shrugged. ‘Well, we’re hardly joined at the hip.’ She tried to sound jokey.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I can imagine.’ He paused. ‘So, what do grass widows do? Count the hours until the errant husband returns?’
‘Far from it,’ she said crisply. ‘They get on with their own lives. Go places and see people.’
‘If that’s true,’ he said slowly, ‘maybe you’d consider seeing me one more time.’ His voice deepened urgently. ‘Marisa—if lunch is impossible meet me for dinner instead—will you? Eight o’clock at Chez Dominique? For old times’ sake?’
She wanted to tell him that the old times were over. That they’d died the day he had allowed himself to be shunted out of her life and off to Hong Kong, because he hadn’t been prepared to fight for her against a man who was powerful enough to kill his career with a word.
Not that she could altogether blame him, she reminded herself. Their romance had been at far too early a stage to command the kind of loyalty and commitment that she’d needed. It had only amounted to a few kisses, for heaven’s sake. And it was one of those kisses that had brought their relationship to a premature end—when Alan had been caught saying goodnight to her by Cousin Julia.
That tense, shocking night when she’d finally discovered what the future really had in store for her.
If Alan had really been my lover, she thought, I wouldn’t have been a virgin bride, and therefore there’d have been no marriage to Renzo. But I—I didn’t realise that until it was too late. Alan had already left, and, anyway, did I ever truly care enough for him to give myself in that way?
She concealed a shiver as unwanted memories stirred. Lingered disturbingly. ‘Alan—about tonight—I don’t know… And I really must go now.’
‘I’ll book the table,’ he said. ‘And wait. Everything else is up to you.’
She gave him an uncertain smile. ‘Well, whatever happens, it’s been good to see you again.’ And hurried away.
She was back at the gallery right on time, but Corin was hovering anxiously nevertheless, the coming session with his lawyers clearly at the forefront of his mind.
‘He’s going through a difficult divorce,’ Dinah had warned her. ‘The major problem being that he’s still in love with his wife, whereas her only interest is establishing how many of his assets she can take into her new relationship. So he occasionally needs a shoulder to cry on.’ She’d paused delicately. ‘Think you can manage that?’
‘Of course,’ Marisa had returned robustly. She might even be able to pick up a few pointers for her own divorce when it became legally viable, she’d thought wryly. Except she wanted nothing from her brief, ill-starred marriage except her freedom. A view that she hoped Lorenzo Santangeli would share.
‘I’d better be off,’ Corin said, then paused at the doorway. ‘If Mrs Brooke rings about that watercolour…’
‘The price remains exactly the same.’ Marisa smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry—I won’t let her argue me down. Now go, or you’ll be late.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and sighed heavily. ‘I suppose so.’
She watched him standing on the kerb, raking a worried hand through his hair as he hailed a cab. And he had every reason to appear harassed, she mused. The former Mrs Langford had not only demanded the marital home, but was also claiming a major share in the gallery too, on the grounds that her father had contributed much of the initial financial backing.
‘My father and hers were friends,’ Dinah had confided. ‘And Dad says he’d be spinning in his grave if he knew what Janine was up to. If she gets her hands on the Estrello it will be closed, and Corin will be out by the end of the year.’
‘But it’s very successful,’ Marisa pointed out, startled. ‘He’s a terrific businessman, and his clients obviously trust him.’
Dinah snorted. ‘You think she cares about that? No way. All she can see is a valuable piece of real estate. As soon as her father died she was badgering Corin to sell, and when he wouldn’t she decided to end the marriage—as soon as she found someone to take his place.’ She added, ‘He doesn’t deserve it, of course. But—as the saying goes—nice guys finish last.’
Yes, Marisa had thought bitterly, and bastards like Lorenzo Santangeli spend their lives in pole position. There’s no justice.
Feeling suddenly restive, she walked over to her desk and sat down, reaching determinedly for the small pile of paperwork that Corin had left for her. It might not be much, she thought wryly, but at least it would stop her mind straying down forbidden pathways.
The afternoon wasn’t particularly busy, but it was profitable, as people came in to buy rather than simply browse. A young couple seeking a wedding present for friends bought a pair of modern miniatures, Mrs Brooke reluctantly agreed to buy the watercolour at full price, and an elderly man eventually decided to acquire a Lake District landscape for his wife’s birthday.
‘We went there on our honeymoon,’ he confided to Marisa as she dealt with his credit card payment. ‘However, I admit I was torn between that and the wonderful view of the Italian coastline by the same artist.’ He sighed reminiscently. ‘We’ve spent several holidays around Amalfi, and it would have brought back a lot of happy memories.’ He paused. ‘Do you know the area at all?’
For a moment Marisa’s fingers froze, and she nearly bodged the transaction. But she forced herself to concentrate, smiling stiltedly as she handed him his card and receipt. ‘I have been there, yes. Just once. It—it’s incredibly beautiful.’
And I wish you had bought that painting instead, because then I would never—ever—have to look at it again.
She arranged a date and time for delivery of his purchase, and saw him to the door.
Back at her desk, entering the final details of the deal into the computer, she found herself stealing covert looks over her shoulder to the place on the wall where the Amalfi scene was still hanging.
It was as if, she thought, the artist had also visited the Casa Adriana and sat in its lush, overgrown garden on the stone bench in the shade of the lemon tree. As if he too had looked over the crumbling wall to where the rugged cliff tumbled headlong down to the exquisite azure ripple of the Gulf of Salerno far below.
From the moment she’d seen the painting she’d felt the breath catch painfully in her throat. Because it was altogether too potent a reminder of her hiding place—her sanctuary—during those seemingly endless, agonising weeks that had been her honeymoon. The place that, once found, she’d retreated to each morning, knowing that no one would be looking for her, or indeed would find her, and where she’d discovered that solitude did not have to mean loneliness as she shakily counted down the days that would decide her immediate fate.
The place that she’d left each evening as sunset approached, forcing her to return once more to the cold, taut silence of the Villa Santa Caterina and the reluctant company of the man she’d married, to dine with him in the warm darkness at a candlelit table on a flower-hung terrace, where every waft of scented air had seemed, in unconscious irony, to breathe a soft but powerful sexuality.
And where, when the meal had finally
