‘I’m not sure it would translate. Certainly not in mixed company.’
‘I think I got the gist—’
‘I hope not!’
She gave a little laugh. ‘Probably not. I don’t know any street Italian—well, no Italian at all, really. And I feel awful now for biting your head off, but…well, it means a lot to me, to win this wedding.’
‘Yes, I gather. You were telling me about your sister?’ he said.
‘Jennifer. She had an accident a few months ago and she was in a wheelchair, but she’s getting better. She’s on crutches now, but her fiancé had to give up his job to help look after her. They’re living with my parents and Andy’s working with Dad at the moment for their keep. My parents have got a farm—well, not really a farm, more of a smallholding, really—but they get by, and they could always have the wedding there. There’s a vegetable packing barn they could dress up for the wedding reception, but—well, my grandmother lived in Italy for a while and Jen’s always dreamed of getting married there, and now they haven’t got enough money even for a glass of cheap bubbly and a few sandwiches. So when I heard about this competition I just jumped at it, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined we’d get this far, never mind get a flight to exactly the right place. I’m just so grateful I don’t know where to start.’
She was gabbling. She stopped, snapped her mouth shut and gave him a rueful grin. ‘Sorry. I always talk a lot when the adrenaline’s running.’
He smiled and leant back, utterly charmed by her. More than charmed…
‘Relax. I have three sisters and two daughters, so I’m quite used to it, I’ve had a lot of practice.’
‘Gosh, it sounds like it. And you’ve got two brothers as well?’
‘Sì. Luca’s the doctor and he’s married to an English girl called Isabelle, and Gio’s the lawyer. I also have a son, and two parents, and a million aunts and uncles and cousins.’
‘So what do you do?’ she asked, irresistibly curious, and he gave her a slightly lopsided grin.
‘You could say I’m a farmer, too. We grow grapes and olives and we make cheese.’
She glanced around at the plane. ‘You must make a heck of a lot of cheese,’ she said drily, and he chuckled, soft and low under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.
The slight huff of his breath made an errant curl drift against her cheek, and it was almost as if his fingertips had brushed lightly against her skin.
‘Not that much,’ he said, his eyes still smiling. ‘Mostly we concentrate on our wine and olive oil—Tuscan olive oil is sharper, tangier than the oil from southern Italy because we harvest the olives younger to avoid the frosts, and it gives it a distinctive and rich peppery flavour. But again, we don’t make a huge amount, we concentrate on quality and aim for the boutique market with limited editions of certified, artisan products. That’s what I was doing in England—I’ve been at a trade fair pushing our oil and wine to restaurateurs and gourmet delicatessens.’
She sat up straighter. ‘Really? Did you take samples with you?’
He laughed. ‘Of course. How else can I convince people that our products are the best? But the timing was bad, because we’re about to harvest the grapes and I’m needed at home. That’s why we chartered the plane, to save time.’
Chartered. So it wasn’t his. That made him more approachable, somehow and, if it was possible, even more attractive. As did the fact that he was a farmer. She knew about farming, about aiming for a niche market and going for quality rather than quantity. It was how she’d been brought up. She relaxed, hitched one foot up under her and hugged her knee under the voluminous skirt.
‘So, these samples—do you have any on the plane that I could try?’
‘Sorry, we’re out of wine,’ he said, but then she laughed and shook her head.
‘That’s not what I meant, although I’m sure it’s very good. I was talking about the olive oil. Professional interest.’
‘You grow olives on your farm in England?’ he asked incredulously, and she laughed again, tightening his gut and sending need arrowing south. It shocked him slightly, and he forced himself to concentrate.
‘No. Of course not. I’ve been living in a flat with a pot of basil on the window sill until recently! But I love food.’
‘You mentioned a professional interest.’
She nodded. ‘I’m a—’ She was going to say chef, but could you be a chef if you didn’t have a restaurant? If your kitchen had been taken away from you and you had nothing left of your promising career? ‘I cook,’ she said, and he got up and went to the rear of the plane and returned with a bottle of oil.
‘Here.’
He opened it and held it out to her, and she sniffed it slowly, drawing the sharp, fruity scent down into her lungs. ‘Oh, that’s gorgeous. May I?’
And taking it from him, she tipped a tiny pool into her hand and dipped her finger into it, sucking the tip and making an appreciative noise. Heat slammed through him, and he recorked the bottle and put it away to give him something to do while he reassembled his brain.
He never, never reacted to a woman like this! What on earth was he thinking of? Apart from the obvious, but he didn’t want to think about that. He hadn’t looked at a woman in that way for years, hadn’t thought about sex in he didn’t know how long. So why now, why this woman?
She wiped up the last drop, sucking her finger again and then licking her palm, leaving a fine sheen of oil on her lips that he really, really badly wanted to kiss away.
‘Oh, that is so good,’ she said, rubbing her hands together to remove the last trace. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have any bread or balsamic vinegar for dunking.’
He pulled a business card out of his top pocket and handed it to her, pulling his mind back into order and his eyes out of her cleavage. ‘Email me your address when you get home, I’ll send you some of our wine and oil, and also a traditional aceto balsamico made by my cousin in Modena. They only make a little, but it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. We took some with us, but I haven’t got any of that left, either.’
‘Wow. Well, if it’s as good as the olive oil, it must be fabulous!’
‘It is. We’re really proud of it in the family. It’s nearly as good as our olive oil and wine.’
She laughed, as she was meant to, tucking the card into her bag, then she tipped her head on one side. ‘Is it a family business?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, most definitely. We’ve been there for more than three hundred years. We’re very lucky. The soil is perfect, the slopes are all in the right direction, and if we can’t grow one thing on any particular slope, we grow another, or use it for pasture. And then there are the chestnut woods. We export a lot of canned chestnuts, both whole and puréed.’
‘And your wife?’ she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. ‘Does she help with the business, or do you keep her too busy producing children for you?’
There was a heartbeat of silence before his eyes clouded, and his smile twisted a little as he looked away. ‘Angelina died five years ago,’ he said softly, and she felt a wave of regret that she’d blundered in and brought his grief to life when they’d been having a sensible and intelligent conversation about something she was genuinely interested in.
She reached
across the aisle and touched his arm gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have brought it up if…’
‘Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. Anyway, five years is a long time.’
Long enough that, when confronted by a vivacious, dynamic and delightful woman with beautiful, generous curves and a low-cut dress that gave him a more than adequate view of those curves, he’d almost forgotten his wife…
Guilt lanced through him, and he pulled out his wallet and showed her the photos—him and Angelina on their wedding day, and one with the girls clustered around her and the baby in her arms, all of them laughing. He loved that one. It was the last photograph he had of her, and one of the best. He carried it everywhere.
She looked at them, her lips slightly parted, and he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes.
‘You must miss her so much. Your poor children.’
‘It’s not so bad now, but they missed her at first,’ he said gruffly. And he’d missed her. He’d missed her every single day, but missing her didn’t bring her back, and he’d buried himself in work.
He was still burying himself in work.
Wasn’t he?
Not effectively. Not any more, apparently, because suddenly he was beginning to think about things he hadn’t thought about for years, and he wasn’t ready for that. He couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t think about it. Not now. He had work to do, work that couldn’t wait. Work he should be doing now.
He put the wallet away and excused himself, moving to sit with the others and discuss how to follow up the contacts they’d made and where they went from here with their marketing strategy, with his back firmly to Lydia and that ridiculous wedding dress that was threatening to tip him over the brink.
* * *
Lydia stared at his back, regret forming a lump in her throat.
She’d done it again. Opened her mouth and jumped in with both feet. She was good at that, gifted almost. And now he’d pulled away from her, and must be regretting the impulse that had made him offer her and Claire a lift to Italy.
She wanted to apologise, to take back her stupid and trite and intrusive question about his wife—Angelina, she thought, remembering the way he’d said her name, the way he’d almost tasted it as he said it, no doubt savouring the precious memories. But life didn’t work like that.
Like feathers from a burst cushion, it simply wasn’t possible to gather the words up and stuff them back in without trace. She just needed to move on from the embarrassing lapse, to keep out of his personal life and take his offer of a lift at face value.
And stop thinking about those incredible, warm chocolate eyes…
‘I can’t believe he’s taking us right to Siena!’ Claire said quietly, her eyes sparkling with delight. ‘Jo will be so miffed when we get there first, she was so confident!’
Lydia dredged up her smile again, not hard when she thought about Jen and how deliriously happy she’d be to have her Tuscan wedding. ‘I can’t believe it, either. Amazing.’
Claire tilted her head on one side. ‘What was he showing you? He looked sort of sad.’
She felt her smile slip. ‘Photos of his wife. She died five years ago. They’ve got three little children—ten, seven and five, I think he said. Something like that.’
‘Gosh. So the little one must have been tiny—did she die giving birth?’
‘No. No, she couldn’t have. There was a photo of her with two little girls and a baby in her arms, so no. But it must have been soon after.’
‘How awful. Fancy never knowing your mother. I’d die if I didn’t have my mum to ring up and tell about stuff.’
Lydia nodded. She adored her mother, phoned her all the time, shared everything with her and Jen. What would it have been like never to have known her?
Tears welled in her eyes again, and she brushed them away crossly, but then she felt a light touch on her arm and looked up, and he was staring down at her, his face concerned.
He frowned and reached out a hand, touching the moisture on her cheek with a gentle fingertip.
‘Lydia?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m fine. Ignore me, I’m a sentimental idiot.’
He dropped to his haunches and took her hand, and she had a sudden and overwhelming urge to cry in earnest. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distress you. You don’t need to cry for us.’
She shook her head and sniffed again. ‘I’m not. Not really. I was thinking about my mother—about how I’d miss her—and I’m twenty-eight, not five.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s very hard.’ His mouth quirked in a fleeting smile. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve neglected you. Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee? Water? Something stronger?’
‘It’s a bit early for stronger,’ she said, trying for a light note, and he smiled again, more warmly this time, and straightened up.
‘Nico would have been on the second bottle of champagne by now,’ he said, and she felt a wave of relief that he’d saved her from what sounded more and more like a dangerous mistake.
‘Fizzy water would be nice, if you have any?’ she said, and he nodded.
‘Claire?’
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’
He moved away, and she let her breath out slowly. She hadn’t really registered, until he’d crouched beside her, just how big he was. Not bulky, not in any way, but he’d shed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and she’d been treated to the broad shoulders and solid chest at close range, and then his narrow hips and lean waist and those long, strong legs as he’d straightened up.
His hands, appearing in her line of sight again, were clamped round two tall glasses beaded with moisture and fizzing gently. Large hands, strong and capable, no-nonsense.
Safe, sure hands that had held hers and warmed her to the core.
Her breasts tingled unexpectedly, and she took the glass from him and tried not to drop it. ‘Thank you.’
‘Prego, you’re welcome. Are you hungry? We have fruit and pastries, too.’
‘No. No, I’m much too excited to eat now,’ she confessed, sipping the water and hoping the cool liquid would slake the heat rising up inside her.
Crazy! He was totally uninterested in her, and even if he wasn’t, she wasn’t in the market for any more complications in her life. Her relationship with Russell had been fraught with complications, and the end of it had been a revelation. There was no way she was jumping back into that pond any time soon. The last frog she’d kissed had turned into a king-sized toad.
‘How long before we land?’ she asked, and he checked his watch, treating her to a bronzed, muscular forearm and strong-boned wrist lightly scattered with dark hair. She stared at it and swallowed. How ridiculous that an arm could be so sexy.
‘Just over an hour. Excuse me, we have work to do, but please, if you need anything, just ask.’
He turned back to his colleagues, sitting down and flexing his broad shoulders, and Lydia felt her gut clench. She’d never, never felt like that about anyone before, and she couldn’t believe she was reacting to him that way. It must just be the adrenaline.
One more hour to get through before they were there and they could thank him and get away—hopefully before she disgraced herself. The poor man was still grieving for his wif
e. What was she thinking about?
Ridiculous! She’d known him, what, less than two hours altogether? Scarcely more than one. And she’d already put her foot firmly in it.
Vowing not to say another thing, she settled back in her seat and looked out of the window at the mountains.
They must be the Alps, she realised, fascinated by the jagged peaks and plunging valleys, and then the mountains fell away behind them and they were moving over a chequered landscape of forests and small, neat fields. They were curiously ordered and disciplined, serried ranks of what must be olive trees and grape vines, she guessed, planted with geometric precision, the pattern of the fields interlaced with narrow winding roads lined with avenues of tall, slender cypress trees.
Tuscany, she thought with a shiver of excitement.
The seat belt light came on, and Massimo returned to his seat across the aisle from her as the plane started its descent.
‘Not long now,’ he said, flashing her a smile. And then they were there, a perfect touchdown on Tuscan soil with the prize almost in reach.
Jen was going to get her wedding. Just a few more minutes…
They taxied to a stop outside the airport building, and after a moment the steps were wheeled out to them and the door was opened.
‘We’re really here!’ she said to Claire, and Claire’s eyes were sparkling as she got to her feet.
‘I know. I can’t believe it!’
They were standing at the top of the steps now, and Massimo smiled and gestured to them. ‘After you. Do you have the address of the hotel? I’ll drive you there.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’d hate you not to win after all this,’ he said with a grin.
‘Wow, thank you, that’s really kind of you!’ Lydia said, reaching for her skirts as she took another step.
It happened in slow motion.
Valtieri's Bride & A Bride Worth Waiting For: Valtieri's BrideA Bride Worth Waiting For Page 2
