'Of course I do, but…' Grace's voice trailed away and she made a small sound of exasperation in her throat. 'Oh, Claire, there's so much I want to tell you but I don't feel it's my story to tell. I made a promise—' She stopped abruptly and then said, 'Bianca wasn't what she appeared, that's all I can say, and I've really thought over the last few weeks that Romano was interested in you.'
'Interested?' Claire laughed bitterly. 'I think he'd tell you that himself, but only as far as how we'd be in bed together and that's not enough for me—not feeling as I do. Look—' she turned round to face the room, forcing a smile to her face '—don't look so tragic—it's not the end of the world. I'll get over it.' Never, her mind shouted.
'For now we've both got to get ready for the party, and then I'll only have another day with you. We aren't going to spoil it talking about this. Go on, go and start getting ready and I'll do the same,' she said brightly, walking across and giving Grace a hug before ushering her to the door. 'We'll eat, drink and be merry, yes?' Her words mocked her.
'I feel awful about this, and I can't believe Romano has behaved so badly,' Grace said miserably as she stepped onto the landing. 'I feel I don't know him.'
'He hasn't, oh, Grace, he hasn't,' Claire said quickly. 'He told me right from the beginning, when he realised we were physically attracted to each other, that a short affair was all he could offer. He was totally up-front, it was me that…well, you know. The trouble is I didn't choose to fall in love with him,' she added quietly, her brown eyes liquid pools. 'It just happened. I didn't want it to.'
'I know.' Grace stared at her for a moment and then hugged her again before turning and walking quickly away, her head bent.
This was going to be one riot of a party, Claire thought grimly as she forced herself to turn on the shower and begin preparing for the night ahead. Grace would tell Donato and that would mean both of them would be feeling uncomfortable and upset, and the very last thing in the world she felt like doing herself was smiling and chatting and being sociable. Romano wouldn't come, of course…
She stripped off the bikini and stepped under the warm silky water in the smart shower cubicle, letting the flow wash over her upturned face for some minutes before she began to wash the chlorine out of her hair. But she couldn't have fobbed Grace off with an excuse, not again, not after what Donato had seen and surmised. What a mess. What an incredible, tangled, painful, messy mess.
'You look gorgeous.'
As Claire walked into the drawing room where Grace and Donato were sitting waiting for the first guests to arrive her friend's undisguised admiration and Donato's open-mouthed stare confirmed what the mirror had already told her: the dress had been worth every penny. The only trouble was the person it had been bought for would never see it.
Nevertheless, their reaction enabled her to say, with a lightness that was purely manufactured but which she hoped would put them at their ease, 'Do I normally look that bad, then?'
'Not at all.' Donato recovered first, leaping to his feet and smiling as he said, 'What would you like to drink? Your usual white wine?'
'No, not tonight.' Tonight she needed something more than white wine to get her through. 'Is that one of your cocktails you're drinking?' she asked brightly, indicating the glass of pale amber liquid Donato had placed by the side of his chair. The golden frothy drink looked as harmless as ginger ale, but to the uninitiated it had the kick of a mule, and that was just what she needed, she told herself desperately. 'I'll have one of those, if I may.'
'What a good idea.' Grace, who never touched anything stronger than wine herself, nodded in agreement. 'I'll have one too.'
'Right.' Donato clearly didn't consider it a good idea, but just as clearly he wasn't going to argue in view of the circumstances.
By the time the first guests arrived some thirty minutes—and two cocktails—later, Claire was feeling a little more relaxed and Grace was positively fluid—so much so that Donato removed his wife's glass with its last dregs and carefully refilled it with fruit juice.
'Well, here we go, then,' Grace muttered in an aside to Claire as they heard Anna open the door and speak a welcome in volatile Italian. 'The party from hell is about to begin.'
'Oh, Grace.' She hadn't thought anything could bring a smile to her lips tonight, but her friend's dramatic comment, which nevertheless exactly summed up how she was thinking about the evening, managed it. It somehow confirmed Grace's love and support too, more than any flowery words or demonstrative shows of affection could have.
The party did begin, and continued to move on, but that was the most Claire could say about it. She smiled until her face ached, laughed and chatted and accepted the numerous compliments that came her way with grace and aplomb, avoided Attilio's love-lorn gaze whenever she could and smiled brightly at him when she couldn't, and all the time her heart was breaking.
There seemed to be so many subtle reminders of Romano within the elegant, wealthy crowd. The elusive whiff of aftershave on clean male skin, the way the odd male held his head, an occasional husky laugh, the broad set of a pair of muscled shoulders…
'How are you doing?' Grace slipped a supportive arm around Claire's waist as she murmured in her ear, 'Donato is full of admiration for you and the way you're handling this, you know.'
'Is he?' It was no comfort at all.
'I'm going to announce the food is ready in the marquee in a minute, and there'll be dancing on the main lawn afterwards—the band's just arrived. You will eat something, won't you?'
'Of course I will. Stop worrying,' Claire said quietly.
She did manage to force a small amount of the food Attilio insisted on fetching past the lump in her throat, but her plate was still three-quarters full when she pushed it away. Dusk was beginning to cast blue-grey shadows over the garden, and already the hundreds of tiny lights that were threaded through the surrounding trees twinkled and shone in the dim light.
The whole scene—the exquisitely dressed women with their elegant partners, the beautiful garden with the majestic lines of Casa Pontina in the background, the lilting music from the band to which several couples were already dancing—took on a slightly unreal quality as she gazed around, becoming dreamlike, illusory.
'Claire?' Attilio rose from his seat beside her, bending slightly as he stretched out his hand. 'You will dance with me? Please? I would like to have that to remember,' he added, somewhat pathetically.
'I don't really feel like dancing, Attilio.' The thought of any other man holding her in his arms was obnoxious right at that moment, besides which the band were playing a slow, romantic number, and she didn't want to encourage the desperate devotion that had been on Attilio's face all night into something else.
'Please?' He continued to stand there, his hand outstretched, and after a few embarrassing moments when she was aware of covert glances in their direction, she rose to her feet.
'Just one dance, then,' she said gently.