he said urgently.
‘We’ve only just met,’ she said at last.
‘This matters?’
‘You can’t say it was love at first sight!’
‘E vero! You were not impressed by me.’
‘I was, really,’ she confessed. ‘When a handsome Italian spoke to me at the airport I was quite excited for a moment—until I realised he was desperate to get rid of me.’
‘I came to seek you out afterwards,’ he reminded her.
‘Only to impress me with your charm and good looks!’
Domenico leaned nearer. ‘Did I succeed, carissima?’
Her eyes dropped. ‘It was good to have company on my first night in Venice.’
‘Yet you did not allow me to escort you back to the hotel.’
‘You were so sure I’d say yes, I just had to say no,’ she said frankly.
He laughed. ‘So. I admit I did not fall in love with you at first sight, but I can tell you the exact moment when I did.’
Laura leaned closer. ‘When you kissed me that first time?’
‘That is when it began, perhaps. But the moment of truth came next morning at the hotel.’ He traced a finger down her cheek. ‘You ran down the stairs to me, flushed and smiling and so desirable it was a very good thing Signora Rossi was behind her desk.’
She took in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘Then why turn me down when I offered to kiss you last night?’
Domenico’s fingers tightened on hers. ‘I think you know this very well.’
They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Then as though two giant hands had propelled them together they were in each other’s arms, his mouth on hers in a kiss she felt right down to her toes. At the touch of his tongue on hers she responded with such fire Domenico lifted her onto his lap, caressing the curve of her breasts through the thin black fabric, and Laura breathed in sharply, arching into the touch of his hands as his kiss grew fiercer. She shivered in delight when his fingers found bare skin and threw her head back in total abandon as his mouth moved down her throat. When his lips reached the warm hollow between her breasts Domenico was utterly still for a moment before his mouth returned to hers and crushed it with a kiss that made her head reel. Then he set her on her feet and strode to the window, his back turned.
‘I will not do this, Laura,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I want you. Dio, how I want you! But if I take you now you will believe I talked of my feelings only to seduce you.’
‘You mean you’re afraid Lorenzo Forli would sack you if he found out,’ she snapped, utterly mortified by another rejection. She caught her breath in dismay as Domenico turned on her, transformed in a heartbeat from lover into a cold, hostile stranger. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said penitently, backing away. ‘That didn’t come out the way I intended.’
His smile chilled her to the bone. ‘You made your meaning very clear. You are mistaken, however. I have no fear of losing my job. I simply believe it would be wrong to make love to a woman who is not only alone in Venice, but also placed in my care. You come from a different culture, so perhaps this is hard for you to understand. Come. I shall take you back.’
‘Domenico—’
He threw up a hand, silencing her very effectively, his eyes hard and cold, like ovals of translucent blue glass. After a tense moment Laura turned away to pick up her handbag and thrust a few straying fronds of hair into place as she fought hard to regain her composure.
When she had command of herself she turned back to him. ‘Thank you so much for dinner, and the help you’ve given me during my holiday,’ she said, frigidly polite. ‘But please don’t trouble yourself to walk back with me. I prefer to return alone.’
He brushed this aside with hauteur. ‘Non importa, I shall see you back to the hotel.’
The look in Domenico’s eyes was so implacable Laura turned away and made for the door he held open for her. They went downstairs and out into the calle in silence, which lasted, unbroken, all the way to the Locanda Verona.
Afraid her voice would never make it past the lump in her throat, Laura gave Domenico a silent, regal nod in response to his formal bow and walked without hurry across the bridge and through the open doorway of the hotel. She took her key from Signora Rossi, and with a mute smile of thanks escaped to the sanctuary of her room and closed the door behind her.
Chapter Five
THE night was endless. Hot and miserable, Laura tossed and turned for hours, embarrassed because her frustrated body refused to give her peace. If this was a side effect of falling in love she was glad she’d never done it before. It was all academic anyway. After throwing the insult at him she would never get the chance to tell Domenico how she felt. Not that it mattered. A relationship of any kind between them was impractical; geographically and every other way. Better to end it now, before any more damage was done.
She sighed in the darkness. Her relationships with men in the past had been light-hearted, uncommitted affairs, with no regrets and no harm done when they were over. Except for Edward. He’d astounded her with the scene at the Ritz because she’d known him since they were children. She regretted the loss of his friendship, but it didn’t keep her awake at night. While the thought of never seeing Domenico again was unbearable. Laura swallowed a dry, despairing sob, turned on the light and reached for her guidebook. The visit to the Guggenheim would obviously be made solo now, so she might as well give up trying to sleep and find out how to get there.
Mission accomplished, Laura picked up a paperback and tried her best to read for a while, but the story was so obviously heading for a much happier ending than her own she gave up and switched off the light, then groaned as she remembered the silk tie intended as a parting gift. She would have to find some way to get it to Domenico. Taking it to his apartment was out of the question. She would just have to deliver it to his hotel. Wherever that might be. Domenico had been surprisingly cagey on the subject.
Laura got up early next morning, feeling groggy from lack of sleep and the overdose of emotion. To put her brain in gear she stood in the shower for a while and took a long time over her hair afterwards. When it was brushed and pinned back in a severe twist without a tendril in sight she put on her last clean white T-shirt and pair of jeans, stuffed her guidebook and supply of postcards in her satchel and went downstairs. Once she had steeled herself to deliver the tie she would make for the Guggenheim and a dose of modern art.
Signora Rossi was at her desk, smiling. ‘Buon giorno, Miss Green.’
‘Good morning.’ Laura smiled awkwardly. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name of the hotel where Signor Chiesa works. Would you happen to know it?’
‘But of course. It is the Forli Palace,’ said the woman, looking surprised.
‘Thank you. Is it far from here?’
Supplied with directions, Laura went out for coffee and drank it at a table for once. She looked through her postcards, singled out a view of Florian’s outdoor tables, and wrote a brief message on it to enclose with the tie.
