While they were here they could put all that aside. ‘Chillax’ and be comfortable. Just as Salvatore was urging her to be.
Certainly the rest of the day had been relaxing. After they’d unpacked and had a cup of coffee out on the veranda they’d gone for an exploratory walk along the shore. The narrow path wound along the lake’s edge, with more paths leading off it, up into the mixed deciduous and evergreen forest on the steep hillside. They’d returned as dusk gathered, and Salvatore had lit the log burner more for cosiness than warmth, before making dinner.
It had been a simple affair—pasta in a ragu out of a bottle, with parmesan grated by Salvatore—washed down by a robust red. Dessert had been a chocolate cake freshly baked at the palazzo, rich with icing. They’d eaten in front of the fire, then finished off the bottle of red wine playing board games they’d found in a cupboard, before going out to look at the lake in the starlight. A crescent moon had just been clearing the hills, thin in the heavens.
But Salvatore had made no attempt to take advantage of her. Scrupulously he had kept two metres from her as they’d paused to listen to the owls hooting in the distance, and they had not stayed out long. Back indoors, they’d time-sliced on the bathroom facilities, and Lana had just clambered up to the mezzanine to hurriedly tug on the longest tee shirt she could find by way of night attire, while Salvatore took his place in the bathroom.
She was asleep before he emerged.
She awoke to the aroma of coffee from the kitchenette below, and Salvatore bidding her to come down for breakfast. Pulling on shorts and a fresh tee, and a pair of canvas shoes, plaiting her hair into a long tail, she shinned down the ladder to see Salvatore, in a checked shirt, jeans and trainers, frying bacon and tomatoes, and toasting rolls out of a packet.
Again, just as he had the previous day, he struck her as being surprisingly domesticated. Reassuringly so.
He turned and smiled at her. ‘Sleep well?’ he asked.
‘Like a log,’ she answered. ‘How about you?’
‘Another log,’ he assured her, then suggested she laid the outdoor table, bathed in warm sunshine already.
Ten minutes later they were seated, demolishing a hearty breakfast.
He was easy company, obviously relaxed and obviously cheerful, talking about what they might do on this their first day here. They decided on an easy hike up into the forest, in green and dappled shade, which they did, not talking much, for it would have spoilt the wooded quietness all around them.
They descended back to the cabin for a lunch of ham, salami and strong cheese, with tomatoes and peaches and thick-cut bread—eaten, like breakfast, outdoors—and Salvatore, Lana discovered, had plans for the afternoon.
‘The chalet comes with a rowing boat,’ he told her.
It was pulled up just beyond the solar panels, and also came with fishing tackle. Salvatore, it seemed, was an enthusiastic fisherman.
Lana made no objection to lolling back in the rowing boat when he shipped oars and dropped his line, waiting for a bite at the bait. She did object, however, to gutting the fish after he’d despatched them with a sharp but swift blow to the head against the gunwale.
Watching him deftly make them barbecue-ready with a couple of neat knife-thrusts, she found it hard to think of him as either a high-powered businessman or the elegant man-about-town of elite Roman society.
‘So, where did you learn to gut fish, then?’ she enquired lazily, glancing at him curiously.
‘My father,’ he replied.
For a moment she thought he was not going to say any more. Then he did. Looking out over the sunlit lake as he spoke.
‘He took me fishing sometimes. At sea—off his motorboat. We’d drop anchor and spend the afternoon and evening out on the water. He didn’t talk much, but I didn’t mind. It was good just to be with him. It didn’t happen very often. Nor did the fishing expeditions. He only took time off when his life got too complicated—even for him.’
Salvatore hadn’t tensed, but there was an acerbic tinge to his voice now.
‘Complicated?’ Lana echoed.
It seemed strange to think of Salvatore as a young boy. A boy with, it seemed, complications in his family.
‘My father,’ he said, his tone still acerbic as he looked away over the lake, ‘would sometimes set up a new mistress without informing the current incumbent—who would then kick off. So he would take off out to sea, where neither could get at him, while they fought it out between themselves.’
She was silent a moment, and so was he. Then... ‘It must have been difficult for you,’ she said quietly. For all their wealth, his had not been a happy family. It saddened her to think so, to think of him growing up in that way.
His head turned, dark eyes going to her. They were shadowed, and she knew instinctively that he was veiling what he was feeling. That was something she knew all about. She, too, had learnt to hide her tearing grief at her parents’ dreadful death.
‘Not nearly as difficult as it was for my mother,’ he said.
With a sudden gesture, he flung the extracted innards of the fish he’d caught out into the lake water. Then, dropping the gutted fish into the plastic box he’d brought for the purpose and rinsing his hands, he looked at Lana.
‘Theirs,’ he told her, looking straight at her again, with a shadow deep in his dark eyes, his voice clipped, ‘you will appreciate, was not a happy marriage.’