her a starched white linen handkerchief, and Meghan dabbed at her lips uselessly. She didn’t want to sully it.
‘It’s to be used,’ he said, his voice tart, and Meghan managed a weak smile.
‘Sorry.’
‘I’m the one who should be sorry. I should have remembered how shock can be delayed. Here.’ He handed her a bottle of water and Meghan opened it, drinking gratefully.
‘Thank you.’
‘Are you ready?’ he asked after a moment, and Meghan was suddenly aware of how dark it was. A car hadn’t passed them since he’d pulled over, and nothing but meadows and clusters of elm trees surrounded them, the hills no more than shadowed mounds in the distance.
She could hear the whisper of the wind through the grass and the bare branches of the trees. She could hear her own breathing. They were very much alone.
‘Yes, I’m ready.’
Alessandro opened the door for her, and Meghan slipped inside.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said again, once they were on the road, and Alessandro shrugged.
‘Don’t apologise.’
The car climbed higher into the Umbrian hills, and they spent the rest of the short drive in silence. Soon a high stone wall appeared, running parallel to the road.
Alessandro swung the car through an opened pair of ornate iron gates, and then up a long, twisting drive, the hills steep on either side.
Automated outdoor lights flashed on as the car approached the portico, and Meghan glimpsed a long, rambling villa of mellow stone and terracotta roof tiles. Several large pots lined the entrance, spilling a riot of begonias onto the tiled steps.
Alessandro stopped the engine and went around to open Meghan’s door. She stepped out with murmured thanks. She smelled the fresh tang of pine, and the air was sharper, colder. She wrapped her arms around herself.
The front door opened, and a stout woman with a shiny black bun of hair, a spotless apron and a forbidding expression stood there. Meghan quailed under her heavy-browed, frowning gaze.
‘Meghan, this is Ana,’ Alessandro said, ‘the housekeeper and guardian of Tre Querce.’
He spoke rapid Italian to Ana, too fast for Meghan’s basic grasp of the language, and the woman gave an obviously disgruntled response.
‘Ana will show you to a room,’ he continued in English. ‘You can freshen up and meet me in the lounge for dinner.’
Meghan turned to look at him in surprise. It almost sounded as if she were a guest rather than a waitress. ‘Shouldn’t I be in the kitchen?’ she suggested hesitantly, and Alessandro gave her a knowing look.
‘You are not the cook.’
‘I’m a waitress,’ she threw back at him, and his smile was far too understanding.
‘Yes. I know. So you’ve told me.’
With jerky, unnatural steps Meghan followed Ana through a cool tiled hallway and up a wide staircase, her hand clutching the smooth wrought-iron banister.
Silently Ana led her down the upstairs hall, passing a row of closed doors, before ushering her into a bedroom spare and clean in its elemental luxury.
A large double bed dominated the room, the duvet and pillows encased in pure white linen. An oak dresser with iron fixtures stood against the wall, a strip of mirror above.
Disapproval radiated from every stiff line of the older woman, from her thinly pressed lips to the tightly clasped hands at her ample waist. Meghan couldn’t blame her. What did she think she was? How had Alessandro explained her presence?
Why was she here?
Ana left without a word, and Meghan sank down on the bed, enjoying the softness, relieved to be alone even though her nerves felt as if they were jangling and jumping throughout her taut body.
Why was she here?
She looked in the mirror. Her hair had come undone, her face was pale and tense, her eyes as wide and frightened as a doe’s.
Why was she here?
It wasn’t for the money. She could have left Spoleto without it, Meghan acknowledged. Admittedly, it would come in handy, but still …
She didn’t need it. Didn’t even want it, perhaps.
She owed nothing to Alessandro di Agnio, nothing to anyone.
Yet she’d agreed. Willingly.
What did that make her? Meghan wondered. To agree to come to a strange man’s house, despite the desire in his eyes, the assessment of his gaze, the innuendo in his tone.
He knew what she was.
Everyone knows what you are.
The voices from her past clamoured inside her head—a knowing hiss, a contemptuous snarl.
Had she come here to prove Alessandro di Agnio wrong … or right?
Or to prove something to herself? And to Stephen.
She stood up, filled with a sudden restless energy, and moved to the French doors that looked out on the villa’s gardens. She saw a swimming pool set in resplendent grounds, closed now, and beyond that terraced gardens, shadowed and bare.
Meghan shivered. The night air in the mountains was cool, and her simple white shirt didn’t give her much warmth or protection. She took in a shaky breath and set about repairing herself.
A few minutes later, her hair neat and her face clean, she stepped outside. The villa was quiet. She couldn’t hear the murmur of voices or the clank of pans from the kitchen. Nothing.
Carefully she walked down the front stairs. A single light flickered in the foyer, and a pair of double doors had been left slightly open, leading to what looked like the lounge.
Meghan’s heart thudded in fresh anxiety and she wiped her palms along the sides of the skirt.
She supposed she should go in there, search out Alessandro and his weasely friend. Do what she was being paid to do. Pass out hors d’oeuvres. Make conversation, smile. Flirt.
Except, quite suddenly, she couldn’t. The thought made her ill; she was sickened by the very fact that Alessandro had asked and she’d agreed.
She couldn’t do this.
She was doing this.
She shook her head, biting her lips, and half slunk down the hallway in search of the kitchen.
Ana looked up in frowning surprise as Meghan entered the spacious room. Gleaming chrome appliances and granite worktops gave way to a breakfast nook and more French doors that led out to the terrace and swimming pool. Although it was
