bold and sparkly design.
‘I think Sofia will like it,’ Topsy told him firmly.
Vittore nodded and proffered his credit card. ‘We’ll go for coffee before I head into the office,’ he said, casting her a glance. ‘My first appointment isn’t until ten-thirty. What are you going to do?’
‘My plans are fairly loose but I think I’ll do the Uffizi again. My last visit felt rushed,’ she confided.
‘Do you get homesick for London?’ Vittore asked her, having ordered coffee at a pavement café opposite the office he used.
‘No, I’m enjoying the change of scene.’ Topsy hesitated, seeing her opening, moving to grab it. ‘When were you last in London?’
‘More than twenty years ago,’ Vittore told her, looking reflective.
‘Was it a holiday?’ she prompted, sipping at her cappuccino.
‘No. I moved to London to start up a business but it all went pear-shaped,’ he volunteered wryly.
‘What happened?’ Topsy asked quietly.
‘I fell in love with the wrong woman and she emptied my bank account,’ Vittore admitted, giving her a rueful look when she could not hide her shock at that admission. ‘That was the end of the affair and the end of my business venture. I came home to lick my wounds and never went back.’
Topsy was frowning. ‘Did you tell the police?’
‘No, I wrote it off to experience. I don’t think the police could have helped me. After all, I trusted her and gave her free access to my account. What happened was my own fault. Back then I was still young and foolish,’ he declared with a fatalistic shrug of his shoulders. ‘Maturity does have some advantages.’
Topsy wanted so badly to ask if the woman concerned had been called Odette Taylor but if she mentioned her mother’s name she would have to come clean and tell all and she wasn’t ready to do that yet. Could the woman who had robbed Vittore be her mother? It was a depressing suspicion and only made the challenge of tackling the thorny mystery of her parentage more difficult, for if Odette had been the thief, Vittore would very probably be appalled to learn that he might have fathered a child with her. Already painfully aware of numerous occasions when her mother had been greedy and dishonest with money, Topsy had little difficulty picturing her avaricious parent in such a scenario. Odette had even admitted to her that she had chosen to lie and tell her polo player lover that he was the father of her youngest daughter because he had impressed her as a better financial bet than Vittore.
‘You look very thoughtful,’ Vittore quipped.
Topsy glanced up from her coffee cup and blinked in consternation at the tall male figure striding across the square towards them: it was Dante as she had never seen him before, his lean powerful thighs sheathed in tight-fitting faded denim, a blue-striped short-sleeved shirt casually open at his brown throat. Black hair ruffled in the slight breeze, strong face cool and calm, he looked breathtakingly beautiful to her stunned gaze. She moistened her lower lip with a nervous flick of her tongue. ‘Dante’s coming this way,’ she warned the older man.
Vittore frowned, his air of relaxation vanishing. ‘He didn’t even mention that he was coming into town today.’
Topsy was covertly engaged in admiring the gloriously neat fit of Dante’s jeans across his narrow hips and long muscular legs and in the midst of that wholly inappropriate appraisal drained her cappuccino in an effort to suppress her thundering pulses and an almost painful attack of self-consciousness. Soft pink highlighted her cheeks as Dante approached their table. ‘I thought I’d find you here. According to my mother this is your favourite breakfast bar,’ Dante remarked silkily.
‘It is and your timing is excellent because I was about to abandon Topsy to keep an appointment,’ Vittore remarked, turning his head to smile at Topsy. ‘You could find no better guide to this city than Dante. Florence is the original home of the Leonetti Bank and where he embarked on his gilded career.’
‘Is it really?’ Topsy pushed away her cup and rose upright, keen to stress her independence, reluctant to be foisted on Dante like some hapless tourist in need of guidance and attention. She watched his eyes follow Vittore as he vanished through a door on the other side of the busy street.
‘I didn’t even know my stepfather had a job until today,’ Dante commented.
‘Your mother doesn’t approve because it takes him away from her but he does only work four mornings a week,’ she proffered, instinctively defensive on the older man’s behalf. ‘I would’ve thought you would be pleased that he makes the effort.’
‘When I consider the size of my mother’s income, it strikes me as a pointless demonstration of independence,’ Dante said drily.
‘Is financial worth your only marker of good character?’ Topsy asked with spirit. ‘Anyone with an ounce of sensitivity would see that Vittore is very well aware of his position and determined not to take advantage of it!’
His designer sun specs clasped in one hand, Dante gazed down at her, green eyes radiating irritation. ‘Why are you defending him?’
‘He adores your mother and he makes her happy,’ Topsy countered in quiet reproof. ‘I like him, I like both of them and it distresses your mother that you so obviously think so little of the man she chose to marry.’
A muscle pulled taut at the corner of his unsmiling mouth, his stunning green eyes silvering with cold anger at the reproof. ‘Maledizione! What right do you have to interfere in the private affairs of my family?’ he ground out with disdain. ‘Or even to express an opinion?’
Topsy paled and then reddened, feeling both embarrassed and irritated, knowing very well that she should have kept her thoughts to herself. The icy look of hauteur stamped on his face mortified her and she spun away to cross the square. A hand closed over her arm to hold her back.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The Uffizi.’
He sent her a derisive look. ‘At this time of day? It will be a suffocating crush of tourists and you will only gain entry if you have a pre-arranged ticket.’
‘I haven’t,’ she acknowledged ruefully.
‘It would be a nightmare. Give up on the Uffizi and I promise I’ll arrange a special pass for you some day so that you can browse in peace.’ His eyes locked with hers and her tummy hollowed, her muscles pulling tight while her world rocked dizzily on its axis as if someone had given her a sudden violent shove. In the grip of that almost intoxicating sense of disassociation from planet earth Dante was all that mattered, filling her mind with insane thoughts that turned her inside out, filling her body with frighteningly familiar reactions she couldn’t fight. She wanted him, wanted him in a way she had never wanted anyone before, craved him with every breath that she drew.
A slow, exultant smile slashed Dante’s expressive mouth as he flipped down his sunglasses, closing her off from that visual connection that had made her entire body hum with excitement. She blinked, momentarily dazed by the clawing lash of desire unfulfilled and dropped her head, fighting for self-control and staring in surprise at the hand that now gripped hers.
‘You haven’t even told me what you’re doing here,’ she breathed unsteadily.
