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Silence—complete silence.
Then: ‘Who?’ The single question came in Rafaello’s best lawyer voice.
Dante took a breath. ‘That waitress. The one who dropped the glasses.’
A silence even longer than the last one travelled across the ether.
Then: ‘Are...you...mad?’
Three words that summed up the situation completely. Dante knew it and did not care. Could not afford to care.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain.’
When he’d finished, Rafaello said frostily, ‘I wash my hands of you, old friend. Until you get your sanity back.’
The line went dead.
Dante tossed his phone on to the empty passenger seat. He didn’t care. He just did not care.
Face set, he gunned the engine and drove off in a roar.
A stray line from Shakespeare sounded in his head:He must needs go that the devil drives...
Well, the devil was driving him, all right. And he had his grandfather’s face...
Connie lay staring at the low, beamed ceiling of her little bedroom. It had been her bedroom since she was eight years old, when the safe, happy world of her childhood, with parents who’d adored her and each other, had ended in a hideous car crash which had killed them both and put her in hospital for weeks.
It had been her grandmother who’d remade the world for her, bringing her to live here at the cottage, to recuperate slowly, physically and emotionally. She had stood by Connie ever since—and no waywas Connie not going to stand by her grandmother now, when she needed her the most.
Getting the diagnosis of dementia nearly two years ago—when it had already been taking its toll—had been bad. Receiving the eviction notice was even worse.
Outside she could hear an owl hooting, a familiar sound, and the soft rustle of leaves, the church clock tolling the quarter hours and then the hours.
Her head was full—how could it not be? Full with so much going round and round in her head.
While her grandmother had dozed in the garden Connie had fetched her laptop, then stared at the business card of the man who had, without doubt, offered her the most bizarre proposition that could ever be imagined.
Dante Cavelli. That was his name. He’d told her that, and it was there on the stiff, expensive-looking card.Dante Cavelli, Cavelli Finance—that was what it said. And in Italian on the reverse side.
Carefully, she’d typed ‘Cavelli Finance’ into a search engine. A lot had come back, mostly in Italian, and she’d hit ‘translate’. As she’d read, she’d had to admit it all seemed real—not made up, nor a scam or whatever.
Some of the links had been to articles in Italian newspapers, the economics section. And some, though far fewer, had been links to social pages. Those had come with photos.
She’d stared, taking in just how incredible-looking Dante Cavelli was. She had swallowed.
Impossible...just impossible...
A few of the photos had showed him with a grim-faced elderly man—Arturo Cavelli, founder of Cavelli Finance. More of the photos, though—and Connie had only been able to stare at them hopelessly—had been of Dante Cavelli with a beautiful female draped over him...a wide variety of beautiful females...
As she’d stared, what he’d said to her had just made no sense. If he reallywanted to do what he’d so unbelievably said that he did—make some kind ofpro formamarriage in order to secure his inheritance—then why onearthdid he not just take his pick from all those women hanging on him in these photos? Chic, elegant, fashionable, beautiful...
She felt the colour run up her cheeks, mortifying and humiliating. She might almost think that what he’d said to her had been some kind of sick joke. But to what purpose?
No, he’d been serious, all right. His voice, as he’d explained, had been taut and grim. For obvious reasons, given what he was saying to her.
‘I don’t care to marry someone of my acquaintance—she would be unlikely to understand or appreciate the specific limitations I am setting upon the marriage I intend to make.’
Connie had stared at the photos of all those slender, eager beauties clinging to Dante Cavelli’s tall, lean, drop-dead gorgeous form, their varnished nails curving possessively around his sleeve. No, no woman in her right mind would wantanylimitations on her marrying him...
