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His flight to Sicily had long since departed. And there would be nothing now until the early morning. Night flights were banned—their intrusion into the quiet, sleeping skies around Heathrow not allowed.
He thought about what options lay open to him.
He could go to the airport and wait. Drink some unspeakable coffee while he contemplated his impetuous folly, and thought through the inevitable conclusion of what he had done.
But he shook his dark, gleaming head as if in answer to his unspoken question.
Inactivity would lie too heavily on his conscience.
And on his heart.
He accelerated as if he was aiming for some invisible finishing barrier and headed west.
He drove like a man on a mission—though he was cautious enough to observe the speed limit, but only just, even though the roads were empty of police cars. He had played the devil with fate once already tonight, and a speeding ban would end this remarkable night on an even more bitter note.
His body was still pulsing with the remembered warmth of her body and he uttered a soft curse in Sicilian as he felt the renewed ache of desire. But he forced it away, because the time for passion was now at an end, and he must address the consequences of his actions.
He had betrayed Anna with a woman he scarcely knew—so what did t
hat say about him? More importantly, what did it say about their relationship?
He gave a sigh of regret mingled with anger. He had thought that his life with Anna had been happy—hell, it had been happy, but now for the first time he was compelled to acknowledge that something was missing from their life together, something which had never occurred to him was lacking until he had found it with someone else.
Passion.
The question was whether he was prepared to forgo passion and to cherish instead everything he had shared with Anna.
Or whether Anna deserved better.
He continued to drive though he did not know where, only that the miles eaten up by the machine did nothing to ease his sense of wrongdoing. And it was only when daylight began to break in purest gold shot with rose-pink over the horizon that he slowed down and began to follow the signs back towards the airport.
Unfamiliar light woke her. The cold, clear light of dawn as it flooded through the uncurtained windows.
Kate blinked, her body warm and aching, her mind drifting in and out of sweet, remembered places, and then her eyes flew wide open to greet the pale and brilliant light of early morning as memory slipped sharply into focus, at the same time as did one monumental and heartbreaking fact.
He had gone! Giovanni had gone!
Her heart clenched painfully in her chest and she closed her eyes. Please, please, please…let him still be here, she beseeched in silent prayer.
She held her breath, but the flat remained utterly silent save for the almost imperceptible ticking of the bedside clock whose illuminated face showed that it was almost five in the morning.
She shivered as she remembered what she had done. What they had done. Without thought. And without shame, she told herself fiercely. Maybe it had not been textbook relationship behaviour as taught to her by her mother, but she could not—and would not—regret it.
She pushed the rumpled sheet back and found herself staring with helpless longing at the indentation of where his head had lain on the pillow. She ran the flat of her hand over it, as if that faint touch could magic him back again. And she found herself understanding why women sometimes kissed the pillow on which their lover had rested his head.
She shuddered a breath as hope flared foolishly in her heart. Maybe he was in the bathroom.
But a closer glance around the room killed that hope stone-dead. Only her discarded clothes lay scattered wantonly all over the carpet of the bedroom.
Her cheeks flushed.
It had been beautiful. Passionate and profound. She had felt proud to love him, and had imagined that the feeling had been mutual. A man and a woman sent spinning out of orbit by the power of their mutual attraction.
But if that was the case, where was he now?
She licked at her dry lips distractedly. He had been on his way back to Sicily, she reasoned. Perhaps his business had been of a particularly urgent nature, and he had not wanted to disturb her. Because some unshakable instinct told her that Giovanni Calverri was far too fastidious a man to ever indulge in the transient pleasures of a one-night stand. Why, she had certainly never done anything like it herself!
Which meant that he would almost certainly have left a note.
