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‘Are you really over him?’
‘Of course I am. I just wish we’d never come here.’
‘You were a big hit at dinner.’
‘You weren’t doing so badly yourself,’ she flung at him.
‘Just passing the time, keeping an eye on you, making sure you didn’t misbehave. I had to know how you feel about him. It mattered.’
‘And now you know.’ She met his gaze, silently urging him on.
But the man who’d dismissed his enemy with a master stroke suddenly seemed to lose confidence.
‘What happens now?’ he said. ‘It must be your decision. Do you want me to go?’
‘I don’t know what I want,’ she said distractedly. It was almost true.
‘Ferne.’ His voice was quiet and suddenly serious. ‘If you don’t know, neither of us knows.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Fair?’ His voice was edgy. ‘You stand there half-naked, doing heaven knows what to me, and I’m being unfair?’
The towel robe had opened just enough to show her breasts, firm and glowing with the need she could no longer hide. While she hesitated, he took the edges of the material and drew them apart, revealing the rest of her nakedness.
‘That is being unfair,’ he said in a shaking voice.
She couldn’t move. Her whole being seemed to be concentrated on him, on his touch and the thought of where it would alight next. The feeling was so intense that it was as though he was already caressing her everywhere. It was almost a shock when he laid his fingers lightly at the base of her throat, leaving them there, seeming to wait for something.
She drew a long breath. None of Sandor’s dramatic caresses had affected her one tenth as much as Dante’s patience.
‘Tell me,’ he said softly.
‘Tell you…?’
‘Tell me what to do. Ferne, for pity’s sake, if you want me to stop say so now, because I don’t have that much control left.’
Her smile was deliberately provocative. ‘Perhaps a man can have too much control. Maybe he even talks too mu—’
Her words were silenced by his mouth on hers. It was too late now, past the point of no return. Her own kiss was as fervent as his, speaking of desire held in too long, of frustration released in giddy, headlong joy.
While he kissed he was pulling at the robe until it fell to the floor and there was no barrier to his hands caressing her everywhere, setting off tremors that shocked her with their intensity. She managed to return the compliment, ripping away at his clothes until he was as naked as she.
Neither of them knew who made the first move to the bed. It didn’t matter. They were running down the same road, seeking the same triumphant destination.
She had anticipated his skill, but her imagination had fallen far short of the reality. He made love as he did the quick-step, unfailingly knowing the right touch, the right movement, always in perfect understanding with his partner. Her body felt as though it had been made for this moment, this loving, this man, and only this man.
At the last moment he hesitated, looking down into her face as though seeking one final reassurance. By now her breathing was coming fast, and any delay was intolerable. She wanted him and she wanted him now.
‘Dante,’ she whispered urgently.
He gave a quick sigh of satisfaction, hearing something in her voice that he’d needed to know, and the next moment he was inside her, glorying in being part of her.
After he looked different. The teasing clown who enchanted her was also the lover who instinctively knew the secrets of her body and used them for his purpose in a way that was almost ruthless. He’d known what he wanted and been determined to have it, but what he’d wanted was her joyful satisfaction. Now he had it, which meant he knew his power over her, but she had no fears about that power. She trusted him too much for that.
She wondered if she looked different to him too. Then she caught the faint bewilderment in his eyes and knew that she did. That delighted her, and it was she who moved towards him for their second loving, caressing him in ways that had never occurred to her before, because he was like no other man. He laughed and settled himself against her, implicitly inviting her to do whatever she liked, an invitation she accepted with vigour.
Later, when they had recovered, he propped himself on his elbow, looking down at her lying beneath him with a mixture of triumph and delight.
‘What took us so long?’ he whispered.
How could she give him an honest answer when she was only just now facing the truth in her own heart?
It took time because I’ve been holding back, fearful of having too many feelings for you. I knew if I got too close I was in danger of loving you, and I don’t want to. To love you is to risk heartbreak, and I don’t have the courage. Even though—even though it may already be too late. Too late for me? Too late for you?
There was no way to say that.
She just opened her arms and drew him in so she could enfold him protectively until they fell asleep in the same moment.
As the first touch of dawn came into the room, Dante rose from the bed, careful not to waken her, and went to stand by the window. From here he could see the sun rising behind the ruins, casting its promise over the new day.
A new day. It was a feeling he’d thought he would never know. The circumstances of his life had bred in him a wary detachment, making it easier to stand back, observe himself wryly, often cynically, and sometimes with a melancholy that he fought with laughter.
But this morning the melancholy had lifted. Detachment was gone, leaving him at peace.
Peace: the very last quality he associated with Ferne. She teased him, haunted him, jeered and provoked him. Sometimes he wondered if she’d known how she tempted him, but then he would see the look in her eye—assessing, challenging, taking him to the next stage of the game they were playing.
The game was called ‘who will blink first?’ She’d played it with consummate skill, enticing him into indiscretions like buying her a bikini. That had shown his hand too obviously, and she’d played on it, luring him to the edge, closer to the moment when he’d had to abandon the control that ruled his life.
The luck of the devil had been on her side. Nobody could have predicted the arrival of Sandor and the fierce jealousy that had stormed through Dante. Seeing them together on the beach, Sandor’s hands actually touching her body—the one he thought of as his own personal possession—he’d come close to committing murder.
She’d tried to refuse the invitation to stay here, but why? A demon had whispered in his ear that she was afraid to be in Sandor’s company lest the old attraction overwhelm her. He’d insisted on accepting, driven by the need to see more of them together and know what he was up against.
It had been no satisfaction that so many lures had been cast out to him last night. There were at least three bedrooms at which he could have presented himself, sure of a welcome. Instead he’d haunted her door until inevitably Sandor had appeared, bare-chested, for seduction, and entered without knocking.
The moment when he’d heard her slap the man’s face had felt like the beginning of his life.
It meant that in the game they were playing she’d won and he’d lost. Or possibly the other way around. Whatever! He couldn’t have been happier.
He returned to the bed, sitting down carefully so as not to disturb her. He wanted to watch her like this, relaxed and content, breathing almost without making a sound. A wisp of hair had fallen over her face and he brushed it back softly. Somehow his hand stayed, stroking her face.
Her lips moved in a smile, telling him that she was awake. The smile turned into a chuckle and she opened her eyes to find him looking directly into them.
‘Good morning,’ he whispered, settling beside her and drawing her close.
No passion now, just her head on his shoulder in blissful content, body curled against body, and the sense of having come home to each other.
‘Good morning,’ she murmured.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Mmm!’ She hid her face against him.
‘Me too,’ he agreed. ‘Very much all right.’
After a while she opened her eyes again to find him sunk in thought.
‘What are we going to do now?’ he wondered.
‘Leave this place behind,’ she said at once. ‘Sandor will throw us out anyway.’
‘A pity. Part of me wants to stay around for a while just to poke him in the eye. He had his turn making me jealous. Now it’s my turn to pay him back.’
‘Jealous? You?’
‘Don’t play the innocent. You knew exactly what you were doing to me. You loved seeing me on hot coals.’
‘I’ll admit it had its entertaining moments,’ she mused. ‘But that was because you were trying to play hard to get. Not always successfully, mind you, but you tried.’
‘Of course,’ he said, sounding shocked. ‘Don’t forget that I promised “just friendly”, and a gentleman always keeps his word.’
‘Gentleman? Huh!’
‘Let’s have that discussion later,’ he said hastily. ‘The point is, I couldn’t break my word, so I had to get you to break it for me. You forced me into retreat, so I’m innocent.’
‘Oh, please!’ she jeered. ‘The one thing I can’t imagine is you being innocent. You are a scheming, manipulative, double-dealing, tricky—Oh, the hell with it! Who cares if you’re a bad character? What are you doing?’
‘What does it feel as if I’m doing? Hush now, while I prove what a bad character I am.’
Laughing, he proceeded to do exactly that with such vigour that she was left breathless.
‘I suppose I ought to be grateful to Sandor,’ Ferne said when they had recovered. ‘He might be a clumsy oaf, but he did us a favour. Do you know, he actually wanted me to take some more pictures of him?’
‘What, after you…?’
‘Yes, apparently my photographs flattered him as nobody else’s did. Heavens, how did I ever fancy myself in love with that twerp?’
He suspected another reason why Sandor had tried to seduce Ferne. Such was the man’s vanity that he wanted to believe that he could reclaim her whenever he liked. But about this Dante stayed tactfully silent.
‘I suppose we should get up,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’
Gino was waiting for them downstairs, clearly on hot coals.
‘Sandor had a restless night and he’s gone for a walk in the grounds. He says he doesn’t feel up to seeing anyone.’
‘I wonder what could have brought that on?’ Dante said sympathetically.
‘Artistic sensibility,’ Gino sighed.
‘I understand,’ Dante said solemnly. ‘A true artist sometimes needs to be alone to commune with the universe. Did you speak?’ This was to Ferne, who was displaying alarming symptoms of choking. She managed to shake her head and he continued. ‘We’ll leave at once. Give me a call when the filming has finished and I’ll come back then.’
They didn’t even stay for breakfast. Tossing their things into bags, they fled the Palazzo Tirelli like children making a dash for freedom.
As the car swung out of the gates Ferne caught a glimpse of a tragically noble figure standing on a hill, watching their departure with a look of passionate yearning. Not that she could see his expression at this distance, but she would have bet money on it.
‘It’s like your Shakespeare said,’ Dante observed. ‘Some men are born twerps, others achieve twerphood, and some have it thrust upon them. Well, something like that, anyway.’
‘You’ve really got your knife in to Sandor, haven’t you?’ she chuckled.
Dante grinned. ‘I did once. Not any more.’
Ferne leaned back in her seat, smiling. The jokey note of the conversation suited her exactly. This was a man to have fun with, nothing more. The gleam of danger was still far off on the horizon, but she knew it was there, throwing its harsh light over everything in anticipation. The only answer was to look away.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked after a while.
‘Anywhere away from here.’
Safely out of Rome, he turned south and hugged the coast for about a hundred miles. There they found another beach, quiet, simple and delightfully unglamorous. The town was the same, a good place for strolling and buying toothpaste before retreating to their modest hotel and the room they shared.
‘Thank goodness Sandor wasn’t able to organise our accommodation this time,’ Dante chuckled as they lay together in a cosy embrace late that night. ‘It wasn’t an accident that we were put miles apart.’
‘Yes, I kind of worked that out. Low cunning.’
‘Fatal mistake. I’m the master of low cunning. Someone should have warned him.’
‘You’re also an old-fashioned male chauvinist, now I come to think of it.’
‘It took you long enough to find that out. When did you see the light?’
‘You said that if I’d welcomed Sandor into my room you’d have come in and thumped him.’
‘Good ‘n’ hard.’
‘But who gave you the right to veto my lovers? What about my right to make my own choice?’
‘My darling, you have an absolute right to choose any man you want.’
‘Good.’
‘As long as the one you choose is me.’
‘And you think I’m going to put up with that nineteenth-century attitude?’
In the darkness she heard him give the rich chuckle of the triumphant male.
‘Yes, because I’m not going to give you any option. Now, come here and let me make the matter plain to you.’
So she did. And he did. And after that they slept in perfect harmony.
