'You have to understand—' As Donato's voice interrupted them again he swore once before calling back, 'In a moment—we will be there in a moment,' without taking his eyes off her stricken face. 'Claire, you have to understand that I can't give you what you want—'
'Which is?' she cut in shakily.
'Commitment—any sort of real commitment.' The words hung there for a second, stark and chilling, before he said, 'That is what you want in a relationship, sì? I know that. That is why I haven't touched you in the last weeks—' He broke off abruptly, shaking her slightly before he said, 'Don't look at me like that. This may not be what you want to hear right now, but it is the truth.'
"Then why tonight?' she asked with painful directness, her heart pounding.
'I do not know why tonight,' he said, with a flatness to his voice that made her blood run cold. 'I did not mean it to happen, but you were so— Oh, hell, you almost drowned,' he added, with a savagery at variance with what had gone before.
'So you were being kind, trying to be nice to me?' she asked in a small, quiet voice. That was it—he felt sorry for her. He had seen the scars, sensed her embarrassment, and he was trying to be nice to her. She wanted to die.
'Kind?' He stared at her as though she were mad. 'What has kindness to do with anything?'
'You…you felt sorry for me,' she stated flatly. Her voice was as expressionless as his had been previously, but her whole body was beginning to shake with a reaction to all it had been through since she had first heard Lorenzo call.
'Do not talk such rubbish, woman—' he began tightly, only to stop abruptly as he took in her trembling. 'Dammit, you're cold. You will be ill. I should never have kept you out here.'
He had whisked her off her feet again before she realised what was happening, but she felt too weak and spent to make any protest, shutting her eyes and keeping them shut even when Romano carried her into the house and up the stairs to her room. It was only after he had placed her carefully in the big cane chair in her bathroom, and Gina and Anna were fussing around her, that she forced herself to enter the land of the living—and only then because she knew he had gone.
'Lorenzo?' she asked faintly, cutting into the maids' effusive praises as they stripped off her top and panties and helped her into a steaming bath.
'He is OK—he is very OK, sì?' Gina said reassuringly, running still more hot water into the bubbly scented foam. 'The signore and signora, they are with him, and he just have the…how you say?…the sore throat, sì? From the water he swallow? But he OK. The doctor, he come soon.'
The doctor did come soon, and after he had finished giving Lorenzo the all-clear he came along to Claire's room, popping his head round her door to observe her lying pale and wan against the heaped pillows, her hair spread out in a shining chestnut arc behind her as she allowed the last traces of dampness to dry in the warm room.
Grace had been in and out for the last little while, flitting between Claire and Lorenzo's rooms like an anxious mother hen. But now the twins had woken and were demanding their dinner so she was occupied in the nursery—for which Claire was thankful. She wanted nothing more than to shut her eyes and go to sleep, to blot out the thoughts that were screaming and shouting in her head, painful, torturous thoughts.
'Ciao, Claire.'
She liked this doctor. He was the same one who had attended Grace before the twins' birth and she understood he had been the Vittoria family doctor for years. 'Hello, Doctor.' She tried to smile, but to her horror in the next moment she had burst into tears, and he was sitting on the bed patting her hand like a comforting old woman.
It was a minute or two before she could control herself, but he said nothing, quietly waiting until she had dried her eyes and then saying slowly, 'Is this just because of the swimming incident, or is there something more, Claire?'
'I…' She blinked into the wise old face for some moments, and then decided honesty, or partial honesty at least, was the best policy. 'There is something else, a problem that has been getting me down,' she said slowly. 'I…I feel it would be better if I left Italy, that I could cope better at home, but I don't like to walk out on Grace when she needs me.'
'I think it was good that you came when you did, and I am sure you would be welcome to stay for as long as you like, but the crisis has passed, sit Grace can manage perfectly well now, I am sure.' He smiled at her and she managed a tremulous smile in return, her brown eyes swimming. 'This… problem—it is an affair of the heart?' he as
ked perceptively, and when she nodded, went on, 'Sì, it normally is at your age.'
'You think Grace doesn't need me here any longer?' she pressed again. 'Really?'
'I think she likes having you here, but, no, I do not think she needs you in the way you mean,' he said quietly. 'Grace is an intelligent woman. She knows you have your own life to lead and that this time was temporary. I am going to give you something to help you sleep now, and in the morning you can review the situation and do what you think best with a clear head. Now is not the time for decisions of this nature.'
She lay very still waiting for the pills to work once the doctor had left, her eyes moving slowly round the beautiful room and her mind picturing the rest of the house and the gardens beyond. She would miss Casa Pontina, she would miss Grace and Donato, and Lorenzo and the babies, but, oh, she had to leave—she must. This evening, that time in the garden when Romano had held her in his arms, and now this talk with the doctor—all told her that her time here was finished.
She didn't need to wait and review the situation and her head had never been clearer. She loved a man who was as far out of her reach as the man in the moon. A man who could have any woman he wanted to satisfy his physical needs, a man who was powerful, wealthy and handsome. But worse, much worse, she loved a man who was in love with someone else—albeit that the object of his devotion had been dead for three years.
Since that evening in the hospital, when he had told her about his parents and his loveless childhood—the way he had relied on Donato and his family for everything that should have come naturally from his own kin—since then she had known deep in her heart that there was no chance, ever, for her. Because Bianca had been his childhood sweetheart and more, much more than that. She had been part of the good side of his life, from when he was a boy, a necessary and integral part of himself. She could see that now.
He might have had other girlfriends, played around a bit the way wealthy young bachelors in his privileged position were almost expected to do, but Bianca had known she'd had his heart, and when the time was right he had seen it too and married her. The perfect couple. Until fate, in the guise of a fast sports car, had taken a hand, that was.
Her eyes were dry now—achingly, bitterly dry. The pain was too deep for tears.
CHAPTER EIGHT
'A Farewell party?' Romano's eyes shot from the invitation in his hand, which Grace had just handed him, to Claire's face. 'You are leaving?' he asked tightly. 'When?'
'In a couple of weeks.' She was amazed her voice was so steady. This was the first time she had seen him since the pool incident three days earlier, although he had telephoned the house the morning after to enquire as to how she and Lorenzo were. 'And Grace is insisting on a party.'