she hadn’t been able to touch the salad Potty had given her for lunch, or the delicious grilled trout that had been produced at dinner.
‘He’s certainly making sure he sees plenty of the area before he leaves tomorrow,’ Potty had remarked drily as she’d removed the plate of fish Venetia had mangled with her fork, her shrewd eyes on the unused place-setting on the opposite side of the table, the empty chair.
Venetia had dredged up a pale smile, the small, defeated shrug of her shoulder telling all there was to tell, and Potty had said, her voice gruff, ‘Don’t take on so. He’s not the only pebble on the beach.’
Watching the housekeeper trundle out of the room, Venetia had cursed herself for being so transparent. She had laid herself open to Potty’s platitudes and Carlo’s scorn. He had known what she felt, even before she had told him she loved him, and had reduced it to the level of mere infatuation.
And Potty was wrong. As far as she was concerned he was the only man she would ever love with this level of passionate intensity. But it wasn’t any use, she thought miserably; he had made that very plain. So she was simply going to have to come to terms with it, somehow, and try to decide how she would react when she saw him next, what she would say.
But she needn’t have agonised so deeply because her confidence had taken the final annihilating blow when, while she’d been playing Scrabble with her father late last evening, Carlo had at last put in an appearance.
He hadn’t looked at her; she might not have been in the room as he’d made suitably concerned enquiries about the state of her father’s health.
And her face had turned pale when he’d gone on to say, ‘If you’re sure you’re on the mend, I’ll take my flight to Rome tomorrow, as arranged. But if you’ve the slightest doubt and would like me to stay on, I can cancel it.’
And Venetia had held her breath, willing her father to ask Carlo to stay. But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.
‘I’m fine,’ the older man had stated. ‘Once I’ve survived the starvation diet I’ll be better than new! And I’ve asked Carew to drop by first thing in the morning. I’ll brief him to cover my absence for the next couple of days. So don’t alter your plans because I had a stomach-ache—there’s absolutely no need.’
‘If you’re sure...’
A flicker of something—relief?—had moved across the hard profile, then the sensual mouth had firmed as he’d added, ‘After a great deal of thought, I’ve reached a decision of some importance, and I’d like to discuss it with you. Tomorrow morning—after you’ve seen Carew?’
‘Why not now?’ The older man gestured to the armchair on the other side of his big old-fashioned bed, his smile expansive. ‘And pour yourself a Scotch, why don’t you? The decanter’s on top of the dressing-chest.’
Involuntarily, or so it seemed to Venetia, the black eyes were at last turned in her direction. And almost immediately back to her father, the slightly accented, fascinating voice uncompromising as he insisted, ‘Tomorrow would be better.’
So he had reached some decision, to do with business—what else?—and refused to discuss it in front of her, Venetia had thought on a spasm of stinging pain. He wouldn’t discuss anything of importance while she was around. He thought she was a bird-brain.
She had kept her eyes on her clenched hands during the short silence that had preceded his exit and had gone to bed herself soon after, every last bone in her body weakened by the myriad hurts he was so good at inflicting—intentionally or otherwise.
And this morning she felt no better, she decided hollowly as she pushed the hair back from her face and gazed blearily around her room. Twelve months ago she’d insisted on having it redecorated to her own specifications, sweeping away the girlish frills and flower-speckled wallpaper, the pink and fawn carpet and flounced pink curtains. Now the furniture was matt black and, apart from the white carpet, everything else was scarlet.
She had been thrilled with it, she remembered, revelling in the sensuous velvets and satin. Now, looking around her at the beginning of what promised to be another hot summer day, she knew it was tacky, and a part of her looked back and mourned the passing of her ebullient self, the wonderful adventure of her emergence from childhood, all that fantastic self-confidence that had been so ruthlessly destroyed when she’d fallen in love with the unattainable.
When she finally got out of bed and went to stand under the shower, she found she was shaking. Carlo was leaving today and they weren’t likely to meet again. Her father and Simon were more than capable of running the business he had shares in; it had ticked over for years without the Rossi family doing any more than pocket the dividends. Besides, he was running the diverse Rossi business empire virtually single-handedly now that his father had opted to take a back seat because of failing health. It wasn’t likely he’d visit England again in a hurry.
Covering her dripping, voluptuous nakedness with a bath-sheet, she wondered forlornly if he would ever spare her a passing thought, and decided he wouldn’t. The flock of lovely, elegant ladies whose undoubted existence Potty had guessed at would ensure that she, Venetia, the overgrown schoolgirl whose protestations of love must have embarrassed him so, would be pretty promptly erased from his memory.
Indifferent now to how she looked, she pulled on a pair of shabby cotton jeans and the only school blouse that hadn’t been cut up for polishing rags, then mooched along to see her father.
Potty had taken him a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice, and his bed was covered with papers and files.
‘Should you be working?’ she asked concernedly, twisting her long, shiny hair back behind her head, wishing she’d taken the time to plait it, because today was going to be boiling.
‘I’m not,’ he told her, staring at her over the top of his glasses. ‘Just getting things in some sort of coherent order to pass on to Simon when he arrives. Which should be any time now. Would you like to ask him to stay to lunch, to keep you company?’
There was only one man’s company she wanted. Trouble was, he didn’t want hers. She shook her head mutely and her father frowned.
‘What’s wrong? You look drained. You’re not still worried about me? Because if you are—don’t.’
‘It’s the heat,’ she lied, wondering if she would ever feel happy again, fully alive and carefree. She couldn’t imagine it, somehow.
‘Then go and cool off in the pool, poppet. Simon can find his own way up and Carlo’s busy in the library—dictating reports, he said. So you can have a nice, relaxing morning all to yourself.’
Returning to her room, she decided that her father’s idea wasn’t a bad one at that. She wasn’t going to make a fool of herself a second time. She’d keep right out of Carlo’s way; there was no point in trying to make her peace with him. When Simon had been and gone Carlo would have his business discussion with her father and take off to the airport. Until then she would make herself scarce. The pool in the old walled courtyard would be as good a place as any to hide out.
Her old school regulation swimsuit was now too tight in various places, and the bikinis she’d lashed out on to replace it were, on consideration, barely decent. Shrugging her square shoulders, she decided it didn’t matter. No one would see her and she’d use a towelling robe to cover up as she walked through the house.
The water was deliciously
