‘I panicked when you rang the bell.’
‘Ah, Rose. I am so sorry. Though it is not so very late.’
‘I know. But my immediate thought was Bea. Mothers tend to be wired that way.’
Dante slid an arm beneath her and slowly and very carefully raised her to a sitting position. ‘Your head still spins?’
Rose thought about it. ‘A bit. Could you hang on to me a little longer?’
He muttered something under his breath.
‘What did you say?’
‘I will hold you all night if you permit.’ He smiled. ‘But I will not expect that.’
Her lips twitched. ‘I won’t, either. I meant until the room stands still.’
Dante sat beside her, holding her close. ‘Allora, you are comfortable like this?’
‘Yes.’ Much too comfortable.
He looked down into her swollen eyes. ‘You have been weeping, cara. Because we parted in anger?’
She nodded again and, to her dismay, her eyes filled again. ‘And now my head is aching, and I look awful.’
‘You do not,’ he assured her, and gathered her closer. ‘You need some of your tea, perhaps?’
Rose managed a smile. ‘Do you know how to make tea, Dante?’
He shrugged. ‘I put the tea-bag in the cup and pour the hot water, yes?’
‘Absolutely. But I won’t have any just now.’ The scent and warmth and muscular security of his embrace were far more effective than tea. And, unlike tea, were not normal features of her life. ‘Sorry I was such a shrew earlier. I enjoyed our evening, Dante. At least until the moment you stormed off and left me sobbing my heart out.’
Dante turned her face up to his. ‘You cried because I left?’
‘Yes.’ She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I was utterly horrible, and you didn’t give me the chance to say I was sorry.’
His eyes held hers with a look which turned her heart over. ‘We have both made enough apologies now, bella, yes?’
She nodded, her bottom lip quivering as she tried to smile. ‘Are we friends again?’
Before the words were out of her mouth, Dante’s lips were on hers, and she gave herself up to his kiss with a relishing little sound that tightened his arms round her as he kissed her swollen eyelids and her red nose and then returned to her quivering parted mouth with a sigh of such pleasure she melted against him, shivering in response to his urgent, caressing hands. Emotions heightened by the quarrel, their kisses grew wild with such hunger that history repeated itself with inexorable rapture. Hands and lips came together as clothes flew in all directions, restraint gone up in smoke as they came together in a pulsating, overpowering rush of desire that hurled them both to orgasm, and left them panting and breathless, staring at each other in shock.
‘Dio,’ Dante said hoarsely at last. ‘From the moment I saw you again in Firenze I have wanted this, but I swear I did not intend it tonight, tesoro.’
Rose pushed him away and suddenly hotly aware of her nakedness, snatched up her robe. ‘My fault as much as yours, Dante.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know what to say, so please go now.’ Before she did something really insane and begged him to take her to bed and make love to her all night.
Dante pulled on his clothes at top speed and then turned to her, his blue eyes lambent with a light which sent a streak of heat right down to her toes. ‘Arrivederci, amore. But this is not goodbye. I shall return soon. Very soon.’ He took her in his arms. ‘I have no wish to leave you now, Rose, but it is late and you need your bed.’
She looked at him searchingly. ‘Why did you come back, Dante?’
‘Because nothing has changed since that first time we met,’ he said huskily, smoothing a hand down her cheek as he released her. ‘You are as irresistible to me now as you were then. Buonanotte, carissima.’
Rose watched him stride down the path to the car at the gate, wishing her heart would resume its normal beat. Dante turned to wave, and she lifted a shaking hand in return, then closed the door and went upstairs to stand under a hot shower to recover. Fool! How could she have allowed that to happen again? Allowed? She gave a mirthless laugh. She could no more have prevented it than stopped breathing.
Grace had insisted on giving Bea her breakfast and then driving her to school so Rose could enjoy the added luxury of a lie-in the next morning, but Rose was showered and dressed and ready to start work by the time her mother called in before going home.
‘I’ve made some coffee,’ she said, smiling.
‘Good. I need it.’ Grace sat down at the kitchen table and watched her daughter filling cups.
‘Was Bea all right last night, Mum?’
‘Fine. How about you? Did Dante change your mind about going out?’
‘Yes. We went to the Hermitage.’ Rose set the cups on the table, eyeing her mother narrowly. ‘What’s wrong? Are you sure Bea didn’t play up last night?’
‘She was as good as gold.’ Grace took a deep breath. ‘Look, Rose, there’s no easy way to say this, but it’s time you told me the truth. Is Dante her father?’
‘What?’ Rose went cold. ‘Why on earth should you think that?’
‘Because,’ continued Grace relentlessly, ‘yesterday when Bea smiled at him and Dante smiled back, the resemblance stared me in the face, not least the blue eyes. Your father’s eyes were dark like yours and mine. And I’d better warn you that Tom, not normally observant in such matters, commented on it first.’
‘Which doesn’t make it true.’
‘Doesn’t it? I couldn’t sleep last night as I thought back to the wedding, how Tom and I preferred to drive home once Charlotte and Fabio left on their honeymoon, but booked a room for you so you could enjoy the party with the other guests. Then Dante Fortinari had to leave in a hurry because his grandmother was ill.’
‘So you think he somehow sandwiched in a quickie with me before he took off?’ snapped Rose.
Her mother winced. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but it would certainly explain a lot.’ Her eyes remained locked with her daughter’s. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
The backbone Rose had always managed to keep so rigid suddenly crumbled. Unable to look away, she slumped down on a kitchen chair. ‘Yes, you are. But this doesn’t change anything. I have absolutely no intention of telling Dante.’
‘Why not?’ Grace reached to take her hand. ‘Can you tell me what happened after we left that night, darling?’
Rose nodded reluctantly.
She had been dancing to something slow with Dante late in the evening when it struck her that Charlotte’s home would now be in Italy with Fabio, and her lifelong friendship with Rose would naturally take a back seat. When Dante had asked why she was sad she’d confided in him and blinked away her tears, suddenly desperate to get to bed. Dante had insisted on escorting her to her room, where he’d held her in his arms to comfort her, at which point she’d found she was no longer tired and within seconds they’d been kissing and caressing wildly, shedding their clothes to fall on the bed and join together in a maelstrom of heart-stopping bliss. They had still been locked in each other’s arms, breathless as they came back to earth, when Dante’s phone rang. Cursing, he had reached over Rose to pick it up, then with a wild exclamation he’d withdrawn to leap to his feet to dress, all the while continuing an impassioned conversation with the caller in Italian. Rose had pulled the sheet up to her chin as Dante, face ashen and haggard, begged forgiveness for his sudden departure, his English erratic in his distress as he explained he had to return home immediately because his grandmother was very ill. ‘I will contact you soon. Arrivederci, tesoro,’ had been the parting words she’d never forgotten.
She smiled bitterly. ‘After he’d gone I lay in a rose-tinted afterglow, dreaming of a future relationship with Dante, only to discover the next
morning that he had a fiancée he’d forgotten to mention.’
Grace winced. ‘And you’d had unprotected sex!’
Rose gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Not a bit of it. He used a condom, but it was faulty. In his rush to get away he didn’t realise that, so I knew it was unlikely he’d believe he was the father of my child.’ She eyed her mother ruefully. ‘Not that it was possible to tell him, anyway. By the time I realised I was pregnant I was two months along, as you well know, and Dante Fortinari was well and truly married by then. So there was no way I could name him as Bea’s father. Dante is one of Fabio’s closest friends, and Fabio is married to my dearest friend, so I just couldn’t spoil things for Charlotte and perhaps even risk affecting the relationship between you and Tom.’
‘So you invented a one-night stand after a college party.’ Grace got up and pulled her daughter into her arms. ‘My darling girl, what are you going to do now?’
‘Nothing.’ Rose swallowed hard. ‘I was such a fool to go to Florence. I’d been refusing to all this time just in case I met Dante again. And then Charlotte actually sent him to see me at the hotel, and I took one look at him and knew exactly why I’d fallen in love at first sight all those years ago. Because, Mum, if I hadn’t fallen so hard for him it wouldn’t have happened.’ Her face flamed. ‘And in case you’re wondering, Dante was no way to blame. It was completely consensual.’ Not only then but last night, too. Would she ever learn?
Grace stood back and looked at her daughter searchingly. ‘Are you still in love with him?’
Rose nodded miserably. ‘But I don’t want to be. Part of me still blames him for what happened, and now and then my resentment gets the upper hand.’
‘Did you part on good terms last night?’
‘Eventually, yes. But there were a few awkward moments during the evening and when he brought me home. In fact, I offended Dante so much he drove off in a strop. But he drove back again later, so we were on good terms again before we said goodbye.’ Far too good, damn him. ‘It’s a pity Bea inherited my disposition, not Dante’s.’
Grace smiled wryly. ‘He was very taken with her, love.’
Rose shivered. ‘I know. But it makes no difference.’
‘Are you really sure about that?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘But surely you must have considered telling Dante about Bea once you knew his marriage was over?’
‘I didn’t know it was over. I always refused to listen if Charlotte so much as mentioned Dante’s name. You knew, obviously.’
Grace nodded. ‘We met him on a visit to Charlotte, but when I tried to tell you about it you shut me up. I understand why now.’
Rose sighed. ‘I wish I had listened to you, Mum. I put my foot in it with Dante the first night we met up again in Florence. When he suggested taking Charlotte’s place at dinner I practically spat at him and asked if he was bringing his wife along. What a sweetheart I can be when I try!’
Grace gave her a hug. ‘I love you just the same.’
* * *
When her mother went home Rose got down to work, and did her best to lose herself in it, but it was hard now Grace knew the truth. During the years when the identity of Bea’s father had been her own private secret she had hidden it away like an oyster covering a grain of sand. But now it was a secret no longer. She hadn’t thought to swear her mother to silence about it, and the relationship between Grace and Tom was so close he would soon know something was wrong and coax the truth out of her. Then probably Charlotte would be the next to know and now she was pregnant and hormonal she was unlikely to be calm and reasonable about it. Rose shuddered as she imagined Charlotte storming into Dante’s house, demanding that he did the right thing—whatever that was.
* * *
Revelations apart, life went on for Rose in much the same way as usual for the next few days, except for nights disturbed by thoughts of the passionate encounter with Dante, and the fact that her daughter’s parentage was no longer a secret. Grace assured her she had not confided in Tom, but found that very hard.
‘It’s your secret, not mine,’ she said unhappily. ‘I still think you’re wrong to keep the truth from Dante. It would be much better to tell him yourself rather than have him discover it some other way.’
‘There is no other way. You’re the only one who knows, Mum.’ Rose frowned. ‘Though you said Tom commented on the likeness. Has he said anything?’
‘Yes. But I told him he was imagining it, that Bea’s blue eyes came from my grandmother.’ Grace pulled a face. ‘I just loathed lying to him, Rose.’
‘But I’m grateful you did. Think about it! A single mother working hard to provide for her daughter suddenly informs wealthy scion of famous Fortinari wine-producing family that he’s her child’s father.’ Rose’s mouth twisted cynically at the thought.
But later than night, when Dante rang after she was in bed, Rose was sorely tempted to tell him the truth when he asked after her little daughter. ‘You must be so proud of her. And how is her beautiful mother?’ he asked in a tone so caressing Rose’s toes curled under the covers.
‘Working hard, but otherwise fine. How are you, Dante?’
‘I am also working hard, but I cannot sleep for wanting you in my arms again. I need so much to see you, tesoro, but for a while this is not possible. I have seen Charlotte,’ he added, ‘and she is very well.’
‘I’m so glad for her and for Fabio.’
‘He is looking forward to fatherhood very much—Dio, how I envy him!’
A wave of such guilt swept over Rose it was almost like pain. ‘You won’t when he’s walking the floor at night when the baby won’t sleep,’ she said, deliberately flippant, ‘or will he hire a nurse? How do you arrange such things in your world?’
‘My world is not so different from yours, Rose. Some people have such help, but if I had a child I would wish to be involved in the caring as much as possible.’
‘Sorry, Dante, I must go,’ she said breathlessly, ‘I think I hear Bea.’
‘Then run, little mamma. I will ring again soon. Buonanotte.’
Rose laid the phone down and slid out of bed to check on Bea, who, as she’d known perfectly well, was fast asleep with Pinocchio and Bear. With her blond curls tumbled over her forehead and the unmistakable blue eyes closed, there was no resemblance to her father at all. But awake it was so marked to Rose that as Bea grew older she had been afraid that everyone involved who knew Dante would some day make the connection. Lying awake afterwards, Rose kept hearing the note in Dante’s voice when he spoke of envying Fabio. Her mother was right. It was time to tell Dante he was Bea’s father before someone, somehow, got in first. He deserved the truth from her whether he believed her or not.
CHAPTER FIVE
ROSE WAS GLAD to be abnormally busy the following week, with more travelling than usual. By the time she’d played with Bea once she’d got home, given her a bath and shared her supper, then read to her until she slept, Rose was too tired for soul-searching.
Dante rang to inform her that the following week he would be in London again and would drive down to see her. ‘I shall take you out to dinner, Rose, but this time you may choose the restaurant,’ he assured her, and laughed softly. ‘And I will not come too early.’
Rose braced herself. ‘Actually, Dante, perhaps you’d like to come to supper here this time. I’ll cook.’
‘Grazie, I would like that very much,’ he assured her, surprised. ‘But do not tire yourself with cooking. We can send out for a meal.’
Rose rolled her eyes at a sudden vision of a designer-suited Dante surrounded by foil cartons. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘I cannot sleep at night for missing you. Have you missed me?’
‘Yes,’ said Rose simply.
‘Ottimo, I am very happy to hear it. I will be wit
h you at eight on Wednesday evening.’
‘Come earlier than that if you like.’
‘I like very much, but won’t your Beatrice object?’
‘No. Apparently she likes you much more than Stuart.’
‘And who,’ growled Dante, ‘is Stuart?’
‘An old school friend I go out with occasionally. Bea disapproves of him because he calls her “little girl”.’
‘So you allow this man to come to your house?’
‘No. But we’ve met him in the town a couple of times. He feels uncomfortable around Bea and she’s picked up on it.’
Dante chuckled. ‘I will not be uncomfortable with her.’
Rose bit her lip as she closed her phone. He might change his mind about that once he knew the truth. But she would tell him this time, somehow. She had nothing to lose. If Dante refused to acknowledge Bea she was no worse off than before. Besides, she was only taking his advice. It was Dante who’d insisted Bea’s father had a right to know.
Grace’s reaction to Rose’s decision was a mixture of pride and apprehension. ‘At least I can now tell Tom. We can provide backup if you like, darling.’
‘That’s very brave of you, but this is between Dante and me. You can stand by to pick up the pieces if things go pear-shaped.’ Rose smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve always been afraid this would happen one day. Every time Bea smiled up at Charlotte and Fabio I was sure the penny would drop, but it never did.’
‘Only because they haven’t seen Bea and Dante together.’
‘True. They’re in for a shock.’
‘Not as big a shock as Dante.’ Grace patted her hand. ‘Are you sure you want to handle this alone, Rose? I’m perfectly willing to play the outraged parent. After all, Dante had no right to seduce you when he was about to marry someone else.’
‘Mum, he didn’t seduce me. One minute he was comforting me, the next minute we were so utterly desperate for each other we didn’t even hear his phone ring straight away.’ Rose sighed. ‘He didn’t want to answer it but I insisted, and you know the rest.’
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