AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Alicia followed Maria to a seating area that had a set of bleachers and they sat down. She explained to Alicia that the young adults were all ex-members of the orphanage and street centre who took time to come back and help out.
Alicia couldn’t stop the ache in her heart. Here was the evidence—she watched as Dante caught a small girl up and held her high, making her laugh—he could love. He did have the capacity. Just not for her. And then she felt awful for even thinking of herself like that when these kids had no one … especially as she had been one. She knew.
She turned to Maria, pushing down the ache. ‘OK, what can I do to help?’
Maria looked at her, clearly taken aback. ‘You … you want to help?’
‘Of course.’ Alicia stood up. ‘Come on, they all look like they’re having way too much fun without us.’
That evening, as the sun set and the kids were changing out of their wetsuits, chattering and jumping around, Dante leant against a wall and took a deep slug from a bottle of beer. His eyes darted around and finally found what—who—he was looking for. And when he did, he wished he hadn’t. She was still in a wetsuit, her hair a mass of damp curls on top of her head. She looked about eighteen and she had a queue of children lined up in front of her as she tended to each one, doling out plasters, rubbing cream into cuts and bruises. None of the children were really hurt beyond a couple of flesh wounds from horseplay but he’d never seen them line up like that before. His eyes went back to her. She hugged a little girl tight and kissed her on the head before sending her away with an affectionate pat on the bottom.
Maria came up beside him, shaking her head in awe, and said in Italian, ‘Dante, she’s—’
He cut her off ruthlessly. ‘I know.’ He took another sip of his beer. He didn’t want to hear it. Since they’d come back to Italy, since he’d had Alicia more or less to himself apart from the odd social occasion, he’d convinced himself that he’d been in the first flush of some crazy lust phase in South Africa, letting her get to him like that, under his skin.
Keeping her in his apartment, exclusively for him, all he’d had to think about was sating the physical desire. They’d talked, yes, and he’d been pleased to discover that they had many common interests, her dry sense of humour that was so like his own … but it had only enhanced what was, for him, a very physical affair.
A short time later Alicia joined him at the Jeep, back in her own clothes. The kids had just been loaded back on to the bus—there had been too many for the plane—and it had pulled away with much beeping and shouting. She couldn’t stop smiling.
‘That was the best day … thank you. I really love—’ She halted under his stern gaze, the words dying.
He frowned. ‘What is it?’
She shook her head and he shrugged and went to her door, opening it. Her heart hammered. The words had been trembling on her lips, she’d been about to say, love you. And thank goodness she hadn’t.
She walked to her door and he helped her in. She watched him walk around the front of the car and thought that she’d never figure him out, even if she had a lifetime.
That night, back at the villa, they made love with an almost savage intensity. It felt, inexplicably, as if they were heading for some kind of reckoning. As she lay in his arms afterwards, unable to sleep but listening to his breathing even out and deepen, Alicia knew that intensity had come from her because the time had come to walk away. Today she’d felt something close to normal again—interacting with the children, tending to them, had been so rewarding. She knew that with each day that passed she was diminishing more and more and soon she’d be a shadow of her former self.
‘I’ll be back this evening at six, the function starts at half past, and Signora Pasquale will deliver the dress at five.’
‘Dante, there’s no need for a new dress—it’s crazy—I’ve brought some with me.’
He shook his head. ‘I told you before, the cost is nothing. And tonight is important.’
Alicia shrugged and watched him get up from the lunch table.
They were back in his palazzo in Milan, in preparation for the big charity ball. They’d arrived by helicopter earlier that morning. Patrizia was gone, back to school, and her mother was in residence again.
When he had gone, Alicia wandered around a little disconsolately. She tried to phone Melanie to see how she was but there was no answer at the house in London. And she couldn’t get through on either her mobile or Paolo’s. She wasn’t unduly worried, she knew they usually went for a gentle stroll in the late afternoon if Paolo could get off work early.
Signora Pasquale’s assistant arriving distracted her and by the time she’d washed and dressed, it was nearly six.
Alicia heard his steps on the stairs but stayed looking out of the window. He approached behind her, his scent winding around her like a sensual cloak. And, like clockwork, her heart started to thud heavily, her pulse jumped. He came very close then and pressed a kiss to the bare back of her neck, she closed her eyes in response and at the sweet pain that gripped her.
‘Bella, Alicia.’
She turned around then and he swept that hot black gaze up and down, taking in gold chiffon folds that fell from under her bust in layers, down to her feet.
His brow quirked. ‘Shoes?’
She stuck out a foot and showed him the funky gold wedges Signora Pasquale had found. She smiled even as her heart ached. ‘I’ve learnt my lesson one too many times now. Me and heels just do not go. Wedges are the way forward.’
Her hair was piled high, curly tendrils escaping. Golden hoop earrings swung against her slim neck, a single gold bangle encircled her tiny wrist.
Dante’s chest felt tight. ‘Let’s go.’
Despite the wedges, Alicia’s feet were beginning to hurt. The dinner was long over but people still milled around the glittering ballroom in one of Milan’s oldest buildings. Dante had given a speech, again showing her, uncomfortably, that if he had a passion for something, he was a force to be reckoned with. She took a sip of champagne, she wasn’t going to wallow in that self-pity again.
