Lottie gave him her best imperious stare. Just because he had come over all Mr Spontaneous, it didn’t give him the right to mock her.
‘I am just trying to be practical. What about the car—the one I drove here in?’
‘All sorted.’ He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. ‘There is really nothing to get worked up about.’
‘I am not worked up.’ She modulated her voice accordingly. ‘How long would we go for?’
‘Until we know for sure that you are pregnant.’
‘Two weeks!’ The voice soared again. ‘Surely you can’t just drop everything and go away for two weeks?’
‘There are such things as computers, Lottie, and phones and modern technology. I’m not suggesting we paddle up the Amazon and live in a mud hut. I can work quite well from the villa. Neither am I suggesting that we drop everything, come to that. Let me put your mind at rest on that score.’
Well. That was her firmly put in her place.
‘There is one thing, though. The villa is unstaffed, with this being a spur-of-the-moment decision. There is no one around. I could arrange it, of course, but I’ve decided not to bother. I thought we might enjoy having the place all to ourselves.’
CHAPTER FOUR
SITTING ON THE terrace of Villa Varenna was like having been transported to a different world. Only a few hours ago she had been lying on a hospital bed, staring at the central heating ducts. Now dusk was turning into night over Lake Varenna and the colourful lights of the properties scattered along the shoreline were glittering like a necklace of jewels. As the sky turned a milky blue against the jagged black shapes of the mountains the water was transformed to a luminous purple.
Lottie had never been able to get used to this—the sheer wealth and privilege of the Revaldi family. It was so far removed from her own upbringing she had never felt comfortable with it; growing up in a suburban semi had hardly prepared her for this. Her life had been all Neighbourhood Watch and twitching curtains—her own mother having given them plenty to twitch about when she had arrived back from yet another little holiday with a suntanned gentleman and a giftwrapped memento of some exotic place she had no doubt viewed from the deck of a cruise ship.
It was different for Rafael, of course; he had been born into this lifestyle—it was a part of him, who he was. And along with the wealth and privilege came an enormous amount of commitment and hard work. Lottie had seen for herself the weight of responsibility that came with the title of Conte di Monterrato—a title that had passed to Rafael on the death of his father.
Lottie had never met her father-in-law, Georgio Revaldi. He had died suddenly when she and Rafael were still living in Oxford, effectively ending their fairytale life there and then. Because that was what it had been, Lottie now realised. A Rafe and Lottie fairytale—a glorious, passionate, heady love affair that had been far too perfect to make it in the real world. It had been inevitable that the story would come to an end, that the book would eventually slam shut.
They had met one drizzly afternoon in Oxford when Rafael had appeared through the steam of the espresso machine in the coffee bar where Lottie had worked. Two hours, several cups of coffee and an impatient queue of customers had seen them briefly sketch in their lives to each other. Rafael had been finishing his business doctorate at the university; Lottie had ben in her third year at art school. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world that he would wait for her to finish her shift, that they would then run together through the full-on rain to Rafael’s favourite English pub and arrive, laughing and dripping over the towelling bar mats, already totally and recklessly in love.
Because it had been reckless—especially Lottie getting pregnant so quickly. Even though they had been thrilled—speechless with joy, in fact—it had meant a hastily arranged wedding in an Oxford register office, and in retrospect Lottie could see that was hardly what Rafael’s father would have wanted for his only son and heir. That in all probability she was not what he would have wanted for his only son and heir.
But she’d never had the chance to find out because Georgio had died shortly after their wedding and that was when everything had changed. Rafael had hastened back to Monterrato, taking with him his pregnant bride, throwing Lottie into the totally unfamiliar role of wife of the Conte. And with the principality seeming to take up all of Rafael’s time cracks had started to appear in their relationship even before the tragedy of Seraphina’s death.