by Romy Sommer
“Bella, you will get sunburnt if you stay in the sun much longer.” Stefano placed a tender kiss on the exposed skin of her shoulder, already turning pink. She blinked open her eyes, still basking in the afterglow of his loving, her limbs soft and liquid.
“We should go inside, and I will prepare lunch.”
Though she didn’t want to leave the comfort of his arms, she climbed ahead of him down the ladder into the cabin. She made herself comfortable on the narrow bunk, wrapping a thin blanket around herself. Once again she propped the sketch pad against her knees.
Stefano prepared a simple meal in the tiny kitchen area, his movements deft and economical. Completely unconcerned by his own nakedness, he did not put on any of his clothes, and she was able to admire the shift of muscle, the angles of his beautiful body, as he worked.
She dragged her gaze away and flipped to a clean page, starting a new drawing, an innocuous image of Positano, the church dome rising above the rooftops and the fishing boats drawn up on the beach. Her very first impressions of the place, from that day she’d first met Stefano. She smiled as she worked. That sunny day in Positano felt like a lifetime ago. The girl who had sat on the steps above the beach was a stranger to her now.
“The day we met,” he said, as if reading her thoughts, “we spoke of your marriage. What are the plans your parents have for you?”
She didn’t want to talk of the future, of marriage to another man. Not after what she had experienced with Stefano. It was a stark reminder that some things hadn’t changed, and that her future lay elsewhere. That Stefano had still not offered her anything more than this one day of hedonistic abandon.
She answered reluctantly. “Next week I return to London. My parents have rented a house there and I will be presented to society. There will be parties and balls, and hopefully by the time the lease is over, my engagement will be announced in the papers.”
“You don’t sound excited at the prospect.” A wry smile touched his lips as he glanced her way.
She shrugged. “I don’t enjoy parties or big crowds. The Ferragosto celebration was the only time I’ve ever enjoyed myself in a crowd. That was fun.”
But he was not so easily diverted. “Have your parents already chosen the lucky man who will be your husband?”
She sucked in a breath. Should she tell him the truth? It was the least she owed him. “Yes.”
“The fair haired young man who sat beside you at dinner the other night?”
“Christopher. Yes.”
“And you have accepted his proposal?”
Appalled, she could only shake her head. How could Stefano think she would have made love to him if she was already engaged to another man?
“He hasn’t proposed yet.” She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “That’s why I’m here in Italy. My mother hopes he will.”
“He will.” He fixed her with a penetrating look. “He’s in love with you.”
“Not really. He only thinks he loves me. But he doesn’t really know me.” Not as you do.
“And if he does not propose,” Stefano prompted. “Will you be free to choose your own husband?”
“I have always been free to choose. But I cannot disappoint them. My parents have done so much for me. And I have two younger sisters. It’s the least I can do to marry someone my parents approve of, someone who will be able to help us all.”
“Someone with money?” There was an edge of humour in his voice.
“Not only money, but the right sort of connections.”
“And someone who is English?”
“Yes.”
“That is a pity. I think you would like to stay here in Italy.” His dimple flashed. “You belong here.”
Her breath caught. Yes, she belonged here. Yes, she wanted to stay. And yes, she might now be willing to defy her mother and follow her own dreams. But she couldn’t do it alone. Stefano had to want her. He had to offer her more than this one day.
If only he would ask.
But he didn’t.
In spite of everything they had shared, today still meant nothing more to him than sex with an easy English girl.
She forced herself to breathe through the pain.
There was time yet. The day was not yet over.
“What do you want?” she asked, needing to divert this conversation away from herself, to buy time to get her wayward emotions under control. “You have asked me often what I want, but what do you want for your life?”
He grinned. “I already have everything I want.”
That explained the easy-going confidence he exuded. She sighed, envious. “And your family, do they have any expectations of you?”
He shrugged, a typically Latin gesture. “My mother would like me to marry.”
“Has she picked out a wife for you yet?” In spite of the hardness in her chest, somewhere in the region of her heart, her voice sounded credibly casual.
He laughed. “I don’t think she cares who I marry, as long as I provide heirs. Mamma says she wants bambini before she dies.” The smile turned into a grin, full of mischief. “Lucky for me, she still expects to live a long life.”
So he was in no hurry for a wife yet. She closed her sketch book and set it aside.
Stefano carried a laden tray to the bunk and sat beside her, the tray separating them. “Try these.”
He gestured to the platter on the tray, artfully arranged with nearly a dozen different delicacies. The smell and colours made her mouth water. “At the Villa del Monte, you are not served true Italian food. This is antipasti, and it is the first course of any meal.” He lifted a slice of melon, wrapped with a wafer-thin slice of cured ham, and held it to her lips. “This is Prosciutto e melone.”
She took a bite. “Mmm. This is good. It tastes so much better than anything we have in England.”
His eyes darkened, and his gaze stayed riveted on her mouth. “Everything in Italy tastes better.”
She selected a pimento-stuffed olive from the platter between them and raised it to his mouth. “And what is this in Italian?”
He didn’t just take the olive in his mouth, but her fingertips too, sucking gently on them in a way that made her insides burn, starting a tell-tale flush spreading across her skin.
“Oliva,” he said, when she pulled her fingers away.
Who could have believed something as ordinary as a meal could turn into a seduction?
She speared an artichoke heart with her fork and took a bite, savouring the taste on her tongue before swallowing it down. She licked her lips, and watched his pupils dilate. “And this?”
“Carciofo.”
She let the blanket slip a little from her shoulder. He swallowed, captivated. He might have begun this seduction, but two could play this game. As if he’d opened a floodgate inside her, she wanted him to make love with her again.
For the moment she wouldn’t let herself care if sex was all they ever had between them.
“And what is this?” She leaned across the tray to place a kiss on the edge of his mouth.
“Bacio.” His voice was almost a growl, so intensely appealing that all thought of food was forgotten. She traced his lips with her tongue.
Stefano swept the tray to the floor and rolled her in his arms. “I hope you aren’t too hungry.”
“Not for food,” she said.
They returned to their meal. Eventually.
After the antipasti, they ate the pasta dish Stefano had made, macaroni in a source of clams and mussels, and flavoured with lemons. For dessert, there was almond cake dripping with fresh cream.
“This is the most heavenly food I’ve ever tasted,” she said.
“I can’t take credit for the cake. My housekeeper made that.”
“Where did you learn to cook like this? You know men in England don’t cook?”
He grinned. “There are a lot of things English men could learn from us Italians.” He raised her fingers to his mouth and brushed a kiss across her palm. “For the
English, food is nutrition. Here in Italy, food is pleasure. And as with any pleasure, its preparation is an art form.”
She could appreciate that. There was another form of pleasure Stefano had raised to an art form. She leaned back against him, and he draped a casual arm over her shoulder, his voice a rumble against her ear. “Meals in Italy take many hours. They are social events, to be enjoyed, not rushed. Here we believe that the good things in life are worth savouring.”
He bent his head to brush a kiss over her collarbone. “That is how I knew you were different, that first day we met. You tasted the limoncello, really tasted it.”
“It’s the Italian sunshine bottled,” she said. Her voice sounded faraway, dreamy.
He turned her in his arms, laying her down beside him on the narrow bunk. She laid her head against his chest and listened to the slow and steady beat of his heart. With the softer skin of her thumb she stroked the calluses on his palm. “What gave you these?” she asked.
“My second love,” he said. “Those are from sailing. It’s hard work, but a labour of love.”
She didn’t ask what his first love was. He’d already made that abundantly clear. His country and his people came first. And she wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t sure if she’d even figure anywhere on his list.
She buried her face in his chest, breathing in the scent of his skin and of their lovemaking. He played with a lock of her hair, threading it through his fingers. For a long while they lay in silence, rocked together by the gentle sway of the boat. One of his arms lay loosely along her hip, so warm and reassuring, and strong.
Through the porthole, the sun angled down onto their naked bodies, her pale limbs intertwined with his darker ones. Isobel watched the sun’s slow progress with an ache in her heart. She wasn’t yet ready for this day to end.
She wanted so much more. Her body craved more of his loving, as her heart craved more of him.
“We need to head back,” he said, his gaze following hers to the window.
She nodded, unable to speak.
They rose from the bunk and returned to the deck to find their clothes.
Too soon, the throb of the boat’s engines roared to life and the cruiser chugged out of the cove, back across the waves towards the mainland. Once again they stood together in the tiny cockpit. He placed her hands on the wheel, with his larger, browner ones over hers, and she leaned against him, soaking up these last moments alone together.
The mainland rose up out of the water before them, approaching far too quickly for Isobel’s liking. When the red roofs of Arienzo came into sight, she moved away from him to stand once again in the prow. The children were long gone and the beach was deserted.
She helped him moor the boat to the jetty, following his calm, precise instructions as he navigated the boat into position. Once moored, he collected her things, then held her hand until they both stood on the solid ground of the beach. They faced each other, separated by a foot of cold air. The connection between their hands sent a pulse down deep into her, to the delightful raw ache between her legs.
He released her hand. “Ciao, Bella.”
Not arrivederci. Not ‘until we meet again’. This time it really was goodbye.
She forced the weight of her sadness away and put all the joy she could muster into her smile. “Thank you for today,” she said.
Then she turned and walked away, resisting the temptation to look back. With every step she took, a little of the hope inside her died. The hope that he’d run after her, that he’d call her to stop. That he’d ask her to stay, and tell her she wasn’t just another summer romance, and that she had his heart as he had hers.
Tears blurred her eyes. It was over.
Chapter Fourteen
“Thank you, Edwards,” Isobel said to the butler as he opened the front door wide for her to pass. “Are the others home yet?”
“Not yet, ma’am.”
“And Frances?”
“Miss Frances is in her room. She has not been well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She took the steps two at a time, bounding along the corridor they shared. Frances’ door was closed. She knocked timidly. Silence.
“Frances?”
There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door, then the scrape of a bolt being drawn.
“You can come in.” Frances’ voice sounded thick, as if she’d been crying.
Isobel pushed the door open and stepped into the room. The shutters were closed, and shadows darkened the room. The sheets lay tangled in a heap at the foot of the bed. In the dim light she could see that Frances wore nothing but her knickers and camisole.
Then she caught sight of Frances’ face; pale, wretched. A single tear slid down Frances’ cheek.
“Whatever’s wrong? Did something happen?” Alarmed, Isobel laid a hand on her cousin’s shoulder. The touch released the dam of emotions within Frances. She let out a sob and threw herself into Isobel’s arms. Then the tears came, hot tears that soaked Isobel’s shoulder as she cradled her cousin.
“Did he hurt you?” Isobel asked, appalled.
At last the gut-wrenching sobs slowed. Frances shook her head, hiccupped and pulled away. “Carlo doesn’t want me,” she said, her voice breaking on the words.
“Of course he wants you,” Isobel said, soothing Frances as she’d soothe a baby.
But Frances shook her head, her bobbed hair bouncing wildly about her face, an unkempt halo. “He called me a whore.”
“What?”
“I told him I don’t want to go back to London, that I want to stay here with him. I told him I love him and want to marry him.”
Frances pushed away, pacing towards the shuttered window, angry now. Isobel stood still and listened, too shocked to move. Her cousin had been brave enough to do what she couldn’t. To ask for what she wanted.
“And what did he say?” Isobel asked, her throat so tight she could barely force the words out. She already knew the answer, and she understood Frances’ pain. It was a pain she shared.
“He laughed. He said: Why would I want to marry a whore?”
Isobel drew in a sharp breath.
Frances paced back again. “He said I meant nothing to him, and didn’t I know I was nothing more than a little fun for the summer. He said I’m just like all the other English girls he’s had.”
Isobel gasped, the pain stabbing fresh. She wanted to offer her cousin words of solace. But the words stuck in her throat.
She would not lie to Frances. Italian men, noble and peasant alike, did not marry English girls. They seduced them, they played with them. And both she and Frances had offered themselves willingly.
She wondered fleetingly about all those others. Had those other English girls also lost their hearts, and left Italy broken-hearted, as she and Frances would have to?
Frances seemed more composed now. But it was a frightening composure, like ice stretched thinly over a frozen lake, ready to crack at any moment. “I knew he didn’t love me. I thought he wanted me for my money and I could live with that. I love him enough for the both of us.”
“But your parents would never allow it.” Isobel could not keep the horror from her voice. “He’s a commoner. And Italian.”
Frances’ eyes were wide, crazy. “They would have had to, to save me from ruin. They would have returned to London without me and they would have made up some story to tell people.”
“Why would they do that?” Foreboding licked up Isobel’s spine. “Frances, you’re not …?”
The ice cracked. “I’m carrying his baby.”
She crumpled onto the bed. Isobel lay beside her, folding her cousin into her arms, cradling Frances as another wave of grief rocked her.
“What will you do about the baby? Is there a doctor you can see?” The very idea appalled Isobel, but what other choice did Frances have? If Carlo would not have her, even for her family’s money, then she had nowhere to go. Her life was ruined.
“I’m keeping it!” Frances voice was muffled in the blankets. “I want to have his baby. It’s all I have left of him.”
“Don’t be stupid!” Shock turned Isobel’s voice sharp. “You can’t keep the baby. Your parents would cast you off. You would have nothing.”
Her cousin lifted her tear-stained face from the blankets. “Then I’ll go to my grandmother in America. Or I’ll marry someone else. Anyone. I’ll do anything for this child.” The ferocity died, and her voice turned pleading. “I still want him, Izzy. That’s the worst part. I still want him, even though he doesn’t want me. You don’t know what it’s like.”
Frances buried her face in the blankets once again. Isobel stroked her hair as her cousin gradually calmed into exhausted sleep. She pulled a blanket over Frances.
“I do know,” she murmured, too soft for Frances to hear. Hadn’t she fallen under the same stupid spell? She too had lost all sense over a man. And she too might even now be pregnant. Stefano had spilled his seed inside her enough times.
She hadn’t thought. She’d been too lost to her own wants.
There was that word again. Want. Stefano had encouraged her to reach out for her dreams, to believe in the impossible, and for one reckless moment she had. Okay, a few reckless moments. But he’d made her no promises. And if they had no future together, why had he let things get so far between them? Merely for his own pleasure?
And why had she?
She rested her hands on her stomach. Was Stefano’s baby in there now? And if it were, would she be able to destroy it? She smoothed her hands over the soft silk of the borrowed dress. She couldn’t even bring herself to think of ending a life, no matter what it would bring to her.
No matter what.
Stefano had used those words, and now she understood. No matter what it would bring.
If she carried his child, would Stefano acknowledge her, and his child? Or would he too cast her away as the slut she was?
