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With that thought on her mind, she walked back into the dining room and came straight to the point.
‘I know that some women would just drop to their knees and beg for a man who does all this.’ She waved a hand around the room. ‘But I’m not one of them. Really. I’m happy with a sandwich eaten under a halogen light bulb. So if you’re trying to make me fall in love with you, you’re wasting your time. I just thought we ought to get that straight right now, before you go to enormous effort.’
‘I’m not trying to make you fall in love with me. True love can’t be forced,’ he said softly as he pulled the cork out of a bottle of wine, ‘and it can’t be commanded. True love is a gift, cara mia. Freely given by both parties.’
‘It’s a figment of the imagination. A serious hallucination,’ she returned, her tone sharper than she’d intended. ‘A justification for wild, impulsive and totally irrational behaviour, usually between two people who are old enough to know better.’
‘That isn’t love.’ He pushed her towards the chair that faced the window. ‘From what you’ve told me, you haven’t seen an example of love. But you will do. I intend to show you.’
She rolled her eyes and watched while he filled her glass. ‘What are you? My fairy godmother?’
His smile broadened. ‘Do I look like a fairy to you?’
She swallowed hard and dragged her eyes away from the laughter in his. No. He looked like a thoroughly gorgeous man. And he was standing in her dining room about to serve her dinner.
‘All right.’ She gave a shrug that she hoped looked suitably casual. ‘I’m hungry. Let’s agree to disagree and just eat.’
The food was delicious.
Never in her life had she ever tasted anything so sublime. And through it all Gio topped up her wineglass and kept up a neutral conversation. He was intelligent and entertaining and she forgot her plan to eat as fast as possible and then escape to her room. Instead she ate, savouring every mouthful, and sipped her wine. And all the time she listened as he talked.
He talked about growing up on Sicily and about his life as a surgeon in Milan. He talked about the differences in medicine between the two cultures.
‘So…’ She reached for more bread. ‘Are you going to tell me why you had to give up surgery as a career? Or am I the only one who has to spill about my past?’
‘It’s not a secret.’ He lounged across the table from her, his face bronzed and handsome in the flickering candlight. ‘I was working in Africa. We were attacked by rebels hoping to steal drugs and equipment that they could sell on.’ He gave a shrug and lifted his glass. ‘Unfortunately the damage was such that I can’t operate for any length of time.’
She winced. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘It’s part of my life and talking about it doesn’t make it worse. In a way I was lucky. I took some time off and went home to my family.’ He continued to talk, telling her about his sisters and his brother, his parents, his grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.
‘You were lucky.’ She put her glass down on the table. ‘Having such good family.’
‘Yes, I was.’ He passed her more bread. ‘Luckier than you.’
‘She took me to the park once—my mother.’ She stared at her plate, the memory rising into her brain so clearly that her hands curled into fists and her shoulders tensed. ‘She was meeting her lover and I was the excuse that enabled her to leave the house without my dad suspecting anything. Although I doubt he would have cared because he was seeing someone, too. Only she didn’t know that.’
She looked up, waiting for him to display shock or distaste, but Gio sat still, his eyes on her face. Listening. It occurred to her that he was an excellent listener.
She shrugged. ‘Anyway, I was playing on the climbing frame. They were sitting on the seat. Kissing. Wrapped up in each other.’ She licked dry lips. ‘I remember watching two other children and envying them. Their mothers were both hovering at the bottom of the climbing frame, hands outstretched. They said things like “be careful” and “watch where you put your feet” and “that’s too high, come down now”. My mother didn’t even glance in my direction.’ She broke off and ran a hand over the back of her neck, the tension rising inside her. ‘Not even when I fell. And in the ambulance she was furious with me and accused me of sabotaging her relationship on purpose.’
Gio reached across the table and took her hand. But still he didn’t speak. Just listened, his eyes holding hers.
She chewed her lip and flashed him a smile. ‘Anyway, he was husband number two and life just carried on from there, really. She went through two more—Oh, sorry.’ She gave a cynical smile that was loaded with pain. ‘I should say she “fell in love” twice more before I was finally old enough to leave home.’
‘And your sister?’
Alice rubbed her fingers over her forehead. ‘She’s on her second marriage. She had high hopes of doing everything differently to our parents. She still believed that true love existed. I think she’s finally discovering that it doesn’t. I’ve never told anyone any of this before. Not even Rita and Mary. They know I’m not in touch with my parents, but that’s all they know.’
It had grown dark while she was talking and through the open doors she could hear the sounds of the night, see the flutter of insects drawn by the flickering candlelight.
Finally Gio spoke. ‘It’s not surprising that you don’t believe that love exists. It’s hard to believe in something that you’ve never seen. You have a logical, scientific brain, Alice. You take a problem-solving approach to life. Love is not easily defined or explained and that makes it easy to dismiss.’
She swallowed. How was it that he seemed to understand her so well? And why had she just told him so much? She looked suspiciously at her wineglass but it was still half-full and her head was clear. She waited for regret to flood through her but instead she felt strangely peaceful for the first time. ‘If love really existed then the divorce rate wouldn’t be so high.’
‘Or maybe love just isn’t that easy to find, and that makes it even more precious. Maybe the divorce rate is testament to the fact that love is so special that people are willing to take a risk in order to find it.’
She shook her head. ‘What people feel is sexual chemistry and, if they’re lucky, friendship. But there isn’t a whole separate emotion called love that binds people together.’
