He heard her draw a breath.
‘And now I’ve finally done that,’ she said. ‘It’s taken six years, but now it’s done. Seeing you again has enabled me to do so—ironic though that is.’
He wanted to say something, though he wasn’t sure what. What she’d just said jarred. ‘Ironic’, she’d called it. But that irony applied to him, too. Only in reverse. Seeing Bianca again had not had the same effect on him as it had on her…
She’s decided she is over me finally. Whereas I—
He let his eyes go to her now. Only a rapid glance, because he was driving. But something had flared inside him—something that refuted what she’d just said to him.
I’ve said I want us to behave as though we are the strangers Matteo believes us to be. But even if we were it could not make me impervious to the effect she has on me! Her beauty is too great for that.
And they were not strangers—he had reminded her of that inescapable truth. They had been lovers who had burned in each other’s arms, consumed in a passion that had never quite been sated.
I could have made my London posting twice as long and still not tired of her.
Only when his recall had come he had faced up to reality. A reality he’d forced upon her.
A reality that no longer exists.
His glance flicked to her yet again, and then away, leaving her image on his retinas. She had said the differences between then had lessened only because she’d turned out to be his godfather’s niece, and because now she dressed accordingly and was a university graduate with a professional career. And, yes, he was glad for her that she’d found the family she’d never known and had made a career for herself—an achievement to be proud of. And, yes, six years on he did prefer her more elegant fashion style and image. But what had flared between them from the moment he’d set eyes on her was flaring once more.
For him, at least.
And for her?
She’d said he’d only kissed her that night at Matteo’s to wind her up, to retaliate for her scathing denunciation of his assumption that she’d persuaded his godfather to come up with his insane idea. And that was true. But the moment their lipshad touched there had been only one motivation, one reason for kissing her.
And only one reason for her kissing him back… He knew that with every male instinct in his body.
That reason had not disappeared when he had ended their affair. It was still there, in every glance at each other, every flicker of constant awareness. Yes, perhaps six years ago she had looked to him to provide the sense of belonging that she now had from her uncle, but that did not mean that what he felt whenever he looked at her she did not feel too.
If she would only let herself…
Because it’s there—it’s still there. And not even all her denial can deny its truth.
Not to her. Not to him. Not any longer.
* * *
Bianca was on her laptop, but her mind was not on her work. Other things were filling it. The day had brought so much—too much. How could she make sense of it? Less than three days ago she’d had no idea that Luca was about to walk back into her life, and now—now he was dominating it. Dominating her thoughts, her feelings.
Her desires.
She felt herself tense, lifting her hands from the keyboard. Restless, suddenly. Abruptly she levered herself off her bed, where she’d been propped up against the pillows, and set aside her laptop. She crossed to the window overlooking the villa’s gardens. A moon was rising, casting silvered shadows over the topiary standing sentinel in the night. How different this formal garden was from the naturalistic landscape of thepalazzo.
Luca’spalazzo. His home…his birthplace…his birthright.
Her thoughts moved to and fro, sifting through all that she had thought and felt that day, the day before, the night before…
So short a space of time, and yet so much had happened.
So much had changed.
Her anger at Luca had dissipated…drained away. She’d let go of it. Because now she realised why she had been so desperate not to lose him. And he—he had changed too. Had acknowledged how brutal his dismissal of her had been—how he had been driven to it because she had wanted him too much, had feared losing him too much. She must accept that. And he had to accept—hadaccepted—that she was not who she had been when he’d walked out on her.
She was his own godfather’s niece. Bianca Fiarante. Who one day would be a wealthy woman. She was a woman already embarked upon a demanding science-based career, earned through her own determined efforts, and now she dressed and looked and sounded perfectly eligible and perfectly entitled to be part of the elite world of wealth and ancestry that Luca had always been part of.
The world of Luca the Visconte D’Alabruschi, with his eighteenth-centurypalazzo, his land and his estates, his crested silverware and his very own personal Roman ruins—the world he had always been part of.