‘Don’t be silly!’ Assunta chided comfortably. ‘Helping you with the little one is my job from now on. Besides, nothing could give me greater pleasure.’
The remark was meant to be reassuring; Portia knew that. But it didn’t, somehow, hit the spot. Assunta was a nice lady, but she was very determined, too. Was she part of some hidden agenda? A plot to separate her from her baby eventually?
The knot that had been growing deep inside her stomach suddenly tightened and, leaving Lucenzo saying something to his former nanny, Portia sped into the nursery. By the dim night-light she devoured Sam’s tiny face, the way his little arms were flung above his head, until the knot untied itself and she was breathing more normally.
She would do better in future, she vowed silently. She wouldn’t let herself be pushed around. It had been a mistake to come here, but the damage wasn’t permanent.
In a few days’ time she would gently but firmly tell Sam’s grandfather that she could only stay here for a week or two. Explain that she had every intention of bringing his grandson back for visits, and that when he himself was fully fit again he could come and stay with them in England whenever he wanted, for as long as he wanted. Though quite how she would square that with her parents, or find the money for flights to and from Tuscany, she had no idea.
‘Satisfied?’ Lucenzo’s soft voice behind her made her leap out of her skin. She had believed him to be long gone. Her hand flew to her throat to still the frantic pulse-beat and he commented drily, ‘As you see, he hasn’t been spirited away while your back was turned or been force-fed with steak and kidney pudding. Assunta will always take great care of him.’
‘I’m sure she will. When I need her to, that is.’ Her reply was stiff and she couldn’t respond to his brand of dry humour. She didn’t like the sound of that ‘always’ bit at all. Casting one last loving look at her peacefully sleeping son, she turned and left the room, waiting until Lucenzo joined her before quietly pulling the nursery door to, leaving it a little ajar the better to hear Sam when he woke in the night.
Alone with him now in the warm, dimly lit silence of her bedroom, Portia felt her heart begin to race. The height of him, the breadth of him suddenly seemed to overwhelm her. She could feel the tension, sharp and insistent, and shivered with reaction. He was watching her, his eyes a darkly veiled hypnotic glitter reaching deep inside her soul, making her feel a wild yearning for something only dimly guessed at. She knew she had to make him go before she said or did something that would make the humiliation of this evening worse—something she would regret for perhaps the rest of her life.
&nbs
p; Dragging her eyes from his, she stared at her feet, at the practical but ugly sandals she’d bought in a closing-down sale. There was danger in the way she felt so drawn to him, like a moth to a flame, a kind of madness because she knew exactly what he thought of her. Her voice came out thickly, almost on a whisper. ‘Please go.’
‘Of course. When you’ve eaten.’
‘I’ve already—’
‘No, you haven’t. I was watching you, remember?’
Portia lifted uncomprehending eyes and met the blankness of his. She shuddered as he moved, placed a hand on the small of her back and propelled her over the soft carpet towards the open door to the sitting room. There, strategically placed table lamps cast a warm and welcoming glow over exquisitely upholstered armchairs, a pretty writing desk and low tables, one bearing a bowl of flowers which perfumed the air, another with a tray.
‘I asked Assunta to send Paolina up with a light supper,’ he explained. ‘If you don’t eat you won’t sleep, and you look exhausted.’
He lifted a silver cover to reveal a steaming omelette. There was a bowl of green salad too, she noted, another of diced fresh fruit, a glass of creamy milk.
‘Thank you. That was thoughtful.’ It was an effort to get the words out, but her heart warmed a little. She really hadn’t expected much in the way of kindness from him. Knowing what he thought of her, it was completely unexpected and, oddly, made her want to cry.
She wasn’t hungry, though. The mere thought of eating made her stomach churn, and she wondered frantically how she could dispose of the food without being found out, because she didn’t want to hurt the feelings of whoever had gone to the trouble of preparing the tray for her.
Twisting her hands together she said, ‘Goodnight,’ in what she hoped was a tone of polite but firm dismissal.
But Lucenzo gave her a small humourless smile and stated, ‘I’ll go when you’ve eaten. Every scrap.’
He meant every word of it; she could see that, she thought morosely. With a sigh of sheer fatalism she perched on the extreme edge of an armchair, tugged the tray towards her over the shiny surface of the low table, gave him a thin smile and grumbled, ‘You’re just like my mother!’
As Lucenzo took the chair that was angled towards hers he murmured drily, ‘You liken me, Lucenzo Verdi, to a middle-aged lady?’ and for Portia the atmosphere lightened, just a little.
He hadn’t taken offence, despite his words. There was a gleam of humour in his fine eyes, and a barely controlled twitch played around his beautiful mouth. She felt the weight of his constant displeasure lift from her weary shoulders, and that led her to pick up a fork and dig it into the omelette she hadn’t wanted.
It was light and fluffy and stuffed with buttery mushrooms—and quite, quite delicious. She explained earnestly through a mouthful, ‘I didn’t mean you look like a sixty-year-old retired schoolmistress—you just have the same attitude. Domineering, cold, always telling me what to do.’
‘I am not always cold,’ he replied softly, and Portia shot him a startled look. Relaxed back in the chair, his long legs outstretched, he was watching her from beneath lowered lids, and something in those veiled eyes sent a fizzy shiver down her spine.
Smartly averting her eyes, she reapplied herself to the last of the omelette. But her throat felt tight and it was difficult to swallow, and her body jerked involuntarily as he asked, ‘Did you always do as you were told?’
He saw her rigid shoulders relax as she responded to the lightness of his tone, and the compassion he’d felt over the last couple of hours became more securely grounded. Dinner had been a desperate ordeal for her, in spite of his father’s attempts to put her at her ease, and against all of his instincts he’d pitied her deeply when she’d clumsily blundered away from the table in Ugo’s wheelchair-pushing wake.
When he’d prevented her from following she’d seemed so disorientated, utterly exhausted, and all he’d done, he reminded himself sourly, was to accuse her of being drunk!
Despite what he knew of her lack of morals, you couldn’t help feeling sorry for another human being who was floundering way out of their depth. ‘So,’ he prompted gently, ‘did you always follow orders?’
He watched a sad little smile wipe some of the weariness from her face as she laid down her fork and turned to him.