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Sorcha could have wept as he led her down a long corridor to an old-fashioned bathroom—but what choice did she have other than to go with him and submit to getting dry? She could hardly claim that she would prefer to catch a debilitating chill if only he would look at her properly.
He was quiet and absorbed as found her a giant warm towel and gave her one of his T-shirts.
'Put this on’ he said abruptly. 'I'll go and make us some coffee. '
And then he left her, struggling and feeling more than a little foolish as she stripped off her soaking clothes and rubbed the big towel over her shivering flesh. The T-shirt came to halfway down her thighs, and her nakedness beneath it made her feel vulnerable. But she felt vulnerable in other ways too—and the heart was a far less resilient organ than the rest of the body.
She found that he had changed into a dry pair of jeans and was just putting two mugs
of coffee onto a tray. He glanced up.
'You look shattered, cara' he said slowly, his voice sounding distant against the still-raging
storm.
Their eyes met. Could he read the silent appeal in hers? Or was he simply choosing to ignore it? And if so—what did that tell her? She had come all the way out here, hadn't she? Her pride would not let her throw herself down and beg him to want her, to offer her something from the heart if he had nothing to give. 'I am pretty shattered,' she agreed.
'Then let's take this through and go to bed.'
His eyes and his voice and his body language indicated nothing other than practicality. If it was emotion she had been praying for, then it looked as if she was going to be disappointed.
She followed him into a bedroom which was darkened by creaking shutters which rocked in the storm, and he drew her down onto the bed and into his arms, covering them both with a blanket.
For a moment Sorcha held her breath, but even though he was holding her close to his warm chest—as if he were shielding her from the elements outside—she still felt as lost as if she were wandering around outside in the storm.
He hadn't told her how he felt about her. He hadn't mentioned anything about whether they had any kind of future—but she told herself that wasn't the reason she had confessed her feelings. She'd said it because she had needed to—and because he'd needed to hear it. Even if they were destined never to be together she knew she would never have forgiven herself if she hadn't.
But her heart ached as they lay there while the wind raged and the storm lashed and the sound of thunder split the sky. Tight in his arms, her head on his shoulder while he stroked her hair, Sorcha stared at the dark shapes around the room until her eyes began to grow tired, and then her eyelids drifted down and she slept.
When she awoke, it took a moment or two for her to remember where she was—and with the calmness of morning came a sense of disbelief. Had she really just flown out here on a whim and told Cesare that she loved him?
She looked at the man in the bed beside her and moved a little. But Cesare was still sleeping. She wriggled away from him but he didn't stir. How ironic it was that she should have longed for so long to sleep with him, and that—when it had finally happened—the reality had been nothing like her dreams. They had shared the same bed with a chasteness which now seemed to mock her.
She went to the bathroom and washed her face and hands, and then, her head and her heart still full of uncertainty, went outside.
In the fresh, rain-washed light of the morning in the aftermath of the wild storm the villa looked exquisite. It was all so very beautiful—and so unexpected.
Sorcha had never imagined that roses could grow close to olive trees—but there were fragrant pale pink roses with water still dripping from their petals as they curved over an arbour which led from the house, and an olive grove glinted silver in the distance. The vineyard lay to the other side of the villa, with its rows upon rows of fruit-laden vines. The grass was green, and so were the huge mountains which provided such a stunning backdrop.
Sorcha felt a lump well up in her throat as she began to walk—because in the clear light of day what had happened yesterday seemed like a strange kind of dream. Almost as if she shouldn't really be here—that she would open her eyes and find herself back in England, putting on a sharp suit and getting ready to go to work.
She clenched her fists by her sides and willed the tears not to spill from her eyes as she stared out at the beautiful Umbrian countryside.
Lazily, Cesare stirred.
He had been having the craziest dream.
He stretched his arms above his head and murmured, and then his eyes snapped open as he turned his head to the empty space beside him and the indentation of where her head had lain on the pillow.
Had he dreamed it?
He sat up in bed and it all came back to him, like a jigsaw taking shape as all the pieces were added. Sorcha turning up in the middle of the dinner party. The storm. The broken glass. Sorcha telling him...
His eyes narrowed.
Sorcha telling him she loved him.
And him doing a pretty passable imitation of a clam.
