his fingers like water. Has Paolo never told you so?’
She looked down at the table. ‘Not in so many words. And I don’t think it’s a very fashionable point of view, not in London, anyway.’
The mention of Paolo’s name brought her down to earth with a jolt. It had been such a wonderful meal. She’d felt elated—euphoric even—here, above the tops of the trees.
I could reach up a hand, she thought, and touch the sky.
And this, she knew, was entirely because of the man seated across the table from her. The man who somehow had the power to make her forget everything—including the sole reason that had brought her to Italy in the first place.
Stupid, she castigated herself. Eternally, ridiculously stupid to hanker after what she could never have in a thousand years.
Because there was far more than just a table dividing them, and she needed to remember that in her remaining days at the Villa Diana.
Apart from anything else, they’d been acquainted with each other for only a week, which was a long time in politics, but in no other sense.
So how was it that she felt she’d known him all her life? she asked herself, and sighed inwardly. That, of course, was the secret of his success—especially with women.
And her best plan was to escape while she could, and before she managed to make an even bigger fool of herself than she had already.
She was like a tiny planet, she thought, circling the sun, when any slight change in orbit could draw her to self-destruction. Burning up for all eternity.
That cannot happen, she told herself. And I won’t let it.
He said, ‘A moment ago, you were here with me. Now you have gone.’ He leaned forward, his expression quizzical. ‘”When, Madonna, will you ever drop that veil you wear in shade and sun?’’’
She looked back at him startled. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I was quoting,’ he said. ‘From Petrarch—one of his sonnets to Laura. My own translation. It seemed—appropriate.’
She tried to speak lightly. ‘You amaze me, signore. I never thought I’d hear you speaking poetry.’
He shrugged. ‘But I’m sure you could recite from Shakespeare, if I asked you. Am I supposed to have less education?’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry. After all, we’re strangers. I shouldn’t make any assumptions about you.’
He paused. ‘Besides, the question is a valid one. Because you also disappear behind a veil sometimes, so that I cannot tell what you’re thinking.’
She laughed rather weakly. ‘I’m—relieved to hear it.’
‘So I shall ask a direct question. What are you hiding, Laura?’
Her fingers twined together in her lap. ‘I think as well as a good education, signore, you have a vivid imagination.’
He studied her for a moment, his mouth wry. ‘And you still will not call me Alessio.’
‘Because I don’t think it’s necessary,’ she retorted. ‘Or even very wise, you being who you are. Not just a count, but Chairman of the Arleschi Bank.’
‘You could not put that out of your mind for a while?’
‘No.’ Her fingers tightened round each other. ‘That’s not possible. Besides, I’ll be gone soon, anyway.’
‘But you forget, signorina,’ he said silkily. ‘You are to become a member of my family. We shall be cousins.’
She paused for a heartbeat. ‘Well, when we are,’ she said, ‘I’ll think again about your name.’ She gave him a bright smile. ‘And now will you take me back to the villa, please? Paolo may need me,’ she added for good measure.
As he rose to his feet he was laughing. ‘Well, run while you may, my little hypocrite,’ he told her mockingly. ‘But remember this: you cannot hide—or not for ever.’ His fingers stroked her face from the high cheekbone to the corner of her mouth, then he turned and walked away across the terrace to the restaurant’s main door, leaving Laura to stare uneasily after him, her heart and mind locked into a combat that offered no prospect of peace. And which, she suddenly knew, could prove mortal.
But only to me, she whispered to herself in swift anguish. Only to me…
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE return journey was conducted mainly in silence. Laura was occupied with her own troubling thoughts, while Alessio was reviewing the events of the morning with a sense of quiet satisfaction.
She had missed him, he thought. Everything—including all the things she had not said—had betrayed it. So his ploy of keeping aloof from her had succeeded. And, now, she was desperately trying to reinforce her own barricades against him.
But it won’t work, carissima, he told her silently.
After he’d got rid of Giacomo that morning, he’d stood for a while, watching her from the other side of the square.
She might not have the flamboyant looks of a woman like Vittoria, but her unselfconscious absorption as she wrote gave an impression of peace and charm that he had never encountered before.
And her hair had been truly glorious in the sunlight, the colour of English leaves in autumn. He’d found himself suddenly longing to see it spread across his pillow, so that he could run his fingers through its soft masses and breathe their fragrance.
Also, he’d noted, with additional pleasure, she was again wearing the dress that had so fired his imagination at their first meeting.
And soon, he thought, as he turned the Jeep onto the road up to the villa—soon his fantasies would all be realised.
Not that it would be easy, he mentally amended with sudden restiveness. She might have let him take her hand for a while without protest, but, in many ways, she still continued to elude him, and not just in the physical sense either.
Her relationship with his cousin was certainly an enigma. He didn’t particularly share his aunt’s opinion that the pair were in love and planning immediate marriage. But then, he admitted, he’d hardly seen them together. Although, that first evening, he’d observed that the little Laura had not seemed to relish her lover’s advances. But that might have been because she preferred privacy for such exchanges, and not a family dinner.
Well, privacy she should have, he promised himself, smiling inwardly, and his entire undivided attention as well.
However, he still wondered if, given time, the whole Paolo affair might have withered and died of its own accord, and without Zia Lucrezia’s interference.
Not that he’d been able to convince her of that, although he had tried. She’d simply snapped that she could not afford to be patient, and that Paolo’s engagement to the Manzone girl must be concluded without further delay.
She’d
