And then he was striding towards her through the crowd. He came and took the glass from her and lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing her in full view of everyone. Something in Alicia’s chest hardened—still the act, the show of public respectability. He was certainly getting his money’s worth, she thought with uncharacteristic cynicism.
They started to make their way out of the room and were almost at the door when Dante stopped so rapidly that Alicia bumped into his back. She looked around to see what the hold up was and saw a woman addressing him. She looked to be a few years senior to Alicia, closer to Dante’s age. And she was very beautiful. Thick black hair, dark olive skin and green almond eyes. In fact, she was exquisite. More than exquisite.
Alicia couldn’t understand what they were saying but she didn’t mistake Dante’s tension or the way his hand had tightened almost painfully on hers. He’d even moved her so that she was a little behind him, as if to stop her witnessing this. Feeling suddenly enraged at this behaviour and even more so if this was some ex-lover of his, she pulled free and stepped around to face the woman.
Her green eyes were hard and cold and took Alicia aback. But she was determined to be the one to show good manners, even though her heart was breaking a little apart because surely this woman must have been a lover—she was too gorgeous not to have been.
She held out a hand. ‘Hello, I’m Alicia.’
The woman just cast a disdainful look at her hand and turned back to Dante, a sneer on her lovely face—which didn’t actually look so lovely any more. She spoke again, rapidly.
Dante said something harsh and the woman stopped talking, her mouth mutinous, ugly.
Alicia couldn’t stop herself. ‘Dante … who is this, please?’
He didn’t even look at her; he kept looking at the woman, his expression so cold that it scared Alicia. ‘This,’ he said and his voice matched his look, ‘is no one. ‘
And with that he grabbed her hand again and pulled her after him and out of the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHAT shook Alicia up more than anything was the thought that perhaps some day she’d ru
n into him again, exactly like that, and he would look at her with the same arctic coldness while clutching the hand of another woman. And she couldn’t bear it. She knew the moment had come and she almost welcomed the events of the evening, what she’d witnessed. It was a sign.
Once inside the dimly lit palazzo she pulled back from him when he would have reached for her hand to lead her up to bed.
He looked back at her, the impatience on his face nearly funny, except Alicia didn’t feel like laughing. She spoke and thankfully her voice was steady. ‘Dante, who was that woman?’
He frowned. ‘It doesn’t matter who she is; I told you she’s no one.’
Again that chilling tone. It cut through her.
‘Of course she’s not no one Dante, she’s a human being. An ex-lover?’
She held her breath.
‘Why do you want to know?’ he hurled out, getting angry. His reaction made her even more determined.
‘I want to know, Dante, because whether you like it or not, we have a relationship and quite frankly it scared me the way you treated her.’ She turned away from him, afraid he might see something in her eyes, and went into the drawing room. One lamp glowed in the corner, sending long shadows across the floor. She heard him come in behind her and turned back again, wrapping her arms around herself.
He stood in the doorway, six feet four inches of bristling, angry, taut male. And she had no idea why he was so angry.
‘Well? Why can’t you tell me? Is it a bit inconvenient having your lovers run into each other?’ She laughed harshly. ‘I’m surprised you’re not used to it; after all there must be enough of us.’
He strode in and stopped just inches away; she could see that he was restraining himself from touching her. She wasn’t scared; she knew he wouldn’t touch her in violence. But he was livid.
‘And which rag did you read that in, Alicia?’
‘No, let’s not make this about me. Your reputation is well-known, Dante; you said it yourself when you asked me so nicely to come to the conference in the first place.’ A poisonous image inserted itself into her mind’s eye, and the memory of the way he’d dismissed that other woman in his life so summarily. She couldn’t stop, the words came pouring out. ‘The woman on the steps of the hotel that night in Lake Como; you’d just come from her bed, hadn’t you?’
A dull flush coloured his cheekbones. That memory was utterly toxic to him now.
‘See? So please, spare me.’ She folded her arms and moved back, chin tilted up with all the defiance she could muster. ‘So are you going to tell me, or just run around the city bumping into women and freezing them out … the same way you’ll freeze me out some day, no doubt.’
Dante couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.
They should be in bed now. When he thought of that woman all he felt was disgust. And now Alicia was digging, insisting on finding out.