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CHAPTER FIVE
GIOVANNI watched the woman who walked alongside the pool towards him.
She was the epitome of elegance—her pure silk dress in a buttery-cream colour setting off the raven-dark hair and the huge, black-fringed brown eyes. Her face was serene, on her lips a smile of calm acceptance—an easy pleasure at seeing once more the man she had known for all her adult life.
He felt the deep, sharp pain of regret.
‘Giovanni!’
‘Hello, Anna.’
She moved straight into his arms, but he could not bring himself to hold her other than awkwardly, as if she were composed of some brittle substance, and his touch might contaminate her. She pulled away, her brow criss-crossing in a frown.
‘What is it, caro?’ she demanded.
What way to tell her? Though the notion of not telling her was even more unthinkable.
He knew that most men of his acquaintance would put the whole experience down to a fleeting temptation of the flesh, not worth confessing to because of the consequences of such a confession. But Anna was the woman he knew. The woman he had always intended to marry.
‘Giovanni!’ She was looking at him now in alarm. ‘What has happened to make you look this way? Is someone sick? Has something happened to the business?’
He met her stare without flinching, and it was perhaps because she knew him so well, and had known him for so long, that a horrified look of comprehension began to dawn in her dark eyes.
Her voice grew faint. ‘Tell me!’
He had no desire to hurt her, but hurt was an irrevocable repercussion of his actions. His mouth hardened. ‘I met someone—’
He heard her pained intake of breath, and he flinched as he saw the hurt that clouded her eyes.
‘And…’ He hesitated, trying to pick out the least wounding words of all.
‘And what? The truth, Giovanni!’ she demanded, in as furious a tone as he had ever heard.
‘I slept with her!’
There was a short, shocked silence before she spoke.
‘How many times?’
Her question astonished him. ‘What?’
‘You heard me! How many times did you sleep with her?’
‘Once,’ he answered heavily. ‘Just the once.’
‘Only once?’ She frowned at him in disbelief.
‘Once!’ he emphasised bitterly, his blood heating his veins with shameful pleasure.
She shook her head and let her eyelids flutter down to conceal her eyes. ‘Oh, why did you have to tell me?’ she whispered.
His heart beat strong with the burden of guilt. ‘You needed to know the truth.’
But she shook her head once more. ‘No, Giovanni,’ she said acidly. ‘You needed someone to share the burden with, didn’t you? To ease your conscience! Most men would have filed it away under an experience never to be repeated—especially if, as you say, it was just the once.’
But her words leapt out at him like tiny barbs. If, as you say… She would never trust him again. He knew that. The rest of her life would be spent watching him. Waiting for him to slip. Always wondering…
‘Anna, I’m sorry—’
