The Italian's Wife

curtains glided back and the first model strolled out, looking

impossibly haughty and

superior until she espied Rio and flashed up a seductive smile instead.

From that first moment Holly was entranced. She had never been to a

fashion show before and the knowledge that the display was being put on

for an audience of two just blew her mind. The descriptions of the

various outfits were double Dutch to her, but every item struck her as

the ultimate in colour and design. She was totally undiscriminating, for

she could not imagine actually wearing such elaborate garments. She was

learning what women who had pots of money and little to do but look good

wore and it was an education.

'You enjoyed that...' Rio was watching her intently as the curtains

finally glided shut.

'Yes...thanks,' she sighed, her slow smile breaking out like sudden

sunlight.

'So now you go and try on all the selections I made.'

'But why? I'm never going to wear stuff like that in my life!' Holly

protested in honest bemusement. 'I'm much more downmarket than that and

quite happy to be. Where on earth would I wear suits and long dresses?'

Disregarding that argument, Rio lifted her down from the stool and sent

her in the direction of the saleswoman awaiting her. She was taken into

a room where she became the centre of a throng of eager helpers. A whole

selection of shoes and handbags were already standing by. She was

whisked into outfit after outfit and marched out onto the catwalk.

At first she was self-conscious and she stood there like a plum with Rio

telling her to move about, but then someone put on background music with

a dance beat and Holly got into the spirit of the occasion. She began to

pose, eyes wide in a pretence of haughtiness, shoulders thrown back in

what she hoped was a model-like manner. Every time

58

he laughed she clowned a little more, answering amusement sparkling in

her eyes, but her greatest pleasure derived from his.

'Put on the green dress,' Rio told her when her own personal show was at

an end.

He could buy her one outfit. That was OK, Holly thought in considerable

relief. He really wasn't a very practical bloke. A couple of skirts and

tops and new trousers from a chain store would have been much more

sensible, and heaven only knew what even just one designer 'ensemble',

as the saleswomen called them, cost in such a fancy place!

The dress bared her shoulders and rejoiced in a fabulous boned velvet

bodice and a flirty skirt that came to her knees. She absolutely loved

it. In the mirror, she saw a fashionable stranger, a young woman who

just might have been a high-society party girl without a care in the

world. It was just an illusion, she knew that, but it had been so much

fun and she would never, ever forget the experience. She walked out to

rejoin him, conscious of the unfamiliar height of the heels on her

shoes, and with her entire attention pinned as though magnetised to his

darkly handsome face.

'You look gorgeous, cara.' Rio lifted something furry from a nearby

chair and draped it round her shoulders. 'And now you look like a queen.'

There were mirrors everywhere. Now she studied their twinned reflection,

the impossibly smooth and rich pale blonde fake-fur falling to mid-calf,

the raised collar providing a glamorous contrast to the vivid fall of

her hair. His proud head above her own, his tall, dark, powerful figure

backing her slighter build. 'Do you flog dreams for a living?' she asked

unsteadily, shaken by that view of them together, committing it to

memory, knowing that dreams didn't last. 'You ought to.'

'The day's not over yet.'

But it was already evening. She had not realised how late it had got

until they were ushered from the building and she saw the fading light.

'Does that place always stay open to this time?'

"They stayed open just for us,' Rio informed her lazily. 'We'll dine now.'

Ezio Farretti straightened from his lounging position against the bonnet

of the limo. He stared at Holly and his whole face tightened and he

turned away.

'Why did Ezio look at me like that?' she whispered in dismay.

'Ezio shouldn't be looking at you in any particular way,' Rio

pronounced, a cool, hard edge to his dark, deep voice that made her tense.

He took her to a restaurant which appeared to be the very last word in

exclusivity. The head waiter surged to greet Rio. He took the attention

as his due and it was obvious that he was a regular customer. As Rio

strolled between the tables the low buzz of conversation died and a kind

of unearthly hush fell. Every head in the room seemed to be swivelling

in their direction. Several people addressed Rio, but, with only a word

of acknowledgement or a cool inclination of his dark head Rio kept on

moving.

Holly dropped down into the seat spun out for her occupation by an

attentive waiter. 'Why do I get the feeling that everyone's staring at us?'

Rio lifted one broad shoulder in a slight fluid shrug that was the very

essence of supreme cool. 'They're staring at you-'

'Me?' Holly exclaimed in lively astonishment.

60

'Speculating on your identity. You do look incredible in that dress.'

Locked to the brilliance of his tawny appraisal, she felt her heart race

like crazy behind her ribs and she smiled. She didn't believe that

anybody had the slightest interest in her but she liked the compliment.

However, she went on to study her enormous menu in growing dismay. At

first glance the menu seemed to be in English, but what was a sorbet? A

croustade? A coulis?

When the waiter reappeared, perspiration beaded Holly's short upper lip,

because she was still looking frantically for a dish she could recognise.

'I'd recommend the sorbet,' Rio murmured.

'OK, yes...I'd like that,' Holly hastened to confirm with relief.

Rio was being a very entertaining companion when something that

resembled a pudding in a tall glass was set in front of her. She tried

not to seem surprised and just ignored it, because she couldn't work out

which of the many items of cutlery she was supposed to use to eat it and

Rio had confounded her by ordering soup. She would have loved soup but

she hadn't seen it anywhere on the menu,

'I'm not really that hungry,' she said as the sorbet was borne off, but

in truth her stomach was meeting her backbone and she felt on the brink

of starvation.

'I love salad,' she dared when it came to the next course, and then

inwardly cringed when it seemed that that was actually a special order

and there was such a carry-on about what kind of salad she wanted. Just

shove some lettuce on a plate, she wanted to scream.

She knew she used the wrong knife and fork for the salad because as she

picked them up the waiter was trying to remove them, but she braved it

out as if she hadn't noticed that. At least she got to eat and, although

dining out with

Rio was an enervating challenge, he did not appear to notice her silent

agonies of indecis

ion.

She triumphed, or thought she did, when it came to the dessert course.

'Chocolat' had to be chocolate. But the menu won all over again when her

selection arrived. A sparkly cobweb thing covered a shell containing a

mixture which she couldn't get at and a lot of leaves and tiny red

berries were scattered round the edges. The latter tasted poisonously

bad and put her right off the rest of it.

'You should be eating more,' Rio scolded, ignoring the greenery on his

own plate and heading straight for his mouthwatering meringue concoction

with a fork. A fork?

Suddenly, Holly was very grateful that she had pushed her own plate

away. Hunger was better than public embarrassment, and as soon as

everyone had gone to bed she would raid his kitchen fridge.