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‘Luisa came from a large family; besides she and Lorenzo there are six other children, but probably because they were twins she took her brother’s death particularly hard. Giuseppe was my only sibling; I too was in distress. We comforted each other—friendship, nothing more at first, but Luisa became very attached to me.’ His voice was almost expressionless and tight.
This was difficult for him. She could see it in the tense jaw and narrowed mouth as well as hear it in the purposely blank voice.
‘When I realised how Luisa felt I tried to end the attachment and remain friends but she became virtually suicidal. Her father was having health problems at the time, which was an added strain for her, and she had never really been close to her mother. So…’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I allowed myself to be governed by what I now see were misplaced emotions, such as pity and duty. I liked Luisa, we got on well and she was desperate to be my wife. Marriages have been built on less solid foundations and gone from strength to strength.’
‘But yours didn’t?’ she asked carefully.
‘Luisa was happy.’
It was no answer. ‘And you?’ There was a long pause and then, as he turned to face her fully, she read the answer in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Slade.’ And she was.
‘Don’t be.’ He made an irritable movement with his head and she sensed he was regretting making himself vulnerable by revealing so much. ‘There were no almighty rows, no hard times, not really. It could have been a lot worse.’
‘Do you miss your brother?’ she asked gently.
Emotion thickened his voice. ‘There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of him,’ he admitted. ‘My mother found his death very hard to come to terms with. Giuseppe was close to her—as close as I was to my father; we used to joke about it at times, say it was our parents’ choice of names that had caused it. I was named after my English grandfather, Giuseppe after my mother’s father. But we were a happy family; there was never any unhealthy rivalry or conflict between us as with some siblings. We had some good times together,’ he finished simply.
And then his father had died unexpectedly and a few years later his brother. It must have made the shock of Luisa’s accident and Francesco’s injuries doubly hard to come to terms with, she thought intuitively. So many goodbyes in such a short time.
‘Let me get you another drink.’ She had been sipping her fruit juice as she had listened to him and now she handed him the empty glass without a word, watching him as he weaved in and out of the crowd who were now beginning to spill out into the garden of the lovely villa where the party was being held, which was in the same street as the concert building. A small band was beginning to play in one corner of the shadowed rectangle of lawn and the warm evening air was heavy with the scents of magnolia flowers and recently cut grass as Daisy stood by the open French windows.
She turned from the brightly lit room and looked out over the scene in front of her, the mauve-tinted dusk mellowing the picture into fairy-tale etherealness. He had said Luisa was happy. Did that mean his wife hadn’t guessed that he didn’t love her as passionately as a man should love the woman he was married to? she asked herself silently. If that was the case he would have had to work hard to make it so. Or perhaps the fact that she had his name, his ring on her finger and, more importantly, his son had been enough for her. Oh, what did it matter anyway? She was suddenly angry with herself that it did matter so much. Luisa had died tragically young, as had her twin—two tragedies of momentous proportions—and if Slade had made her happy in the short time she had been alive that was all to the good.
‘Would you like to dance?’ He had come up behind her and now he placed the two drinks he had been holding on an occasional table and took her hand before she could formulate a refusal. ‘Come on, the night is still young.’
‘No, I don’t think…’ It was too late, she knew it was too late; they were already halfway across the small patio and approaching the other couples who were dancing closely to the strains of a waltz, the music soft and dreamy.
‘Vittorio is not a lover of pop or jazz,’ Slade said softly as he took her into his arms. ‘He prefers Strauss and the classics, and I have to admit there are times when they come into their own. Like now.’
This was dangerous—he was dangerous, Daisy thought desperately as she looked into the dark eyes which were glittering with warm amusement. And the music was dangerous when it allowed him to hold her so close! But it was wonderful too, heavenly…
She hadn’t waltzed for years, not since she was a gawky eleven-year-old at a relative’s ruby wedding, and then her partner had been an equally gawky thirteen-year-old who had trodden on her toes and smelt of the salmon sandwiches he had been consuming all night. The experience had been altogether forgettable.
Slade did not smell of salmon sandwiches; neither did he tread on her toes.
He had drawn her into his arms gently but firmly and now, as he swept her into the dance, she found he was a superb dancer and it was the easiest thing in the world to follow his lead.
As the dusk deepened hundreds of tiny fairy lights twinkled on in the trees bordering the garden and Daisy felt as though she was in a dream, a dream where she was floating in the arms of a handsome and gallant knight—albeit a black knight in this case, she warned herself silently, trying to hang on to common sense.
She had never, ever danced like this in her life, though, she thought dizzily. This was the stuff of fantasies
and daydreams, not real life. But real life told her it was Slade’s muscled strength that was holding her close, his body which was causing a warm, sensuous pleasure to flood her limbs and flush her cheeks. And she didn’t want it to stop, not ever. If they could just dance like this for the rest of their lives, close, their bodies touching and the delicious smell and feel of him all about her, she would be content. No past, no future, just a fairy-tale present where the prince had eyes only for his princess and where she was desired and adored.
And Slade did desire her. The thought intruded as, in spite of the cool control he was exercising and the command he had over all his movements, his body demonstrated he was very aware of her soft shape against his. And she wanted him. Physically she wanted him very, very much.
As the music stopped he held her against him for one more long moment and then he carefully put her from him, his voice husky as he said, ‘Let’s get something to eat and a drink a mite stronger than fruit juice, eh? You cannot do full justice to Vittorio’s excellent food with the liquid accompaniment of mere fruit juice; it just isn’t done.’
‘No?’ She smiled, trying to match his lightness, but it was hard.
He was holding her away from him and studying her face, a sexy quirk to his mouth, and it was in that moment that a whole host of warning bells began to clang in her brain.
‘No.’ The quirk changed to a grin and then he dropped a kiss—a light, casual kiss—on her lips and took her hand as he began to lead her back to the house, his movements lazy and unhurried.
She was falling for him. Her heart was thudding and she felt strangely tremulous. And not just physically either. And she mustn’t. She really mustn’t. Ronald had lived a double life and his philandering and last betrayal had killed her daughter. And she hadn’t known. At no point had she known; not even in those last few months they had been together, when she had sensed something was badly wrong, had she imagined he had another woman—that he had had many other women. He had deceived and cheated and fooled her, with his vigorous desire for her body and his smooth, lying mouth. And she couldn’t, she just couldn’t, go through any of that again. She was free now and she had to stay that way.
She drank the glass of champagne Slade placed into her fingers straight down but the fear was still as hot and strong when she’d finished, and she was trembling deep inside.
