When first we practise to deceive…
But what else could she and Luca do now except go on with the lie? In the two weeks that had passed since Luca had told her what Matteo had done, her uncle had been revelling in anticipation for the coming party.
‘I want everyone to see—to know—how happy you and Luca have made me! My friends will rejoice with me!’
Would they? Uncertainty filled her, and she lifted her gaze to look at herself again. At least she looked the part in this exquisite gown, which had cost she dared not think about how much, and wearing her aunt’s jewellery—which presumably people other than Luca might well recognise.
A sudden jarring image forced itself into her head—how she had once looked, all those years ago, with her flashy fashion sense, her fake jewellery, her extravagant hairstyles, her lavish make-up. She had loved the way she looked, and Luca had enjoyed it too, but the Bianca of six years ago would never have convinced any of Matteo’s friends that she was his godson’s fiancée…
And now…?
She let her gaze rest on her own reflection. Now she was Matteo Fiarante’s niece, wearing pearls and a designer evening gown, with Luca’s betrothal ring on her finger—a miniature version, it seemed, of his family’s priceless ancestral heirloom.
Now I look entirely eligible for his elite, rich and aristocratic world.
Emotion twisted inside her. What if she’d looked like this six years ago? What if she’d met Luca then, as a university student, speaking BBC English and knowing all about Titian and theRenaissance and anything else that he and all the people who would be here tonight took for granted and knew about?
Would he still have finished with me? Declared our affair over?
The questions hung in her head. It was pointless even to ask. Pointless to revisit the past. She had made her peace with it. Now, all she must do was cope with the present. Get through this evening as best she could, playing the part she and Luca had accepted. And so must he.
A tremor went through her. She had not set eyes on him since he had gone back to Rome. She had schooled herself not to think about him and to focus only on her uncle, on keeping him company, lifting his spirits, letting him enthuse about the coming party, trying the best she could to deflect him from talking about the future, when she and Luca were married…
Yet Luca had stayed in her head, a background presence, all the time. It was worst in the reaches of the night, when she would wake and unguarded thoughts would spring into her unwary consciousness. She’d see him in her mind’s eye, hear him, replay his presence.
She dreaded seeing him tonight.
Tonight would be an ordeal not just because of the lie she must parade in front of her uncle’s friends, but for a far more daunting reason. It would be an ordeal simply to be in Luca’s company again…
Somehow, she would have to endure it.
Somehow she would need to face not just those people, but Luca. She’d heard his car with its distinctive engine note pull up some ten minutes ago, and presumed he was talking with Matteo, awaiting her descent. She knew she needed to go downstairs, that guests would be arriving. But she wanted to delay the moment just a tiny bit longer.
Steeling herself, she reached for the bottle of scent on her dressing table, spritzing lightly, covering the pearls with her hand as she did so. Then, after a swift pursing of her lips to check her lipstick, and a final glance to check her mascara had not smudged, with a determined movement she headed for her bedroom door.
Just as she did so, there was a quick knock on it. Assuming it was Maria, she called out for her to come in.
But it was not Maria who walked in.
It was Luca.
* * *
Luca stopped dead. It had been two weeks since he had last set eyes on Bianca, that day at hispalazzo. But even if she had been out of sight, she had not been out of mind. Troublingly so. They had communicated by phone, on updates on Matteo and over the practicalities of this party Matteo was insisting on. The calls had been mutually civil…amiable, even…but every one, he knew, had ended with him feeling disquieted. Knowing that, however much he should not—for what would be the purpose of it?—he wanted to see her again.
And now he was.
And now, as his gaze rested on her, he knew exactly why he had wanted to.
For the reason that was sweeping through him now, making a mockery of all his disquiet, his confusion. Making something inside him totally clear.
Whatever had once been between him and Bianca was blazing again…making everything else irrelevant. The charade they were performing, the lie they were getting deeper and deeper into, the deception they were perpetrating. All irrelevant.
There was only one truth now.
And she was standing there and it was radiating from her.
Barely more than a metre away from him, he saw Bianca face him. He felt something clench inside him and knew exactly what it was. A slug to his solar plexus, wiping the breath momentarily from his lungs.