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A bedside light had been left on, and when she saw that he was alone she let out an involuntary sigh of relief.
He was sprawled on his stomach, one long leg straight, the other bent at the knee, and his arms were spread as if he were swimming, perhaps doing the front crawl, with his face turned to the side to breathe...
She blinked, for it really was better not to remember their time in the river.
Oh, but even in dim lamplight Alicia could see that, as if to taunt her further, Dante had changed.
Each time she saw him he grew finer.
The boy she had called Ragno had been scruffy. Feral, some had called him. Trouble. Yet not to Alicia. When Beatrice had chosen to study or read she would take the secret path he had shown her to the river and sometimes find him there.
Together they would swim and jump logs, or swim underwater, seeing who could hold their breath the longest. Or they might play in the empty stone hut. He would eat the food she had brought, while Alicia would pretend it was their home.
He’d made summers fun...
Then Dante had turned into a youth, and the boy who’d had no friends except her had become the boy all the girls wanted. Alicia had not been able to see what all the fuss was about.
Until she suddenly had.
But by then they no longer held hands.
She had been fourteen when he’d left for Rome to find his father, though their lazy days by the river had started to peter out well before then, and jealousy had invaded her as he’d slept his way through the village girls but would never so much as kiss her.
He had returned a man—and a very beautiful one at that. Dark, brooding and completely forbidden, he had taken her within hours of his arrival.
Well, not taken, exactly... Alicia had been willing.
More than willing...
She had asked him to be her first.
Yes, she might have seen him in the hotel foyer a couple of times since then, but he’d always had company and walked straight past her. Now he lay dark and unshaven, his back muscled, his buttocks barely covered by a silk bedsheet and the soles of his long feet incredibly clean. Alicia knew his every toe—and that was why she hated him so.
Yet there was also an unforeseen urge to touch that naked shoulder and gently stir him awake. To feel his skin beneath her fingers again as she gently called his name—Dante...
Instead, she kept to the script she had so carefully crafted. ‘Signor Schininà...?’
He didn’t stir.
Alicia put down the tray and then turned and took in the rich disarray of his room. His jacket lay discarded on the floor, there was uncorked champagne in the ice bucket and plates with the remnants of cheeses, figs, grapes... But Alicia ignored them and moved towards the many windows, opening the first of the drapes on the Duomo view.
The vista from here was stunning, and she focused on the cathedral. It looked like a fairy tale, lit up against a bright blue sky with sunrise mere moments away.
Perhaps he had timed his request so that he could watch the fingers of light...?
No. He definitely had not.
‘Chiuse—’Dante groaned, and told the maid to close the drapes.
He knew full well that the sunrise would be too much for his fractured mind. She perhaps did not hear him, given his throat was dry, but as he peeled open his eyes he forgot where he was.
Standing looking out of the window was a woman—though it was not the feminine curves that had him taking another look, more the way her hands were resting on her hips.
It was the way Alicia would stand and gaze out at the view from the clifftop, or look up in awe at the trees that sheltered their stretch of river.
God... Dante closed his eyes in case a herd of pink elephants started marching past, for he was clearly hungover indeed if he was conjuring up Alicia.
Another night spent wining and dining international clients at a casino... Soon, Dante told himself, he would never have to set foot in such a place again. Soon, Dante thought, he could give this life a Sicilian kiss goodbye and turn his back on the lot of them.
