‘Leave them a note.’
She wanted to tell him that her mother would hit the roof if she just slunk away without even having breakfast, but she guessed what his response would be. He would shrug and tell her she was welcome to stay. And she didn’t want to stay here, without him. She wanted to keep her pathetic fantasy alive for a while longer. She wanted people to see what wasn’t really true. Willow with her boyfriend. Willow who’d just spent the night with a devastatingly attractive man. Lucky Willow.
Only she wasn’t lucky at all, was she?
Sliding out of bed, she grabbed her clothes and took the quickest shower on record as she tried very hard not to think about the way she’d pleaded with Dante to have sex with her the night before. Or the way he’d turned her down. He’d told her it was because he was cold and sometimes cruel. He’d told her he didn’t want to hurt her and maybe that was thoughtfulness on his part—how ironic, then, that he had ended up by hurting her anyway.
Dressing in jeans and a T-shirt and twisting her hair into a single plait, Willow returned to the bedroom, drank her cooled coffee and then walked with Dante through the blessedly quiet corridors towards the back of the house.
She should have realised it was too good to be true, because there, standing by the kitchen door wearing a silky dressing gown and a pair of flip-flops, stood her mother. Willow stared at her in dismay. Had she heard her and Dante creeping through the house, or was this yet another example of the finely tuned antennae her mother always seemed able to call upon whenever she was around?
‘M-Mum,’ stumbled Willow awkwardly.
A pair of eyebrows were arched in her direction. ‘Going somewhere?’
Willow felt her cheeks grow pink and was racking her brains about what to say, when Dante intercepted.
‘You must forgive us for slipping away so early after such a fabulous day yesterday, Mrs Hamilton—but I have a pile of work I need to get through before I go back to Paris and Willow has promised to help me.’ He smiled. ‘Haven’t you?’
Willow had never seen her mother look quite so flustered—but how could she possibly object in the face of all that undeniable charm and charisma Dante was directing at her? She saw the quick flare of hope in her mother’s eyes. Was she in danger of projecting into the future, just as Great-aunt Maud had done last night?
Kissing her mother goodbye she and Dante went outside, but during the short time she’d spent getting ready, the puffy white clouds had accumulated and spread across the sky like foam on a cup of macchiato. Suddenly, the air had a distinct chill and Willow shivered as Dante put the car roof up and she slid onto the passenger seat.
It wasn’t like the outward journey, when the wind had rushed through their hair and the sun had shone and she had been filled with a distinct sensation of hope and excitement. Enclosed beneath the soft roof, the atmosphere felt claustrophobic and tense and the roar of his powerful car sounded loud as it broke the early-morning Sunday silence.
They drove for a little way without saying anything, and once out on the narrow, leafy lanes, Willow risked a glance at him. His dark hair curled very slightly over the collar of his shirt and his olive skin glowed. Despite his obvious lack of sleep and being in need of a shave, he looked healthy and glowing—like a man at the very peak of his powers, but his profile was set and unmoving.
She cleared her throat. ‘Are you angry with me?’
Dante stared straight ahead as the hedgerows passed in a blur of green. He’d spent an unendurable night. Not just because his six-foot-plus frame had dwarfed the antique piece of furniture on which he’d been attempting to sleep, but because he’d felt bad. And it hadn’t got any better. He’d been forced to listen to Willow tossing and turning while she slept. To imagine that pale and slender body moving restlessly against the sheet. He’d remembered how she’d felt. How she’d tasted. How she’d begged him to make love to her. He had been filled with a heady sexual hunger which had made him want to explode. He’d wanted her, and yet rejecting her had been his only honourable choice. Because what he’d said had been true. He did hurt women. He’d never found one who was capable of chipping her way through the stony walls he’d erected around his heart, and sometimes he didn’t think he ever would. And in the meantime, Willow Hamilton needed protection from a man like him.
‘I’m angry with myself,’ he said.
‘Because?’
‘Because I should have chosen a less controversial way of getting my bag back. I shouldn’t have agreed to be your plus one.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘But you were very persuasive.’
She didn’t answer immediately. He could see her finger drawing little circles over one of the peacocks which adorned her denim-covered thigh.
‘There must be something in that bag you want very badly.’
‘There is.’
‘But I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what it is?’
The car had slowed down to allow a stray sheep to pick its way laboriously across the road, giving them a slightly dazed glance as it did so. Dante’s instinct was to tell her that her guess was correct, but suddenly he found himself wanting to tell her. Was that because so far he hadn’t discussed it with anyone? Because he and his twin brother were estranged and he wasn’t particularly close to any of his other siblings? That all their dark secrets and their heartache seemed to have pushed them all apart, rather than bringing them closer together...
‘The bag contains a diamond and emerald tiara,’ he said. ‘Worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.’
Her finger stopped moving. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘No, I’m not. My grandfather specifically asked me to get it for him and it took me weeks to track the damned thing down. He calls it one of his Lost Mistresses, for reasons he’s reluctant to explain. He sold it a long time ago and now he wants it back.’
‘Do you know why?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe because he’s dying.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, and he wondered if she’d heard the slight break in his voice.
‘Yeah,’ he said gruffly, his tightened lips intended to show her that the topic was now closed.
They drove for a while in silence and had just hit the outskirts of greater London, when her voice broke into his thoughts.
‘Your name is Italian,’ she commented quietly. ‘But your accent isn’t. Sometimes you sound American, but at other times your accent could almost be Italian, or French. How come?’
Dante thought how women always wanted to do things the wrong way round. Shouldn’t she have made chatty little enquiries about his background before he’d had his hand inside her panties yesterday? And yet wasn’t he grateful that she’d moved from the subject of his family?
‘Because I was born in the States,’ he said. ‘And spent the first eight years of my life there—until I was sent away to boarding school in Europe.’
She nodded and he half expected the usual squeak of indignation. Because women invariably thought they were showcasing their caring side by professing horror
