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He found plates and cutlery and lit a couple of candles that were stuck into the tops of wine bottles. Paloma thought of the grand dining room at the palazzo and the valuable antique silver candelabrum and decided she preferred the rustic farmhouse kitchen, and the soft glow of candlelight that reflected the gleam in Daniele’s eyes. Her fierce awareness of him decimated her appetite, and she felt as gauche and tongue-tied as she had been at sixteen, when she’d been torn between hoping he would notice her and praying that he wouldn’t. She was thankful when he asked her about the Morante Group’s reports, and they discussed business while he ate with evident enjoyment, and she chased a prawn around her plate.
After dinner Daniele went to his study, saying he needed to make a phone call. Paloma headed upstairs, and the discovery that he had put her bags in the guest bedroom deflated her like a popped balloon. Clearly, he did not want her to share the master bedroom with him. When would she accept that he wasn’t interested in her? She ran a bath and afterwards got into bed and read for a while, but when she switched off the lamp, she realised that she could not remember anything about the book.
She woke suddenly and opened her eyes to find the room was dark with just a sliver of moonlight poking through a gap in the blind. Her luminous watch revealed that it was two a.m. The house was utterly quiet, but she was sure she had been disturbed by a noise from outside. It had probably been a fox, or maybe a wild boar, Paloma told herself. But then she heard a sound, halfway between a groan and a shout, that made her blood run cold. It had come from across the hallway. Another shout, louder and even more agonised than the first, had her leaping out of bed, convinced that an intruder had broken into the house and was attacking Daniele.
Heart thumping, she crept out of her room. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and she saw a pottery vase filled with dried pampas grass on the hall table. She picked up the heavy vase and heard Daniele groan again. What was the intruder, or possibly there were more than one, doing to him? Paloma felt sick with fear as she cautiously opened the bedroom door.
The slats on the blind were open and moonlight slanted across the bed, where Daniele was sprawled. A quick glance showed that there was no one else in the room. She released a shaky breath and walked over to the bed. Daniele was thrashing his head from side to side on the pillow and muttering something incomprehensible.
Paloma put the vase down on the bedside table and shook his shoulder. ‘Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.’
His eyes flew open, but, although he stared at her, she sensed that he did not see her. He must be trapped in some terrible place in his mind. She touched his face and he reacted instantly, capturing her hands in his and flipping her over so that she landed flat on her back on the bed. He loomed over her, his features drawn into a savage expression, but then he blinked and finally recognised her.
‘Paloma? What’s going on?’ His voice was a low growl.
‘I heard you shouting, and I thought you were being attacked by...someone,’ she faltered. It occurred to her that he might think she’d come to his room to offer herself to him as she had on their wedding night.
His heavy brows snapped together. ‘If you thought there was an intruder, why did you come to my room?’
‘To help you, of course.’ She saw his gaze flick to the vase of pampas grass.
‘Were you planning to tickle an assailant to death?’ he bit out. ‘It’s no laughing matter,’ Daniele said harshly when she started to smile. ‘You should have run away and hidden in the woods, and when you were safely away from the house, called the police.’
‘But your life might have been in danger.’
‘And so you risked your life for me.’ He didn’t seem grateful. His eyes blazed with anger. ‘Idiota!These people are dangerous.’
‘What people?’
He exhaled deeply. ‘I am certain the Mafia were involved in your kidnapping in Mali, and they probably planted the photographer at the hotel in Tunisia who took the picture of us that appeared in the tabloids to discredit you.’
Paloma’s eyes widened. ‘But why?’
‘Because someone wants to prevent you from claiming your inheritance—one way or another. I know how organised crime gangs operate. They would think nothing of killing both of us.’
‘You had a nightmare.’ She wondered if she should mention the noise she’d thought she had heard outside. But she couldn’t be sure of what had woken her, and there were probably foxes and other wildlife prowling around the farmhouse at night, Paloma reassured herself.
She became aware that there was only her silk chemise and the thin sheet between their bodies, and almost certainly Daniele slept naked. His hard thighs were pressing her into the mattress, and she felt a dull throb begin deep in her pelvis.
‘Can you let me up, please?’ she muttered. ‘You’re squashing me.’
He rolled off her and switched on the bedside lamp. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you,’ he said gruffly as she sat up.
‘What was your nightmare about?’
He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I lost a close friend in Afghanistan. Our military base was attacked, and a mortar shell landed in the compound. One minute Gino was standing a few feet away from me, and in the next he’d gone. He died instantly. It could have been me who had been standing in that spot, and for a long time I thought it should have been me. Gino had a wife and two children back home in Italy, but I had no one. If I had stepped into the compound first, his kids would not have had to grow up without their papa.’
‘Oh, Daniele,’ Paloma whispered. ‘You are not responsible for everyone.’
‘I was his commanding officer. I should have gone ahead of him.’ He shook his head. ‘Usually we received intelligence that we were going to come under fire, but that day we heard nothing until the shell exploded.’
‘What happened was a terrible tragedy. But I don’t believe that no one cared about you. Your grandmother would have been devastated if you’d been killed, especially as your father had died while he was in the army.’
Daniele gave a harsh laugh. ‘My grandmother allowed me to believe that my mother had abandoned me. My phone call yesterday evening was to Nonna Elsa’s lawyer. She had left instructions that if I ever found out about the letters my mother had sent, they were to be given to me. The lawyer scanned the letters and sent me digital copies.’
‘So your motherdidtry to keep in contact with you when you were a child.’ Paloma instinctively reached out and put her hand on his arm. She sensed the effort it took him to control his emotions, but she’d heard the rawness in his voice and could only guess how hurt he must feel by his grandmother’s betrayal.
He nodded. ‘I have you to thank for helping me discover the truth. If you hadn’t insisted on inviting my mother to the wedding, I might never have spoken to her.’
