The world she had once been excluded from.
Yes, so much had changed since then.
But one thing had not.
Her eyes looked out over the shadowed gardens, mysterious in the moonlight, and she heard the cry of a nightbird piercing the low, nocturnal murmur of the cicadas.
One thing had not changed at all.
She shut her eyes, but on her inner eyelids was still the image imprinted there six long years ago. And three brief days could never expunge it. It would always, always be there.
Luca. Only Luca.
She thrust away from the window, a half-cry of anguish stifled inside her. Oh, what use was it that she should feel like this? What use was it that she should still be so drawn to him? Nothing could happen between them. Nothingmusthappen.
Somehow—for the remainder of this painful, conflicted time, while they were still playing out her uncle’s sad, desperate fantasy—she had to stay strong. Keep Luca at bay. She shut her eyes, as if she could shut him out of her vision, out of her head. Why was he tormenting her, saying what he had said to her, that her beauty still called to him?
I must resist it—I must!
Because anything else—
She would not go there. Not in her thoughts, nor in her imaginings. And most of all not in any reality at all.
Determinedly, she sat herself down on her bed, swung her legs up, propped the laptop on her knees once more, and made herself focus on her work. Blocking out, as best she could, all that had happened since she’d looked across thesalonito see Luca walking out of the past…
Again, ruthlessly, she pulled her thoughts away.
Luca had left the villa after he’d dropped her off, staying only to spend a few minutes with Matteo, then heading off. She’d been relieved—especially when he’d told her, in a voice without expression, that he’d be going to Rome the next day and was unlikely to return for a fortnight. She’d only nodded as he’d bade her goodbye, watched him head downstairs, then gone in to see her uncle.
Matteo had been in high spirits, and over the dinner she’d shared with him upstairs in his room had been eager to hear all about her visit to thepalazzo.She’d waxed lyrical, but evaded any questions or assumptions her uncle had made about what she would do when she was mistress there.
That day would never come—for all her uncle’s hopeless fantasies.
For any fantasies at all…
* * *
‘Luca, you sly devil! When did all this happen? You’ve kept it damned quiet!’
Luca looked nonplussed at his colleague, a friend from school and university, and the son of good friends of his parents and Matteo.
‘Kept what quiet?’ he asked.
Pietro slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Your engagement!’
‘Mywhat?’ Luca’s reaction was explosive.
Pietro laughed. ‘No point trying to hide it any longer! Not with your engagement party the weekend after next. Short notice—but I won’t be missing it, I can tell you.’
A pool of ice formed in Luca.
‘Engagement party?’ His voice was still blank.
Pietro gave another laugh. ‘Trying to keep it secret a bit longer, were you? No luck, my friend. The invitations have gone out!’
The moment he could get to it, Luca was on his phone. As soon as Bianca was on the line, he exploded.
‘What thehell,’ he demanded, ‘is going on? Anengagementparty?’