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‘You’ve clearly been trying to speak with me, yet now you’re running off.’
‘I’m hardly running—my shift is over.’
‘Let’s go for dinner.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you want me to say, Alicia?’
‘How about,It would be nice to catch up?’
‘That would be a lie,’ Dante said. ‘I don’t enjoy rehashing the past. And I don’t appreciate that I am suddenly popular now.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You wouldn’t believe how many people try to get hold of me—people from the village.“Oh, Dante, remember the village dance.” “I was just thinking of you, Dante...” “Dante, Dante, Dante...”’ He looked at her. ‘It is not just women who rewrite the past, I get offers of business from the same men who once would not even let me clean their chicken coops.’
Alicia took in a breath, recalling how cruel those times had been.
‘The head of the school I attended writes annually, asking me to give a donation and return to give a speech. I remind him that from the age of ten I barely attended. I’m very used to being looked up—although I have to say your methods are a little more ingenious.’
‘So I am in the same basket as old acquaintances or your headmaster. We werelovers.’
‘Alicia, we were hardly lovers...’ He leant in, and her throat tightened as he told her in less than romantic terms that they had had sex only once.
Her eyes flashed, yet still she refused to meet his. ‘No wonder the nuns warned me about you.’
‘They were right to.’ Dante shrugged. ‘I, too, warned you not to get involved with me.’
He had.
‘Yet here you are,’ Dante said.
‘No.’ She corrected. ‘Hereyouare, Dante. I was actually on my way home.’
‘True,’ he conceded. ‘And although I don’t usually take oldloversout for dinner...’ he paused and gave her a black smile ‘...I’ll make an exception for you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I owe you an apology.’ He looked mildly pained to admit it.
Alicia was about tell him he most certainly did, but she stopped herself—because even if she wasn’t very responsible with her own heart, when it came to a child’s she was. And to unleash her hurt might cause dreadful pain to Roberto and his adoptive family.
‘I can’t be seen with a guest at the hotel...’
‘We’ll go elsewhere.’ He shrugged. ‘Up to you,’ he said, in that same take-it-or-leave-it tone he’d used before, and then he walked off.
Was it for Beatrice that she considered following him? Or was it to gauge whether she should tell him he was a father? Maybe just to end things on a better note than they had this morning?
It took her a moment to collect herself, and another moment to catch up, because he did not slow his stride.
And, although it felt strange to walk again with Dante by her side, there was a certain familiarity to it that she dared not examine.
He was stunning.
Or rather, he stunnedher.
Of course she had seen it this morning, his raw beauty. Dante before he faced the world had been so perfect that she had wanted to lick him, to kiss his face off, to be lost in him. Not much had changed now, except he was dressed in all his finery—a tailored suit, hand-stitched shoes and a tie that had certainly cost more than her entire wardrobe combined.
