She stared at him. Not only had the conversation suddenly become very serious, but she felt she’d been well and truly put in her place by an expert. Which maybe she should have expected.
Sophia must have thought so too, and clearly didn’t intend to stay around for an argument to develop. She stood up, dropping her linen napkin on the table as she said, ‘I have the headache, Vittorio. I think I will go to bed. I am sorry, Cherry, but I shall see you at breakfast, si?’
Aware Vittorio’s sister was trying to deflect an altercation purely because she didn’t want anything to spoil her plans, Cherry forced a smile. ‘Yes, of course.’ They both knew she was going to see Sophia before that, if Santo reacted as Sophia expected and came to the house to speak to Vittorio.
‘You are not staying for dessert?’ There was a note of amazement in Vittorio’s voice. It was clear his sister had a sweet tooth. ‘It is your favourite.’
‘No. Buonanotte, Cherry.’ Sophia walk
ed behind Vittorio’s chair, ostensibly to kiss her brother on the cheek but at the same time giving Cherry a meaningful look. ‘Buonanotte, Vittorio.’ And with that she made a hurried escape.
As Sophia left the room the two maids bustled in to remove the dirty dishes and serve dessert. This consisted of caramel oranges and home-made ice cream, along with a plate of cheeses including two local ones—canestrato pugliese, a hard sheeps’ milk cheese, and burrata, a creamy cheese within a cheese, surrounded by a ‘skin’ of mozzarella—both of which Cherry had tried before and liked. But suddenly she couldn’t eat another thing. It had been one thing to agree to Sophia’s pleading that she break the news to Vittorio in the safety of her bedroom, quite another with Vittorio in front of her. Her heart seemed to want to leap out of her body, and she was glad she was sitting down as her legs had turned to jelly.
‘Have I grown horns?’ he murmured softly.
‘What?’ Too late she realised she was staring at him. Hastily she tried to school her features into a more acceptable expression. Not the best start to a difficult conversation.
‘Just because Sophia has left the room, I am not about to leap on you and have my wicked way.’ He smiled, but it didn’t reach the slate-grey eyes. ‘You are quite safe, mia piccola.’
Shocked, she gathered her wits. ‘I know that,’ she said tightly. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all.’
‘Of that I have no doubt, but I think it wise not to enquire further. I have the feeling my ego would be more bruised than it is already.’ He waved a bronzed hand at her dish of caramel oranges and ice cream. ‘Eat your dessert. Margherita will be bringing coffee shortly, and then you can run away again.’
It was the ‘again’ that did it. Glaring at him, she stiffened. ‘You really are the most arrogant man I’ve ever met.’
‘I prefer that to mediocrity,’ he said mildly.
Impossible man. Impossible situation. ‘I was thinking about you—but not in the way you mean.’ In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘I have to talk to you about something.’
‘Si? And this something turns your face to one of fear and alarm? This is not good.’ He looked at her intently. ‘You are a criminal running from the law? Is that it? Or maybe you are here to—how you say?—case the joint? Is that right?’ There was amusement in his voice. ‘Relax, Cherry. Whatever it is you wish to say, it cannot be so bad.’
She returned his stare mutely, inwardly cursing her weakness in agreeing to Sophia’s ridiculous demand.
He had been eating as they talked. Now he pushed his empty dish away from him, saying, ‘You are not going to eat your oranges? Not even a bite or two?’
‘No. No, thank you.’ At the moment they’d choke her.
‘Then we will have this so important conversazione over coffee on the veranda, si?’
Before she could object, he had stood up and moved round the table to draw her chair away. Taking her arm, he led her through the dining room’s French windows and out on to a balcony which ran along the side of the house. It held several comfy chairs and sofas, along with low tables on which citronella candles were burning, presumably to keep away troublesome insects.
Cherry made sure she seated herself in one of the chairs rather than the more intimate sofas. She saw Vittorio’s black eyebrows quirk but he said nothing, sitting down opposite her just as Rosa came through the French doors. The maid said something in Italian, to which he answered, ‘Si, Rosa. Grazie,’ before turning to her and saying, ‘The coffee will be here in a few moments.’
Cherry nodded stiffly. She wished it was this time yesterday. A week ago. A month ago. She had accepted this man’s hospitality, swum in his pool, eaten his food and drunk his wine, and now she was about to repay his kindness with the sort of news she wouldn’t have wanted to spring on her worst enemy. Whatever way you looked at it, it was a bum deal.
Before she could speak, Vittorio said softly, ‘Look at the sky, mia piccola. It is aflame with stars and glowing with the colours of celestial bodies—a night when starlight throws long shadows on the gardens and the countryside, and makes strange apparitions out of the trees, the buildings and us. A night which reminds us how small and insignificant we are and how timeless is the past and the future.’
Cherry didn’t look at the night sky. She looked at Vittorio. And in that moment she knew she was attracted to this handsome, autocratic stranger in a way she had never been attracted to a man before. She had known it from the moment she laid eyes on him, which was why she had fought it so ferociously.
The shadows had carved dark hollows in the male bone structure, but his eyes were glittering granite as he looked into the heavens. And then he turned to her, a self-disparaging smile on his face as he murmured, ‘But I digress. What is it you wish to tell me, Cherry from England?’
CHAPTER FIVE
CHERRY was always to remember the next few minutes. They would be burnt into the very fabric of her soul. Rosa stepping through the doors with the coffee. Vittorio pouring her a cup of the rich dark liquid with its fragrant aroma. The scent of the candles and the sudden cry of a startled bird disturbed in its refuge for the night. They all led up to the moment his gaze held hers and he said again, ‘Well? What is it?’ as he lifted his cup to his lips.
There was a faint ringing in her ears, but she knew she just had to say it, baldly and with no lead-up, or she would lose her nerve. ‘It’s about Sophia. The reason she has been so difficult for the last month or so—’
‘Multiply that by twelve and you are about there,’ he interrupted sardonically.