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He stood up. ‘So you have seen the statue of David, the Uffizi and the church of Santa Maria Novella.’ Alice was pleased that he’d remembered what she’d told him.
‘Did you climb to the top of the Duomo and look down at the city?’
Alice shook her head. ‘It was too hot to stand in the queue.’
He held out a hand to her. ‘But you must see it. Come, I will take you if you like. It is a little climb but it is worth it. I have a cousin who works there. He will let us come to the front so we don’t have to wait.’
‘No, that’s not fair. We should wait our turn like everybody else.’
Dante frowned. ‘Here in Italy, we are not so polite. But if you don’t want to go to the Duomo, there is another place just a short drive from here where you can see the city. The view is as good as that from the Duomo. When I run in the afternoons after work, I like to go past it and I always have to stop and look. I have my motorbike nearby. We could drive there now.’
Alice nodded and to her surprise he took her by the hand and yet somehow it felt natural. She felt a ripple of excitement as he led her through the narrow streets until they came to a number of motorbikes, haphazardly parked next to each other. It looked to Alice as if the owners had abandoned them there. When he’d mentioned a motorbike, Alice had assumed Dante meant a moped, like every other young Italian seemed to own. She baulked at the powerful-looking Kawasaki, eyeing it with trepidation. ‘You won’t go too fast?’
He laughed. ‘Going fast is the fun of it. But don’t worry, you’ll be safe with me. I promise.’
She found herself on the back of his Kawasaki and soon he was weaving his way in and out of the traffic, gesticulating good-naturedly as cars tried to cut them up. More than once Alice thought they were going to crash and closed her eyes only to find that they had managed, at the last moment, to squeeze through a gap she hadn’t even noticed. She wound her arms tightly around his waist and pressed her face into his back so she wouldn’t have to look. He smelled faintly of olives and soap and she could feel the heat from his body through her clothes. Every part of her body was tingling where it touched him.
At first Alice kept her eyes closed. If she was going to die, she’d rather not see it coming, but after a little while she opened them again. She couldn’t spend the whole day with her eyes closed. Then she relaxed. She had never felt so free in all her life.
Dante was right; the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. Spread beneath her, a golden red in the dying sun, were the terracotta roofs of Florence. The city didn’t look nearly as big and bewildering from up here.
They sat on a low wall as Dante pointed out the famous landmarks of the city—the Campanile, Santa Croce, the brick tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. His pride in his home city was evident.
They sat there talking, though later Alice couldn’t remember about what. It didn’t seem to matter to either of them. The sun dipped low in the sky and the lights of the city twinkled below them. A cool breeze teased her neck and she shivered, yet she didn’t want this evening to end.
‘Are you cold, cara?‘ Dante asked, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her towards him. Alice leant against him, her hand pressed against his chest. The air between them sizzled and sparked and she turned her face towards him, noting how his eyes seemed to glimmer in the dark. As Dante traced a finger down her cheek a delicious shiver ran down her spine. Using the tips of his fingers, he tilted her face upwards and studied her intently, before bringing his mouth down on hers.
The kiss was the sweetest and yet the most exciting Alice had ever known. When he pulled away, she could hardly breathe. She barely knew this man, yet she already knew something special was happening to her.
Later that night, after Dante had dropped Alice back outside her villa, he sped along the mountain road, weaving between cars and revelling in the feel of the wind on his face. As he concentrated on hugging the tight turns he thought about Alice. Dio, she was sexy with her long blonde hair and eyes the colour of the hills. She had curves that made a man want to run his hands across her body. And those lips, they tasted like honey and pears. He found her even more sexy because she had no idea what she could do to a man. She was shy and inexperienced and he wondered if she’d ever been with a man before. But it wasn’t just the way she looked that set his blood on fire, in her heart she was different to the women he usually dated. The opposite of Natalia.
Thinking about Natalia still made him angry. They had grown up together and everyone had expected them to marry. But when he had decided to become a doctor, he and Natalia had argued. She’d wanted him to go into business with her father, telling Dante that that way they could have a good life. A rich life was what she’d meant. Of course he had refused. He was going to be a doctor—it was what he was meant to do. Natalia had stamped her foot and argued that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—wait until he was earning money. So she had left and married someone else. Now she was living the life she had always wanted. Since Natalia he had never let another woman close.
But he had been attracted to Alice instantly. He had asked her to meet him on an impulse, but to his surprise he’d found he enjoyed her company. He’d had many women since Natalia but they weren’t like Alice. They cared more about what they were wearing, what they looked like, and that was fine. But soon it got boring. He liked a woman who could talk, who knew how to laugh, who loved the simple things in life. Like Alice. Already he knew she could never pretend to be something she wasn’t.
He opened the throttle to pass a lorry that was lumbering up the mountain road and just managed to squeeze into the gap between it and an oncoming car. He laughed out loud. Dio, that was closer than he would have liked.
He had ten days to spend with Alice before she returned to the UK and he was going to make the most of them.
The next days were the most exciting of Alice’s life. She met Dante every afternoon after he finished work at the hospital. He showed her a side of Italy, the real Italy, that she’d never seen before, and every day she fell harder for him. If he was puzzled that she always insisted that he drop her off at the high walls shielding the villa where she was staying, he never said anything. He waited until the gates opened in response to her pressing the buzzer before he sped away on his bike. Alice knew she should tell him who she really was, but she wanted the dreamlike state she was in to go on for ever.
Saturday was his day off and that morning, her second last day in Italy, he picked her up from outside the villa on his motorbike. He held out a helmet and as he helped with the straps his fingers brushed her throat. Her skin literally sizzled where he’d touched her.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
His eyes seemed to glow as he looked down at her. ‘I want you to see where I live. Will you come?’
Alice’s heart thumped against her ribs. There was something in those dark eyes that told her that he wasn’t asking her just because he wanted to show her where he lived.
Dry-mouthed, she could only nod. Dante drove his bike as if he were pursued by a hundred devils, overtaking when there was the smallest of gaps.
Eventually, after the scariest but most exhilarating forty minutes of Alice’s life, they drove down a dirt track before stopping next to an olive grove.
Alice eased herself off the motorbike hoping that her shaking legs would hold her. She just about managed to hobble a few steps before Dante pulled her into the crook of his arm. She leant into him, savouring the warmth of his body.
‘This is where I grew up,’ he said, gesturing towards the trees. ‘Behind this is my mother’s house and a little further is the building where I live. It used to be for the shepherds, but now it is my home.’
She turned in his arms, relaxing against his chest. Behind her, he wrapped his arms more tightly around her. In the cocoon of his arms she felt at peace. She had never felt so happy. And she had never felt so sad. Her time with Dante was drawing to an end too quickly. Through the thin material of his T-shirt she could feel his heart beating and knew hers was keeping time with his.
‘Will you come with me to my house?’ he asked. His voice vibrated through her and her heart kicked hard against her ribs. She knew what he was asking.
She turned in his arms until she was looking directly into his eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Via,’ he said. He wasn’t smiling any longer. His dark eyes were intense, almost black.
He took her hand and led her down a path through the olive trees.
Once they were hidden from any passing cars, he pulled her back into his arms. For one long moment they looked into each other’s eyes and then he was kissing her. His mouth tasted of tomatoes and sunshine. A pool of liquid lust spread from her belly downwards and upwards until every part of her body felt as if it was on fire. If he carried on kissing her like this she would surely spontaneously combust. Even as he was kissing her she was smiling.
Dante pulled his head back while keeping her body pressed close into his. She could feel every inch of him along the length of her body.
‘What is funny?’ Although he half smiled, his eyes were glittering.
‘Nothing. Everything. I’m happy,’ she said simply.
‘Amore, I have never met someone as honest as you before. I like it,’ Dante said, and then he was kissing her again. Until she had met him, she had never been kissed like that before. She had never been held like this before. She had never felt like this before.
He pushed her gently against a tree and gathered her hands in his, pinning them above her head. She couldn’t stop this. Not if her life depended on it.
His eyes raked across her body, lingering on her breasts. He kissed her throat at the point where her pulse was beating wildly. Still holding her wrists with one hand, he dropped his other hand to the buttons of her blouse. Alice could dimly hear the sounds of cars passing on the nearby road but as he slowly unbuttoned her blouse, all awareness of the outside world left her. ‘Tesoro mio,’ he murmured, dropping kisses ever lower.
She arched her neck and raked her hands through his thick, dark hair. Each of his kisses was sending hot flames through her body. She almost couldn’t bear it. She felt as if she was going to lose control. She had to stop this. He’d called her honest. She needed to tell him the truth.
But she couldn’t call a halt. The only thing that mattered was the here and now.
Dante had pushed her blouse aside and was kissing her breasts. He circled her nipples with his tongue and ripples of pure, exquisite pleasure throbbed through her aching body.
Suddenly, to her dismay, he stopped. She moaned and tried to draw his head back down but Dante shook his head and slowly, reluctantly released her arms. His eyes were black with desire.
He buttoned up her blouse. Dazed, she could only watch.
‘Not here,’ he said hoarsely.
She knew what he was saying and she was powerless to resist. In a couple of days she would be home, back to being Lady Alice. Right now, all she wanted to do, all she ached for was to be back in his arms. She would tell him the truth. If whatever this thing was that was between them had a chance, she had to be as honest as he thought she was.
As they walked towards Dante’s house, Alice thought her heart would break. Two more nights, then she’d be returning to her life in London. The thought of leaving was tearing her in two.
The air was rich with the scent of olives as he led her by the hand through the orchard. Within a few minutes they arrived at a small whitewashed building with an ochre roof standing on its own in a little oasis of green.
Still holding her by the hand, Dante opened the door and pulled her inside. Alice only had a fleeting glimpse of a double bed before Dante was kissing her again.
Later, much later she lay with her head on his chest. He stroked her hair and murmured to her in Italian.
She traced the scar on his shoulder with the tip of her finger.
‘How did this happen?’ she asked.
‘An accident with my motorbike. Two years ago. A lorry came round on the wrong side of the road. I had to go into a ditch to miss it.’
‘You could have been killed!’ Alice said, alarmed.
‘But I wasn’t. I was hurt. A few days in hospital. It wasn’t so bad. My girlfriend at that time wasn’t happy.’
‘Have there been lots of women?’ she asked. She could have bitten her tongue the moment the words were out. Of course there had been lots of women. She could tell that from the way Dante had made love to her. As if she was precious, but also with passion and an uncanny sense of what she needed and when.
His hands paused in her hair.
‘A few. But they were not important—’ He broke off. ‘I’ve never met anyone quite like you.’
The warm glow of happiness she’d experienced since they’d made love deepened. But under the glow she felt a shiver of unease. What would he think of her when he found out she hadn’t been honest with him? She wasn’t who he thought she was. Reluctant to spoil the mood, Alice raised herself on her elbow and looked down at him. ‘Why did you decide to become a doctor?’ she asked.
He sat up and pulled her head against his chest where she could hear the strong beat of his heart. One of his hands was in her hair, the other softly caressing her neck. Everywhere he touched her sent stabs of desire coursing through her body. She hadn’t known that a simple touch on her skin could drive her wild with longing.
When his answer came his voice was deeper than ever.
‘A few years ago, I had a friend. A girl, Rosa. We had played with each other since we were children.’ His hands paused on her skin and he took a deep breath.
‘Her house was next to mine. We were always together. At school. After school. While we were growing up. Soon she was no longer a little girl but a beautiful woman.’
A stab of jealousy so strong it took her breath away ripped through Alice.
‘Did you love her?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice casual.
Dante laughed. ‘Sì, I loved her, but we were never lovers. She was like a sister to me.’ His voice grew sombre again. ‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but she always knew what she wanted to do. To be a nurse.’ He paused and Alice knew he was remembering. ‘I stayed on the farm and she went to university. The first holiday she came back, it was as if we had never been parted. She was so excited with what she was learning. She was lit up inside. But after a few days she got sick.’
Dante’s voice was like sandpaper. Alice held her breath and waited for him to go on.
‘Everyone thought it was flu. No one was worried. Her mother phoned the doctor. He told her it wasn’t a problem, to give Rosa painkillers for the headache and fever. By the time she came out in a rash, it was too late.’
‘Meningitis?’ Alice whispered.
‘Sì. It was before the time they vaccinated against it. We called the ambulance. I knew it would take too long. I didn’t want to wait. We were losing her.’
He paused again and swallowed. ‘We put her in the car and I drove as fast as I could. But it was too late. By the time we got to the hospital, she was unconscious. I would have given my life for her, but I wasn’t able to do one thing to save her. It is why I became a doctor. I will never let anyone die because I didn’t know how to help them.’
‘I’m so sorry, Dante.’
‘You are like her in many ways. Kind and honest.’ Another spasm of guilt ran up Alice’s spine. She had to tell him.
‘You are different from other women.’ There was a note of bitterness in his voice that puzzled Alice. ‘You don’t care about material things. Clothes. Money. What other people think of you.’
Alice’s heart felt as if it were slowly being encased in ice. When she told him the truth about herself, he would see that she wasn’t the woman he thought she was. She couldn’t bear that. Was there any point in telling him? In two days she would be gone.
Propping herself on her elbow, she gazed down at his beautiful face. He was smiling.
‘You don’t really know me, Dante,’ she said softly.
‘I know enough. But there is more to learn, I think.’ The look in his eyes as they travelled across her body set nerve endings she’d never even known she had on fire. He pushed her back down on the bed and nibbled her ear. ‘You could stay in Florence longer,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t you have more time before you have to go back to university?’
Alice felt her heart plummet down to her toes. Was that all he wanted from her? Just another few days of a holiday romance—and then what?
Almost as if reading her mind, Dante pushed himself up on his powerful arms and gazed down at her. ‘Or maybe longer than that. You could stay with me,’ he said softly.
It was as if someone had dropped ice cubes down the back of her neck. He couldn’t know how impossible it was for her to do what he was asking. When he found out who she truly was, he would feel differently about her and she couldn’t bear that. Already she knew she was falling in love with him and the longer she stayed the harder she would fall. The thought terrified her. She had to leave before she got in any deeper. No matter how much she wanted to stay with him—more than anything she had ever wanted—there could never be a future for them. Her father needed her. She had her life and shallow though it was, it was the only life she knew.
Not that Dante was suggesting anything more than a few more days together.
She ran her fingertips across his chest down towards the silky hair of his abdomen. He drew a sharp breath as she let her hands travel lower. With him she felt no shyness, only a sense of wonder at the power her touch had over him.
In response he brushed his hand along the inside of her thigh and her bones turned to mush. ‘Amore mio,’ he growled, ‘I can’t think when you do that.’ His hands travelled higher up her thigh and he groaned. ‘That’s enough talking for now. We’ll talk more tomorrow.’
But Alice already knew there would be no tomorrow for them. She knew with heart-breaking certainty that they only had a few hours. She would have to make the most of every second.
CHAPTER ONE
ALICE studied herself in the full-length mirror. Her dress, a shimmer of silver, clung to her body before falling in a little train at the back. These days she no longer had to worry about revealing curves that suggested an over-enthusiastic fondness for food. Not eating tended to do that.
As soon as she’d come back to London she’d broken off with Peter, much to her father’s disappointment. Peter was everything he’d hoped for in a son-in-law. But he wasn’t Dante. Alice knew she could never marry anyone who didn’t make her feel the way Dante had, even if that meant being single for the rest of her life.
She pursed her lips as she applied deep red lipstick, trying to dispel the empty feeling that lurked somewhere deep inside. Okay, so this wasn’t how she’d envisaged her life to turn out, but she was happy, maybe not happy in that scary, intense way she had felt in Italy—she doubted she’d ever feel like that again—but she was content, wasn’t she? At least with her new, more active role with the charity she was doing some good. This fundraiser would bring in thousands of pounds for the camps for the displaced in Africa. And if she felt empty inside, as if someone had taken a giant icecream scoop and hollowed her out, didn’t lots of people feel that way? She should count her blessings, as people always said. Underneath the empty feeling was one of excitement. She was going to Africa with the charity. Maybe out there she would find the Alice she had been in Italy. Maybe, at last, she’d feel as if her life had some meaning.
She finished her make-up and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Bless Susan, she knew exactly how do her hair so that it would stay firmly in place for the whole evening.
Alice glanced at her watch. Almost time to go.
She sighed at her image in the mirror. A pale face with dark shadows stared back at her. Had it really been a year since she had said goodbye to Dante? Tonight the guest speaker, who was doing a presentation on behalf of the charity for which this evening was being held, was a Dr Salvatore, who was coming from the same hospital where Dante had worked. When she’d seen his name on the programme, she’d contemplated slipping in a casual question to Dr Salvatore about Dante. He was bound to know him.
She knew she was torturing herself, especially if Dante turned out to be engaged or, worse still, married, but she was desperate to hear about him, even if it was only someone saying his name. When she’d left Italy without saying goodbye, she’d told herself it was for the best. So why did her heart still ache for him?
But she mustn’t think of Dante. Not tonight. Even though barely a day went past when she didn’t think of his deep brown eyes. And his smile. All that was safely in the past. She was living the life she was meant to live. Italy had been a dream. A wonderful dream. She had to look to the future.
Downstairs, the ballroom was thronging with guests. All willing to pay thousands of pounds for a seat at the dinner table, knowing that the money would be put to good use. Alice could see the top of her father’s head as he spoke animatedly to someone. Knowing him, it would be another business deal. Dad wasn’t one to waste an opportunity. Not when the heads of businesses from across the world were in this room.
The room sparkled from the hundreds of lights from the oversized chandeliers. The tables were set with the finest crystal money could buy and at each table setting there was a little Swarovski souvenir for the guests to take home. The heavy scent of lilies drifted from tall crystal vases. In the corner a string quartet was playing softly. At the end of the evening there would be a surprise for the guests as her father had flown in a famous opera singer to round off the evening. Alice couldn’t help but wonder if some of the money her father had lavished on this event could have been better spent. Given to the charity, for example. But when she’d raised the issue with him, he’d assured her that the money the evening would bring in would far outstrip the money he had lavished on this dinner. Not least as he had already personally pledged a significant sum.
The room was already packed. Diamonds flashed from throats and wrists as women in elegant evening gowns lifted glasses to their lips. The men were in dinner jackets and bow-ties, and the murmur of low voices and the occasional rumble of laughter filtered above the sound of the music.
