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‘Please...’ Lucy looked at him, her eyes glittering like the chandeliers above them. Were they tears? Before he could say anything, she grabbed her coat. ‘I can find my own way to my room. The dinner was beautiful. Thank you again.’
And as she rushed out through the door and left him standing at his seat, it was as if all the lights in the room had finally been snuffed out.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCYSHOULDBEEXHAUSTED. However, every time she tried to close her eyes her thoughts shifted randomly, like autumn leaves tossed by the wind.
There was no point to them. Ruminating about what had happened couldn’t change the reality of her life being a mess. But Stefano...his questions. They’d been the sorts of things any person might ask her in general conversation, but it had become all too much. She’d run before she’d collapsed, weeping into her empty plate.
She rolled over in bed to face the fire, which had died down to cherry embers. The part of the sheet she was not immediately lying on chilled against her body and she shivered. Even with warm socks on her feet, she seemed numb. It was as if she’d be cold for ever.
Although tonight at dinner, the way Stefano had looked at her... His eyes, so dark, had pierced right through her. There’d been a hectic glitter in them when she’d removed her coat and he’d taken in her figure-hugging black dress. The one she’d hastily thrown it into her suitcase when she’d fled her apartment after Viktor’s betrayal.Thatlook had heated her to her core.
Lucy wasn’t sure why she’d put on the dress for dinner tonight. She’d hoped to wear it for their first meeting, had her trip gone to plan. Maybe it’s because it was something she’d performed in, and had made her feel competent when nothing about her life over the past months had given her any sense that she knew what she was doing.
Anyhow, what was life if not a performance of some kind? It had seemed for months that she was an actor in her own life, rather than really taking charge. Coming to Lasserno was meant to be her first step in doing that and here she was, trapped in a freezing castle. Shivering, she threw back the cloud-soft down duvet and hopped out of bed, hurrying across the thick carpet to her coat. She shrugged it over her pyjamas, found a pair of fingerless gloves and slid them on before grabbing the duvet, picking up her violin case and huddling in front of the pretty little marble fireplace.
Whilst she was already cracked and broken, her violin wasn’t, and she knew the dangers of low humidity and too much cold on the precious old wood. Sitting there, Lucy tried to ignore the pervasive little voice that whispered she was a fraud, even given her position in the orchestra. All those extra hours she’d practised at Viktor’s instigation... He’d convinced her he was making her do it out of love, when all it had given her was the beginnings of an over-use injury and a niggling belief that somehow that injury washerfault—evidence of an inherent weakness.
What she needed was a cheery big fire...more light to chase away the shadows. Just...more. The sitting room had been much warmer, brighter. Maybe she’d find that room, since there was no way she’d ever sleep here—not now. She supposed she could text Stefano to ask for extra blankets, but it was late and she didn’t want to wake him...
Her indecision curdled in her stomach, the sensation working its way up, grabbing her round the throat. It was almost like the nerves before a solo performance—but that was a thrilling kind of sensation that overwhelmed most of the fear. There was nothing thrilling about the way she felt now, with this paralysis stealing over her.
‘It’s not in the stars to hold our destiny, Lucy, but in ourselves.’
That’s what her grandfather had always said, as they’d sat together on warm sunny days on the patio of his old home. He’d make a cup of tea and give her biscuits and talk.
She shut her eyes, fought back tears at his loss. He might have been an old man, but he’d been a quiet place of stability compared to the chaos of her father. She knew what he’d been trying to tell her—that she had to make her own way rather than dream about it.
Right now, her destiny involved somewhere warmer for her and her instrument. She stood with her violin case, still clutching the duvet round her, then left her room and padded through the generously carpeted halls filled with gilt-framed artwork and antiques, but happily absent any judgemental family portraits, until she reached a familiar door with an orange glow flickering underneath.
Lucy grabbed the icy handle, opening the door to an empty room. A low lamp still shone, and the fire in the large marble fireplace burned brightly, with a more generous heat than the one in her bedroom. She put down her violin and grabbed some cushions from the couch, dropping them to the floor. Wrapping herself and her violin case in the duvet, she was soon lying down in front of the fire, trying not to think of anything but how warm and comfortable it was on the makeshift bed she’d made.
She watched the flickering flames. And finally her eyelids became heavy and her thoughts drifted...
‘What’s this? Why are you on the floor?’
Lucy jumped and sat up, the duvet falling from her shoulders. Everything was fuzzy, as if her head had been stuffed with cotton wool. She rubbed her grainy eyes and looked at a clock on the mantelpiece. It was well past midnight.
‘I’m trying to sleep.’
Stefano was halfway into the room, holding the neck of a bottle and a short glass, still dressed as he’d been for dinner. He looked effortlessly casual and handsome in a way that almost hurt for a mere mortal like her. His hair, gleaming black and tousled. His jaw grazed by a fashionable stubble.
He glared at the bed she’d made for herself as if she’d committed some personal offence against his furniture. Which she likely had, since she’d disassembled his couch.
‘This isn’t sleeping. This is nesting like atopino. A little mouse.’
‘I’m not a mouse.’
Viktor had accused her playing of being timid. It was why she’d practised more...harder. Trying to inject some of the elusive passion he’d claimed was lacking into it. She flexed her fingers, but there was no stiffness or numbness right now. She took it as a small win in months of none.
‘I couldn’t sleep in the bedroom, so I thought I’d come here.’
Stefano toed the door closed and sank into an armchair. Uncapping the bottle, he poured a generous load of clear fluid into his glass and took a mouthful, rather than a sip. He’d consumed most of the bottle of wine at dinner like that.
She wrapped the duvet tight round her shoulders. ‘What are you doing up so late?’
‘Working.’ He took another hefty swig from his glass and stared into the fire.
