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Dante was the temptation.
And not just because she wanted him. It was more that she wanted to know again that moment in the sun.
Yes, she was bitter, and jealous of the women pictured on his arm these days, and pitted with self-loathing that he had seen her that long-ago day in her appalling underwear. And although she was proud of her job, of the life she had forged, she didn’t want to be remembered as his maid.
Alicia wanted the sun.
And she wanted one full moon with Dante.
From the doorway where they were huddled, Alicia called in sick. ‘I have an inner ear infection,’ she told her manager as Dante stood listening. ‘It’s terrible. I’m on antibiotics and I thought I might be okay to work, but I was so dizzy when I stood... Yes, probably vertigo. I’ve almost fainted walking to work...the Duomo is all blurry...’ Dante rolled his eyes at the drama of her. ‘No, don’t send a driver. I’m nearly home...’ She ended the call. ‘Did I sound convincing?’
‘Alicia, I nearly took out my phone and called an ambulance.’
They had breakfast with the investigator in a private room at the rear of a patisserie. Well, Dante had coffee and sat a little apart from them as the guy had Alicia raking through her memory for any more clues.
Dante had heard the details so many times these past few weeks, because he’d seriously had people looking, and so many pointless, fruitless updates.
And so Dante sat bored on his phone as she went through Beatrice’s likely date of birth and the Virgo thing again.
‘I gave Gino copies of all my photos,’ Alicia told the investigator.
‘Any correspondence at all?’ he asked.
‘Just these.’
Dante looked over as she took from her bag the two cards Beatrice had sent her. ‘You have them with you?’
‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘I carry them everywhere.’
‘Are these the original envelopes?’ the investigator was asking.
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t think to say before?’ Dante snapped. ‘Jesus, Alicia, are they postmarked?’
‘Illegible,’ the investigator answered. ‘I’ll get them looked at properly, though.’
Alicia looked as if she was about to cry, and he regretted snapping. He knew she was overwhelmed, and tried to make light of things to ease the sting of his reprimand.
‘Told you,’ Dante said to the investigator. ‘She’s a goose.’
Yet watching her hand over those letters he felt a little sick, because it was like watching her hand over a piece of her heart.
Things moved quickly in Dante’s world.
For two hours she sat with the investigator, and then she was told she was to head to Quadrilatero d’Oro, the golden rectangle, the fashion centre.
‘I won’t know where to start.’
‘My assistant has booked you in to a store and told them what’s needed. They’ll help...’
‘Good. Will you come?’ she said. ‘While I get to look “suitable” to be Dante’s partner?’
‘I hate that word.’
‘Am I your girlfriend, then?’
‘How about we stick with Alicia?’
