going to a birthday party. I wanted to apologize before I left. I have never hit a person in my whole life. I’m deeply ashamed.”
“Really?” he growled doubtfully.
“Really,” she said, lifting her chin.
“That’s kind of not the dress of someone who is deeply ashamed.”
“The dress has nothing to do with this!”
“I think it does.”
“Explain yourself.”
He lifted a shoulder. “All right. I think you’re a boiling cauldron of repressed passion.”
“Maybe it’s not repressed,” she snapped.
His eyes went to her lips and stayed there long enough to make the point that they could find out how repressed or unrepressed she was right this second if she wanted. Her eyes skittered to his lips. She blinked first and looked away. When she looked back, his gaze was unflinching.
“In a dress like that, lots of people are going to want to find out, is she, or isn’t she? You aren’t going be lonely for very long at all.”
Since the whole idea of putting on the dress had been to look passionate, why did she want to smack him again? And badly. She could tell this apology was premature. She had to grip her clutch extra tightly to keep her hand from flying free and hitting him across his handsome, smug face.
No, she didn’t want to smack him. That wasn’t the truth at all. The truth was exactly as he had said. She was a boiling cauldron of repressed passion, and she wanted to throw herself at Connor and let all that repressed passion boil out.
Isabella was absolutely appalled with herself. She took a step back from him and turned away. “Have a good evening, signor,” she said formally, the prim little schoolteacher after all, a child playing dress-up in her red finery.
“Yeah. You, too.”
She turned and walked away. And just because she knew he was watching her, or maybe to prove to herself she wasn’t just playing dress-up, she put a little extra swing in her step and felt the red dress swirl around her.
She glanced over her shoulder and caught him still watching her, his eyes narrowed with unconcealed masculine appreciation.
Surprisingly, given that unsettling encounter with Connor, Isabella did have a good evening. Sixteenth birthday parties for young women were a huge event in Monte Calanetti. It was a coming-of-age celebration, probably very much like a debutante ball in the southern US. The party signified the transition from being a child to being a woman.
While looking at the giggling young woman, Valerie, flushed with excitement in her finery, Isabella was struck by how extremely young and innocent she was. She was no more an adult that Isabella was an astronaut.
And yet Isabella had been sixteen herself when she had first declared her undying love for Giorgio. And how adult and sophisticated and sure of herself she had felt at that time. Now, watching this young woman, it seemed it would be laughable to make a lifelong declaration of love at that age, and then to feel bound by it.
The pensive thoughts did not last long, though. Isabella had been seated with some of her coworkers, and the talk turned to preparations for the spring fete and anticipation of the royal wedding being held in Monte Calanetti.
Then there was harmless gossip about who was getting married and divorced and who was burying parents. And, of course, in an Italian village, what was loved more than a pregnancy?
Nothing. But with each pregnancy revealed, Isabella felt happy and yet crushed, too. She did not think envy was an admirable emotion, and yet the thought of someone holding that beautiful, wiggling, warm bundle of life filled her with a terrible sense of longing for the life she did not have. And would probably never have. Not now.
“Have you heard? Marianna is pregnant.”
Again Isabella’s happiness for Marianna was laced with her own sense of loss. She listened halfheartedly as the circumstances around Marianna’s pregnancy were placed under the microscope of the small, close-knit village. They were not ideal.
Italy was still mostly Catholic, and small towns like Monte Calanetti were very traditional. A pregnancy without the benefit of marriage still raised eyebrows. There was some conjecture around the table about how Marianna’s brothers, the staunchly conservative Angelo and Nico, might have reacted to news of a pregnancy.
After it had been discussed to death, it was all put aside and a decision was made.
“We will have to have a baby shower.”
This was announced with a sigh of pure happiness and murmurs of delight from the other women. A baby in Italy was always seen as a blessing.
For some reason that made Isabella think of Connor talking about the abandonment of his mother by his father. Marianna’s beau looked like the kind of man who would stand by her no matter what. Angelo and Nico, while they might rage and wring their hands, would never turn their backs on their own blood. Never.
Isabella wondered if that was the root of Connor wanting to protect the whole world—a little boy wanting to protect his mother. The thought made her heart ache for him. Not that she wanted to spoil this evening with one single thought about her houseguest!
Though Isabella was careful with the wine, some others were not, and the jokes became quite ribald and the laughter loud. The gathering was around a torch-lit courtyard, and after the dinner the tables were cleared away for dancing, and a live band came out.
The dress made Isabella feel different, less repressed and more carefree. To her astonishment, men she’d known for years were lining up to ask her to dance, and she soon felt as if she was flushed with as much excitement as the young Valerie.
It was after one in the morning before she realized how late it was.
“I have to work in the morning!”
She refused an offer to be walked home, and instead went down the darkened streets by herself. Partway home, she realized her feet ached from all the dancing, and she slipped off her shoes and went barefoot.
A little ways from her house, she saw a figure coming toward her. She knew from his size and the way he carried himself exactly who it was, and she felt her heart begin to race.
But his walk was different, purposeful, the strides long and hard, like a gladiator entering the arena, like a warrior entering the battlefield.
He stopped in front of her and gazed down at her. His eyes were flashing with cold anger.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Scusi?”
“You heard me.”
“I told you I was at a birthday party,” she said.
“Well, I assumed a child’s birthday party, and I thought it would be over at a decent time.”
“What’s it to you?” she snapped, angry at his high-handed manner, angry that he thought he could treat her like
