The Passionate Italian 11 DECEMBER EPUB (13 page)

He put his wine glass down too quickly and drops of the dark burgundy spilt onto the rosewood table. He stood before her, looking down at her, intensity evident in every fiber of his body.

“Was Alberto your lover?”

She stood up and tilted her face to his. She wanted to see him clearly when she answered him.

“No. There’s no way that I ever—”

He stopped her by putting his finger to her mouth.

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Then you should have asked sooner.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the mouth. She melted into his arms, feeling weak with relief that he’d finally kissed her. The longing for his touch and heat upon her had been building since their last kiss and she was finally able to release some of the tension.

He held her more tightly to his body and she could feel everything: from the fastenings of his clothes digging into her breasts to his hardness, showing clearly his equal need for her.

It was enough to make her lose the last shreds of restraint. She deepened the kiss, pulling up his shirt with her hands, feeling the heat from his body against her hands. The sensation of the hairs of his body against her sensitive fingertips triggered a soft explosion inside. She gasped.

But it was an explosion that ignited further heat, rather than lessening it. She felt she was going to go crazy if she couldn’t feel his body against hers. She slipped her hands round and began undoing his shirt buttons. She’d never wanted him so badly as at that moment.

It wasn’t just physical, though. She knew that the hunger inside stemmed from the fact that she’d told him the truth and she’d been believed.

He reacted strongly, holding her close while their kisses built until they pulled away, his lips seeking out her neck and chest. She arched back giving him freer access as her hands busied themselves with unbuttoning his trousers.

It was then that he stopped. He groaned deep against her chest, she could feel it reverberate. She froze. It was a groan of self control.
 

“Giovanni?”

He held his hand over hers and pulled it away.

“Not like this.”

“What are you doing? You never pull away from me.”

“We are not ready for this.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m ready.” She pulled herself to him.

“No. If we make love now, it would be like putting a plaster on a deep wound. Soothing yes, but not healing.”

“You don’t want me any more, do you?” Tell me the truth.”

He kissed her gently. “How can you say that?”

“Easy. When we were married you couldn’t keep you hands off me. But now? The occasional kiss if I force you into it, followed by a freeze. As if you’re disappointed you’ve succumbed.”
 

He shook his head wearily.

She stepped away when there was no further response. “With my work complete I can go now. I still have four months left on the contract. But you surely don’t want me here, now I’ve met my end of the bargain.”

“You will go when I say so.”

The flash of anger reassured her. The old Giovanni was still there lurking beneath. She wanted to tease it up further. She ran her hand down his chest.

“No I won’t. I’ll go what
I’m
ready. I may have fulfilled my contractual obligations but there’s also some unfinished personal business I need to attend to.”

“Really? More secrets you’re keeping from me?”

“Darling. So cynical. It is not good in one so young.” She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him, long and soft on the lips. Her deep-boned anger at his refusal to make love to her kept her in rigid control this time. “Good night.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Walking, endlessly walking and searching.

But she couldn’t find her.

It was cold.

She had to find her before her baby became too cold. She needed to warm her with her own body.

“Cara!” She heard him calling their baby, their beloved, and she stumbled on.

Then doors closed behind her, hands held her briefly.

She felt heat surround her and she relaxed for a while.

But the peace didn’t last.

A baby crying, her little face distorted with the hysteria of needing her mother.

“Carina!” Rose tried to cry out in her panic, but no sound came. She tried to move towards her baby but her legs were trapped and unable to move. She heard a male voice call her baby once more and knew it to be Giovanni. She tried to ask him for help but was struck mute as before.

Her hands reached out but there were too many things between them, she had to get to her.
 

“Cara! Wake up!”

She sat bolt upright, panting with the exertion that was only taking place in her dreams. Slowly the room came into focus. A wedge of weak sunshine sliced through the room, leaving the rest in obscurity.

“Cara.” His voice came softly now. His arm came around her shoulders. She dropped her head in her hands.

“A bad dream,” she said weakly.

“It must have been. It was one of your more elaborate sleepwalking efforts.”

“I slept walked? Oh God, where did I go?”

Embarrassment filled the place of grief. She stayed close to him to hide her burning cheeks.

“You even managed the elevator and came to me, as was right.”

She wanted to lean on his strength. But what if it gave way? She’d have nothing then.

“But you can’t help me.” The whisper emerged from lips that felt unwilling to move, unwilling to form the words that could simultaneously bridge the gap between them and destroy his future.

Holding her close, he drew her face up to his.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because some things are finished and you just have to live with the consequences.”

“Then let me help you with those.”

She couldn’t face his searching eyes and closed her own, turning away.

“Why should you? Why would you want to?”

“You don’t know?” He stood up, looked down at her for a moment, before walking to the partially open shutters and closing them. In the darkness she couldn’t see his expression. “Because you are my wife.”
 

“You’ve made it plain that just being married isn’t a relationship. Why do you want to help me?”

Inside, she was screaming for him to tell her the words she hadn’t heard for over two long years: the words she’d thought were gone forever. But perhaps a remnant of his love still survived.

But as he turned, her hopes were extinguished.

“Stay here. Get some more sleep. I’ll tell your team you won’t be in the office today. And nor will I. I’ll be waiting downstairs. Come when you are rested.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll need your report first. And then I will show you why I want to help you.”

Business again, no doubt. She slumped back, her heart still racing at the thought of her daughter needing her—and her husband not needing her.

But her daughter was dead.

She turned away from the slim lines of dimmed sunlight that escaped from around the shutters and finally slept on a pillow wet with the tears of a mother in mourning still.

“Brittle,” was the only word Giovanni could think to describe his Rose as she sat on the opposite side of this desk, going through her report on Alberto’s crimes.

Shadows lay beneath—and behind—her eyes.

The one was physical—he could deal with that—the other was harder but he was determined to shed light on it nonetheless.

Her report was faultless and told him nothing he hadn’t already guessed. He hardly listened to the damning details. It was on her that his full attention was focused.

She was barely holding it together.

He steepled his fingers and considered her.

She stopped talking, sat back, eyes narrowed. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying are you?”

“Not really. Leave it. I’ll pass it to my lawyers and they will set the wheels in motion. It is over for now.”

“And you take this news with such equanimity? Your own family. It will drive them apart. Your mother will be devastated.”

“No doubt. Not that she doesn’t suspect, but I imagine she’ll be upset that the truth will be made public. It will force her to recognize that her youngest and dearest son is a thief as well as many other things. Don’t be concerned about my family. We are one in name only.”

He watched as she kneaded her forehead as if to release the tension that he knew was held within.

“This has all been a farce hasn’t it?”

“A reason maybe, but no farce. You’ve done the job I asked you to do.”

“So I can go whenever I choose?”

“Of course. You’ve always been able to do that. You really should read the fine print in your contracts.”

“What?” She jumped up and slammed the file of papers onto his desk and stood there, eyes blazing.

“Surely you realized? I may be Italian but I don’t stoop to the old ways of blackmail.”

The normally peaceful, double-height room echoed to the sound of her angry footsteps on the parquet floor, pacing away from him. She stopped suddenly and turned back to face him.

“You,” she stabbed a finger at Giovanni, “are impossible. I have no idea why I ever married you in the first place; why I ever got myself tangled up in such a dysfunctional family, with such a, such a, well,” she paused as she glared at him, her eyes straying around his face before settling on his lips, “with such an
unreasonable
man.”

He laughed. “Is ‘unreasonable’ the best you can do for an insult? It’s true I am unreasonable. But, I am proud of that. Because reason is cold. And one should only be cold when one is dead. Not before.”

It was her turn to laugh. She dropped back down into the chair.

He was relieved to see the brittle defense shatter and disappear as the tension dissolved.

She shook her head, the laughter fading as quickly as it had arrived.

“I am returning to New Zealand, Giovanni. I have no reason to stay.”

He felt the pain, like the heat of ice, burn deep inside, but he controlled it. It would never be easy for him to control his feelings, never easy to think, rather than act, first. But he’d learnt in recent months that he was strong enough to do so.

“Go if you must, but not until the end of the week. Give us time to complete the business.”

She nodded in agreement.

He’d known she would. He’d purposely framed the suggestion in way that would appeal to her rational nature.

“OK. The end of the week.”

Because of many of the books’ rarity, the lighting was strictly controlled except for the area around his desk. Rose stood up and began to walk away.

“Rose!” She hesitated just outside of the pool of light, her expression enigmatic. He thought he knew her but could not read the expression he now saw in her grey-blue eyes, huge in the dim light. “You will be rewarded for your hard work appropriately of course.”

“Of course.”

“But before you go there are a few things we need to do.”

“Like what? Not more sight-seeing?”

Laughter flared in her eyes as she groaned. That was better.

“Come, cara. So cynical. It is not good in one so young.” The echo of her words of the previous night was deliberate. “But no, no more sight-seeing for the present.”

“What then?”

“I said earlier I wanted to tell you the reason why you should let me help you.”

The only sound that broke the silence was the sound of the gardener in the courtyard beyond the window.

“Yes?”

“But first we need to eat. You are still too skinny.”

“Many women would take that as a compliment you know.”

“There are many stupid women in this world, but you are not one of them, thank God.”

“Thank you for that vote of confidence. But I can look after myself.”

His smile dropped as he watched her walk away.

“Stop fighting me Rose.” He didn’t react to the confusion that briefly filled her face as she instinctively turned to him. “We will go to Lugano. I want some time alone with you.”

She hesitated briefly before closing the door behind her.

Don’t fight me Rose, because you won’t win. Not this time.

They drove in silence, turning off the highway and climbing up towards the northern lakes. As they climbed higher she could see across the Po valley to Milan, stretching out behind them, glittering faintly under a veil of mist in the filtered late afternoon sunshine. The modern tower blocks rose above the mist and gleamed dully. The massive complex of the Duomo, too, was visible, carving up the regular city streets. A city of contrasts; Giovanni’s city.

A city she knew to be dear to his heart, but from which he also needed to escape at times. His villa on an island near Lugano provided that retreat for him and, while they’d been together, for them both.

The thought of returning there filled her with pleasure and apprehension at the same time. They’d spent the first week after they’d met on the island—it had been a time of discovery and incredible intimacy. But those times had gone. And she had no idea what the future held, for either of them.

Lake Lugano was a rich cerulean blue under clear and sunny skies.

After a misty Milan, the vivid brightness of Lugano, with its Mediterranean climate, was stimulating to the senses. It was only half an hour away and yet a world apart in climate and atmosphere.

Geraniums, abundant and vivid, spilled from the window boxes of the cafes and townhouses. The scent of lemon verbena, that tumbled from terracotta pots, filled the air, and light filtering through the golden-topped trees, flickered on the paving stones.

They walked slowly down through the steep lanes of the Old Town to the Piazza della Riforma. The huge café-lined square was only meters away from the lake and was crowded with both tourists and locals. There were more people than usual and Rose remembered it was the week-end of the firework display. She didn’t know the reason for the display; it could have been purely for the joy of celebrating the long summer of the Italian lakes. For whatever reason it was staged, people came from miles around to witness the incendiary celebration of summer.
 

The square was buzzing but Giovanni found a table inside their favorite café by an open window.