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He was left staring at the phone after she had severed the connection, and it occurred to him that he simply wasn't used to being left hanging on. Goodbyes to women he was intimate with were invariably protracted, with Cesare usually coming up with the let-out clause. I have to go. Someone's trying to get through to me. And then he would receive a breathless apology or a pouting little protest on the lines of Oh Cesare— you're always so busy!
But he was only busy when he chose to be. He had reached a position of
power and authority when it was always possible to delegate. These days he cherry-picked his jobs with the same ruthlessness which had taken him to the very top of the tree.
He had inherited much from his overambitious mother and father—including a need to make it in his own line of business, despite the vast amount of wealth he had inherited after their deaths.
His eyes narrowed suddenly as he glanced around the empty car park and the concrete jungle beyond, inexplicably comparing the scene with his orchards back home in Italy, and suddenly he felt a great pang of homesickness.
He drew out a set of keys from his pocket and looked up at the sky. By travelling the world he was missing all the seasons, he realised—the natural pace of the world was passing him by.
He thought about the August crop of damsons which grew in the gardens of his villa. About how they became so plump and ripe that they tumbled from the trees—glowing on the grass like purple jewels with succulent golden flesh inside. They would be out soon, he realised.
How long since he had bitten into their sweetness and let their juice run over his lips? How long since he had given himself time to gather in the harvest?
And why had this place suddenly made him start thinking about home? Cesare frowned as he thought about the rural retreat he'd bought as an antidote to the cold splendour of the Roman mansion in which he had spent a lonely childhood.
I need sex, he thought, as he loosened his tie and headed towards his car. Just sex.
And tonight you are going to get it, he thought with a slow smile of satisfaction as he climbed in behind the steering wheel of his sports car.
Sorcha stared out of the window to the front lawn, where a peacock was strutting and fanning its deep shiny turquoise feathers, squealing like a newborn baby.
Her hand fluttered to her throat to play with the pearl which hung from a fine golden chain, and she could feel a pulse beating at the base of her neck. It was almost as if she needed to touch herself to check that she was real—for she felt curiously detached, as though this evening was happening to someone who wasn't really Sorcha Whittaker, someone who had taken over her body for a while.
Because the real Sorcha Whittaker didn't have gasping orgasms across the boardroom table from a man she was certain despised her. Nor would the real Sorcha Whittaker have changed her outfit four times this evening until she was sure she had struck just the right balance.
Except that she still wasn't sure she had made the right choice, and there was no opportunity to try another because the long silver bonnet of Cesare's car was nosing its way up the long gravel drive.
The bell rang, and she ran downstairs and opened the door to see Cesare standing there, his head slightly to one side. He had taken his tie off, but otherwise he looked the same as he had done at work—save for a hint of dark shadow at his jaw.
With the evening sun behind him his olive skin looked almost luminous, and his thick hair was as darkly glossy as one of the ravens which sometimes strutted across the lawn before being chased away by the peacocks.
'Hello, ’ she said, and suddenly she felt confused. This felt like a date, and yet she was damned sure it wasn't a date. It was nothing more than a sexual liaison—a settling of old scores. But she felt as shy as a woman might feel on a first date—and that was even more peculiar—because how could any woman in her right mind feel shy after what had happened between them today?
Maybe because she wasn't in her right mind.
Cesare's eyes flickered over her. She was wearing some floaty dress in layers of green, with tiny little gold discs sewn into the fabric, her hair was loose down her back and she wore gold strappy sandals to flatter her bare brown legs. 'Pretty dress’ he murmured.
‘Thank you. ’
'You're ready?' He could see the wary expression in her eyes as she followed him out to the car and he told himself that it was inappropriate to ravish her on the doorstep—particularly since her mother and her brother might be around. Of course they might not be—but if he asked, then it would make him sound...
As if he was abusing the hospitality they had offered yesterday—just as they had offered all those years ago?
But it was actually more complex than that—because Cesare realised that he hadn't taken memories into account. He hadn't realised that they were such a powerful trigger into feeling things you didn't want to feel—until you reminded yourself that memories were always distorted by time. They had to be. They weren't constant— because no two people's memories were ever the same, were they?
Yet being with Sorcha like this mimicked a time when life had felt so simple and sweet—when he had felt unencumbered by anything other than the long, hot summer and the slow awakening of his senses.
But there was that distortion again—because that hadn't been part of Sorcha's agenda, had it? While he had been handling her with kid gloves she had been leading him on—playing with him with the clumsy confidence of a child who had mistaken a tiger-cub for a kitten. And she was just about to discover what it was really like in the jungle...
'Music? ' he questioned, once they had strapped themselves into the car.
Sorcha sank into the soft leather of the seat. 'If you like.'
He slid a CD into the player as the car pulled away in a spray of gravel, but Sorcha almost wished she could tell him to turn it off again as the most heartbreakingly beautiful music swelled up and resonated through the air, so that you could hear nothing else but the voice and the song.
It was a man, singing in Italian, and she couldn't understand a word of it—but maybe she didn't need to. All she knew was that it was the most beautiful and sad song she had ever heard. It made her think of love and loss—and pain and happiness—and the man beside her. Sorcha closed her eyes.
