A Dangerous Solace

She swayed slightly and before he could leap up to catch her dropped to her knees in front of him. She clutched at his shoulders. ‘Oh, yes.’

He framed her precious face, kissed her temples, her eyelids, her sweet nose, her magnificent cheekbones, the full lush contours of her lips. The face he so loved.

‘I love you,’ he whispered. ‘I loved you from the moment I first saw you in the cathedral, wearing that blue dress with the flowers in your hair. And when I saw you in the old ballroom of the palazzo, watching me, I thought, It’s her.’

‘Did you?’ Her mouth was smiling, her lashes low.

‘So I followed you.’

She shook her head. ‘You made me dance with you and I couldn’t dance.’

‘I don’t remember that. I remember I kept pulling you close and you kept trying to put space between us.’

‘I didn’t know you.’

‘You knew enough.’

He chuckled and kissed her—really kissed her—deep and slow.

‘I knew it was you that day in the street,’ he muttered against her soft mouth. ‘I just didn’t know I knew.’

‘I came to Rome to find you,’ she confessed. ‘Although I didn’t know it at the time.’

It was some minutes before he remembered what was burning a hole in his shirt pocket.

He reached in and extracted the stone, gently laid it in her palm.

Green fire.

‘I will have this made into a ring for you, Ava mio. It will be yours. Ours.’

She looked into his eyes, her heart shining in them.

When they emerged into the street below the rain had stopped, but the roads were wet and there was a pungent smell in the air. He didn’t have a jacket to give her, and it wasn’t warm, but he was taking her somewhere that didn’t matter.

‘Where are we going, Benedetti?’

‘I thought we’d walk for a while, Ava mio, find a little church and get married.’

‘Can we do that?’ Her voice floated up among the pigeons roosting in the window grooves above them.

‘Well, there are banns to be read, and the matter of your citizenship, and I suspect the priest will be in his bed at this hour...’ Gianluca drew her in close against him. ‘Then again, innamorata, this is Rome.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Ava, resting her head over his heart. ‘Anything’s possible.’