Second Marriage

bsp; She had dressed smartly but simply for the visit to Anna and Alessandro's home, her plain, long-sleeved shirt in white silk and tailored jade-green trousers ideal for that occasion, but not for a formal dinner at an ex­pensive—very expensive, if her intuition served her right, Claire thought desperately—and very select hotel.

A quick glance at the tables scattered round the large, barrel-ceilinged room told her that most of the women were in cocktail dresses, although the men's clothes var­ied from full evening dress to casual open-neck shirts and trousers. Nevertheless, the ambience suggested cul­ture and class, as had the car park stocked with the sort of cars that always got a second and third glance.

The waiter who greeted them appeared to know Romano, but she had been half expecting that, and they were led to a table for two near the dance floor, but in an intimate little corner, for which she was really grate­ful. It gave her a chance to relax and get her bearings without any interested onlookers, and also to absorb the atmosphere of the place, which was electric. Diamonds flashed, waiters glided, the music was soft and low and the clientele very definitely the beautiful people—the ones who never glanced at the price tag on anything.

'Do you come here often?' She realised too late it was the ultimate cliché, but he didn't appear to notice, his eyes searching on her face before their dark depths were veiled.

'Not now.' He looked at her impassively, his voice cool. 'But in the past I used to come often.'

He meant with his wife. She continued to hold his glance without flinching, although she longed to break the hold. Bianca would have fitted in perfectly here. All heads would have turned at their entrance—the exquis­itely beautiful woman and the commandingly handsome man. She could just picture it. 'With your wife?' She didn't know what had prompted the words, she really hadn't meant to say them, but they were out, hanging in the air between them like live things.

'Sì.' He didn't attempt to prevaricate. 'She…Bianca liked this place.'

'Did she?' The surge of jealousy was so hot and fierce that it shocked her.

'Do you?' His words were flat, almost expressionless, and yet somehow Claire felt there was something more hanging on them than the actual question that had been voiced.

What should she say? Her mind raced in the few sec­onds before she replied, and then she realised that the truth was the only answer. Simple. She wasn't a Bianca, or a Grace, or anything else but herself. And she liked herself. She hadn't at first, in those first bitter days and weeks after the accident, when she had discovered Jeff had left her and convinced herself she was the most worthless creature on earth, but now? Now she did. She was worth something, she realised, the bolt of awareness hitting her between the eyes. She had known it for some time but she just hadn't acknowledged it in the core of her emotions.

'Yes, it's very nice.' She didn't flinch from the word. 'I like unusual places, something with a bit of character, and this must be very old.'

'Sì.' His eyes had narrowed but otherwise his face remained quite still.

'But…' She hesitated, and then continued, 'It seems a shame that these sorts of places are made into restau­rants and things like that in one way—that we lose a little bit of the true past and reduce it to modern-day living. Do you know what I mean?' she finished uncom­fortably. The nineties are so frantic most of the time, everything seems geared to wealth and power, and peo­ple never stop and assess the true values.'

'You did not tell me you were a philosopher.' It was said lightly, but there was something more there behind the cool words and she stared at him uneasily. 'And what, in your estimation, are the true values, Claire?' he asked quietly, his gaze steady on her flushed face.

The waiter returning with the sparkling pink cocktails Romano had ordered interrupted them, but once they were alone again, the menus in their hands, he looked across at her and said slowly, 'Well?'

'What do I consider true values?' She took a long sip of the delicious drink to combat the quivery feeling in her stomach, the sort of feeling that came with confron­tation, and breathed deeply before she said, 'The sort I've been brought up with, I suppose—family life, hon­esty, contentment—'

'And you think all these people do not have such values?'

'I didn't say that.' She hadn't liked his caustic tone. 'You asked me what my values were and I told you, that's all. I do think that many people seem obsessed with succeeding in this era in which we live, often at the cost of family life and friends. I'm not stupid, I know it's necessary to earn the daily crust and all that, but the spirit of the age seems more…aggressive than that. A woman has to be beautiful, to have a perfect body, the right proportions, and men have to be powerful and wealthy to be respected, to have some street cred. The desire to win at any cost, it's…just everywhere.'

'Umm.' He gazed at her thoughtfully, the black eyes narrowed and gleaming like polished stone. 'You seem a little cynical about your fellow man.'

'I'm not,' she flashed back indignantly. 'I'm certainly not. But I don't see the world through rose-coloured glasses either. Half the world is starving because the other half s governments are too greedy, the rainforests are being destroyed for the same reason, and animals, birds, insects become extinct—and all in the supposed name of progress—' She stopped abruptly as she became aware of his amused speculation.

'What a passionate little thing you are,' he said softly.

'Please don't patronise me, Romano.' It wasn't tactful, and it certainly wasn't the sort of pre-dinner conversa­tion to induce indigestion-free eating, but at that moment she didn't really care. He had asked her how she viewed things and she had told him, and she was blowed if he was going to mock her and get away with it, she thought hotly.

'Is that what you think I am doing?' The amusement died very quickly.

'Yes.' She stared back at him defiantly.

'Then you are wrong,' he said, with a strange, tight grimness that checked more words from her. 'I am not patronising you, Claire, far from it. I envy you. I envy you the ability to care so much, to want to see things changed—'

'But don't you?' she interrupted bewilderedly. 'Surely you must?'

'Must I?' His face was dark and cold now, his voice as thin and deadly as a finely honed blade of steel. 'Why must I? I see nothing in my fellow man to care about. Human nature is rotten from the inside out, and even the veneer of civilisation cannot hide it in the final analysis. Self-love is what drives most people, and it is the only true emotion I know.'

'That's awful.' She stared at him aghast. 'You can't say that.'

'I just did.'

'But you can't mean it,' she objected vehemently. 'What about Grace and Donato? They love each other— really love each other, don't they?'