‘No?’ His smile died. ‘But I do know this man let you down in some way, and I would like to know what happened,’ he said with utter seriousness.
Something in his voice—a tenderness, maybe?—caught her unawares and changed the nature of the conversation.
‘If you can bring yourself to talk about it, that is.’
‘I told you. I’m over him,’ she repeated quietly.
‘But there is still sadness and even disillusionment. Your own words prove this.’
Cherry shrugged. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal how easily Angela had enticed Liam into her clutches. There was an ignominiousness to it all that still smarted. But perhaps it would be easier to tell Vittorio if she was going to be around for a few weeks? If nothing else, it would convince him she had no intention of going from the frying pan into the fire and that any kind of dalliance with him was out of the question.
She kept her eyes on the dazzling white wall of the house opposite them across the cobbled road, the blazing sunlight turning its window boxes of brilliant red geraniums so bright the contrast was unreal, and began to speak. She told him it all. It seemed pointless not to. And it didn’t take very long. When she’d finished she still didn’t look at Vittorio straight away, reaching for her glass and taking a long sip of her wine before she raised her eyes to his. They were waiting for her.
‘I have known women like your sister,’ he said softly. ‘Just one or two. Predatory females who are never satisfied with what they have. I have the feeling Liam has got exactly what he deserves. She will make his life hell. You know this?’
Cherry nodded. Yes, she knew it. She had seen it happen before. But the strange thing was the men concerned still wanted Angela no matter what she did. It was as though she injected a love drug into their system and they were addicted from the first kiss. To her knowledge, not one of Angela’s conquests had ever thrown her over. It was always the other way round.
‘These people are shallow and without foundation,’ Vittorio went on. ‘Unable to feel deep emotion and incapable of contentment. Every generation breeds a few of both sexes and it is your misfortune to have one as your sister. They make everyone they come into contact with miserable eventually. It can be no other way. But her power will be defused when you show her you know what she is and that she cannot hurt you or influence you.’
‘But she can hurt me,’ Cherry pointed out. ‘She has. Often.’
‘Only because you let her,’ he said, very gently. ‘And Liam was not the man for you or he would have been immune to her wiles. Love can cut through the power these people exert like a knife through warm butter.’
It was all very well for him to say that. He didn’t know Angela or her mother, and he hadn’t grown up in Angela’s shadow like she had. The very concept was inconceivable to him.
‘Your mother? She is not a happy woman?’ Vittorio asked perceptively.
Cherry thought about it and realised with a little jolt of surprise that her mother was far from happy. ‘No,’ she admitted.
‘Because all the time she is trying to reconcile what she wants her daughter to be and what she knows deep in her heart she is. No doubt your sister plays your mother’s heart like a violin. As I said, these people cause everyone who is close to them to suffer in one way or another.’
Cherry drank the last of her wine just as the waiter appeared with the two espressos Vittorio had ordered.
Once they were alone again, Vittorio looked at her with a small smile playing round his lips. ‘Wondering how I know so much about such people, mia piccola?’
His question so accurately reflected what she was thinking that she suppressed a nod of agreement.
‘It is because I had a lucky escape from one such woman a long time ago,’ he said softly, without waiting for her to speak. ‘For a short while I thought my heart was broken. It was not, of course. And then events transpired which caused me to reflect that a tongue that carries the sweetness of nectar can be a fatal trap to the unsuspecting bee, rather than a source of life and joy—especially when that tongue is in a beautiful face with an enchanting body to accompany it.’
Was he talking about this Caterina Sophia had mentioned? The woman he’d been about to marry when his parents were killed and who’d then married one of his friends? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. Instead she sipped her espresso before she said lightly—in a deliberate attempt to break what had become a disturbingly intimate atmosphere—‘So now you go from flower to flower and never linger too long?’
He didn’t join in her casualness. ‘Not exactly.’
He didn’t elaborate, and she felt like a child who’d spoken out of turn. She wondered how it was that this man always seemed to put her in the wrong even when she was right.
The stubbornly immovable custom of the siesta was drawing near, and in the next moment or two the waiter appeared with their bill. They left the little trattoria and made their way back to the Range Rover, and this time Vittorio did not take her hand. Cherry wondered why she felt bereft and told herself not to be so stupid, at the same time berating herself for agreeing to stay at the Carella villa. She’d made some bad decisions in her life but this had to be the worst.
Once in the vehicle, Vittorio turned to her. ‘I have not met your sister, mia piccola, but of one thing I am sure. She does not have the beauty of her sibling. You are beautiful, whatever you think to the contrary.’ He leaned forward, tipping her chin up with his forefinger and kissing her lightly, trailing his lips across hers before settling himself into his seat and starting the engine.
Cherry couldn’t have moved if she had wanted to. She closed her eyes for a moment as they got underway, willing herself to keep still and pretend nothing had happened. She didn’t want to be attracted to this dark, volatile stranger who curiously didn’t feel a stranger; she couldn’t let herself go down that route. He lived in one world and she in another; they were different in every way. He had a magnetism that would draw women from puberty to old age. She—well, she was Cherry Gibbs from England, unremarkable, conventional, no great shakes. That was reality. That was fact. Even if they began something—her stomach did a cartwheel—she would be a ship that passed in the night as far as he was concerned. Whereas for her…
‘You are very quiet.’ He glanced swiftly at her before returning his gaze to the road ahead.
Cherry mustered all her will-power to lie convincingly. ‘I was thinking about Sophia. I hope she’s feeling better.’
‘Sophia will be fine.’ He dismissed his sister with a coolness that told Cherry he hadn’t forgiven Sophia yet. Something his next words confirmed. ‘She has got what she wanted, after all. To be Santo’s wife. Never mind the furore her determination has caused.’
‘That’s a bit hard,’ Cherry protested.