husband a gentleman, somehow with his best friend the whole procedure took on a seductive quality that was more than a little unsettling.

Romano took her arm as they walked across the cobbled courtyard and into the quaint and colourful little restaurant, and immediately she was aware that he was known to the plump and burly little proprietor, who gave them a welcome that could only be described as rapturous.

The greetings over, of which Claire didn’t understand a word, Aldonez led them through the main room and out onto a covered veranda where several tables had been placed to catch the full benefit of the weak sunlight. It was surprisingly warm, the veranda being something of a sun-trap, and once she was seated Claire looked around her appreciatively.

The pretty square garden was small, but the lacy perimeter fence was entwined with luxuriant foliage and sweet-smelling flowers. Small shrubs and bushes were scattered between old stone slabs that paved most of the area, with a large magnolia tree in one corner to provide a spot of shade in the summer. ‘From March onwards Aldonez packs tables and chairs on every inch of ground,’ Romano said with a distant smile as he watched her absorb her surroundings. ‘He knows most of the tourists like to eat alfresco.’

‘It’s very pretty.’ She suddenly felt unbearably shy as she glanced at him over the small table, his startling good looks and arrogant masculinity seemingly enhanced by the intimacy of sharing a meal. On the short journey from the airport she had barely noticed the scenery outside the car, her senses briefly registering the southern earthy charm Naples exuded but most of her conscious thought held by the magnetic pull of the man opposite.

Crazy. She lowered her eyes to the menu Aldonez had placed in front of her a couple of minutes before. Absolutely crazy to allow her senses to be dominated like that—and wouldn’t he just love it if he knew how she was thinking? When all was said and done, even if he did still love his wife, he didn’t have to be so arrogant, did he? So impossible to communicate with, so abrasive?

‘Would you like me to translate?’

‘What?’ As she raised her head and met the hard gaze she would have given the world to be able to say she spoke fluent Italian, but she didn’t, and, infuriating man that he was, he knew it.

The fact that she was forced to acknowledge she had been gazing at the squiggles on the card in front of her without even seeing them didn’t help either—but that, at least, he didn’t know.

‘The menu? Would you like me to translate for you?’ he asked again, his voice patient but with the kind of long-suffering tone one might adopt with a difficult child.

‘That won’t be necessary, thank you.’ She’d rather walk through coals of fire first. ‘I only want a green salad and a long, cold drink,’ she said evenly. ‘If that’s possible.’

‘Of course.’ He bowed his head slightly, and the movement should have been polite but was definitely sardonic. ‘May I suggest a side dish of garlic and butter potatoes with that? It is one of Aldonez’s specialities.’

‘Thank you.’ She nodded her head and wondered how someone so altogether stunning could have inspired such dislike in her. ‘Is there a cloakroom here? I’d like to wash my hands...’

‘Sì, just to the left of the main door. I will show you.’

Once alone in the small stone cloakroom, that boasted one deep-set porcelain bowl of ancient origin and one very modern lavatory in bright yellow, she gazed into the ornate and rather fine mirror above the wash-basin despairingly. This had all gone wrong somehow, badly wrong, and she had been so excited earlier in the day. Large, soulful brown eyes stared seriously back at her as she nipped at her lower lip anxiously, her pale creamy skin a perfect foil for her dark eyes and chestnut hair.

Beautiful! She grimaced at her reflection disbelievingly. What an obvious line, and yet it hadn’t been like that, not really. But he couldn’t have meant it. She shook her head, causing her silky fine hair to flow in a soft wave across her hot face. She wasn’t ugly, she knew that, but she was no beauty either—not like Grace. Men had always turned to take a second and third look at Grace, even though her friend was oblivious to their attention most of the time.

Oh, well... She shrugged, dropping her eyes from the mirror and running her wrists under the cold water tap before splashing her face. She was quite happy with who she was, give or take her hot temper and a few other faults she could have done without, so her looks weren’t important one way or the other. But she did wish she hadn’t got off to quite such a bad start with Donato’s friend. She was here to make Grace’s life easier and worry-free as her confinement approached, not to enter into a war with her friend’s husband’s brother-in-law from day one.

She’d just have to bite her tongue and keep quiet when Romano was about. She raised her head and nodded at herself determinedly. She could do that, couldn’t she? She should have done it already, not reacted to him like an indignant hedgehog with prickles at the ready. It was kind of him to have come all this way to fetch a virtual stranger, and she hadn’t even thanked him properly. It wasn’t even as if she had met him before and he was renewing an acquaintance; he had been in America when she had come to Italy in the summer and she had left before he had returned.

Yes, she had behaved badly. She prepared to go back to the table full of good intentions. He might be arrogant and imperious, and more than a little high-handed, but he must have some good points for Grace to rate him so highly, and it wasn’t as if she’d see much of him while she was here anyway. She’d thank him nicely for coming to fetch her, smile sweetly regardless of how maddening she found him, and refuse to rise to any provocation, intended or unintended, from now on.

He was as far removed from her humble orbit as the man in the moon anyway, and once he’d safely delivered her at Casa Pontina he’d probably barely notice her on the occasions when he came to visit Donato and Grace.

The last thought should have been comforting, but was instead mildly depressing. Oh, for goodness’ sake don’t be so pathetic, girl, she told herself irritably, before brushing her hair into gleaming order with hard, stiff strokes that set her scalp tingling, spraying a touch of her favourite perfume on her wrists, and then walking firmly out of the cloakroom, her head high.