when Ana came downstairs. Most evenings he was content to hole up in the villa with a book or a game of solitaire.
Enrico looked up from his book, raising his eyebrows at her outfit. ‘Going out, my dear?’
Ana nodded, suppressing a little pang of guilt. She hadn’t told her father about this dinner with Vittorio; she told herself she’d simply forgotten, but she knew that wasn’t true. She hadn’t wanted him to know, and start reading more into this dinner than there was or ever could be.
‘Yes,’ she said now, dropping a kiss on the top of his thinning hair. ‘Dinner.’
‘A date?’ Enrico asked, sounding pleased. Ana shook her head and stepped away to look out of the window. Twilight was stealing softly upon the world, cloaking the landscaped gardens in violet.
‘No. Just business.’
‘Always business,’ her father said a bit grumpily, and Ana smiled.
‘You know I love it.’ And she did love it; the wine, the grapes were in her blood. Her father loved to tell the story about when he had taken her to the vineyards when she was only two years old. He’d hoisted her up to the vines and she’d plucked a perfectly ripe grape, deeply purple and bursting with flavour, and popped it into her mouth. Then, instead of saying how tasty it was, she’d pronounced in a quite grown-up voice, ‘Sono pronti.’ They’re ready.
‘I worry you work too much.’
Ana said nothing, for she knew she had no argument. She did work too much; she had nothing else. In the last few years her father had stepped back from the winery business, as he’d never really wanted to be more than a gentleman vintner, tending the family grapes. Ana wanted more. She dreamed of the day when Viale wines were in every fine restaurant in Europe, and even America. When they were held in reserve for special customers, the bottles dusty and precious. When they rivalled Cazlevara Wines.
Just then she saw headlights pierce the growing darkness, and a navy Porsche swept up the drive. Ana watched from the window, her heart starting to thud with hard, heavy beats as Vittorio stepped from the car. In the lengthening shadows she couldn’t see what he wore, yet she could tell he looked magnificent. She felt it in her own shivery response.
The doorbell rang.
‘Someone is coming for you?’ Enrico asked, his book forgotten in his lap.
‘Yes—’ Ana started from the study.
‘Whoever it is,’ Enrico called after her, ‘invite him in.’
By the time she reached the door she was breathless and flushed, simply from nerves. Vittorio stood there, hands thrust deep into his pockets, looking as magnificent as Ana knew he would in an immaculately tailored suit of navy silk. His shirt was crisp and white and a tie of aquamarine silk was knotted at the brown column of his throat.
Ana swallowed, her mouth dry, her head empty of thoughts. She could not think of a single thing to say.
‘Hello, Ana.’ He smiled, a quick flash of white teeth. ‘Are you ready?’
Ana nodded, conscious of both how Vittorio had not complimented her—or even commented on—her appearance, and that her father was sitting in the next room, waiting for her to usher in her guest. She swallowed. ‘Yes, but would you like to come in for a moment? My father…’ She trailed off, hating how hesitant she sounded. ‘My father would like to say hello,’ she said firmly, and then turned to lead Vittorio to the study without looking back to see if he followed.
Once in the study Ana stepped aside as her father looked up and smiled. He didn’t, she realized with a jolt, look very surprised. ‘Good evening, Vittorio.’
‘Good evening, sir.’
Enrico smiled, pleased by the sign of respect. ‘You are going out for dinner?’
‘In a manner of speaking. I thought we could eat at Castle Cazlevara.’
Ana looked at him in surprise. Dinner in his own castle? She’d been to the castle once, for a Christmas party when she was a child. She remembered a huge Christmas tree, twenty feet high, in the castle’s soaring entrance hall, and eating too many sweets.
Uneasily, Ana realized Vittorio and her father had been talking, and she hadn’t heard a word. Now Vittorio turned to her, smiling solicitously. ‘We should go.’
‘Yes, all right.’
One hand rested lightly on the small of her back—the simple touch seemed to burn—as Vittorio said goodbye to Enrico and then led her out to the softly falling darkness and his waiting car.
Vittorio opened the passenger door for Ana before sliding in the driver’s side. She was nervous, he saw, and her clothes were utterly atrocious. He’d been about to compliment her when she’d first opened the door and had just stopped himself from uttering what they both knew would be more unwanted false flattery.
He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as Ana fastened her seat belt. He felt impatient, as he so often did, and also, strangely, a little uncertain. He didn’t like either feeling. He didn’t know how best to approach Ana, how to court her, if such a thing could even be done. He doubted he could act convincingly enough. As intelligent and decent a human being as she obviously was, she was not a woman to take to bed. Yet if this marriage was to work—if he were to have an heir—then he would be taking her to bed, and more than once.
Vittorio dwelt rather moodily on that scenario before pushing it aside. He could have chosen another woman, of course; there were plenty of pretty—gorgeous, even—socialites in Italy who would relish becoming the Contessa of Cazlevara. Women he would gladly take to bed but, ironically perhaps, he did not wish to marry them.
Their vineyards did not border his own; they were not dedicated to winemaking, to the region. They were not particularly loyal. They were not, any of them, wife material.
Ana was. When he’d contemplated taking a wife, Ana Viale had ticked every box quite neatly. Experienced in winemaking, running her own vineyard, a dutiful daughter, healthy and relatively young.
And, of course, loyalty. He’d read of her loyalty to her family, and her family’s vineyard, in that magazine article. Loyalty was a necessity, an absolute; he would not be betrayed again, not by those closest to him.
No, Anamaria Viale was the wife he wanted. The only wife he wanted.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he thought of the other reason—really, the main reason—he wished to marry at all. He needed an heir. God willing, Ana would provide him with one, and would keep his brother—treacherous Bernardo—from ever becoming Count, as his mother had so recently told him she wanted.
The conversation, as it always was with Constantia, the current Countess, had been laced with bitterness on both sides. She’d rung asking for money; had there ever been anything else she wanted from him?
‘I don’t know why you hoard all your money, Vittorio,’ she’d said a bit sulkily. ‘Who are you keeping it for?’
He’d been distracted by the business emails on his computer screen, her words penetrating only after a moment. ‘What do you mean?’
She’d sighed,
