Luca was going through the motions. The band had packed up and gone, and Matteo’s guests were leaving. It was not that long after midnight, but by general tacit agreement none of his friends wanted their host to tire. Luca could see Giuseppe hovering, and Paolo behind him, as he and Bianca stood beside Matteo in the hall, thanking everyone and bidding them goodnight.
It seemed to take for ever for the last guests to leave, and Luca understood their reluctance, knowing it might be the last time they saw Matteo. Their farewells were sympathetic, their smiles warm and their wishes warmer—for Luca and Bianca as well. She was receiving them with difficulty, Luca could tell, but he knew it would be presumed by Matteo’s guests as sadness at her uncle’s illness.
At last the doors were closed. Paolo was stepping forward, and Matteo was turning to Luca and Bianca, embracing them both, emotions heightened. He was looking exhausted, but content.
‘I shall yield to the anxious looks Paolo is trying not to show,’ he said, lowering a goodnight kiss on Bianca’s cheek. ‘My dear, dear children—how happy you have made me!’ He turned to Giuseppe. ‘And you, faithful friend that you are—thank you! For making all this happen!’
Luca, still standing beside Bianca, watched Paolo help Matteo upstairs, one step at a time. Then he spoke to Giuseppe, thanking him in turn.
He heard Bianca’s voice echo his thanks and urge that he and his staff should enjoy the surplus buffet, the remaining wines and champagnes, and go off duty, their rest well earned. Bestowing a small smile on him, she bade him goodnight, following in her uncle’s wake.
Luca strolled into the dining room to fetch a half-finished bottle of champagne in its cooler, and two unused glasses.
There would be a celebration of his own to make…a celebration to share.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BIANCASATATher dressing table, gazing at her reflection. She could not make out the expression in her face. It seemed like a stranger’s face to her. Her eyes were both troubled…and dazed. Her pulse seemed both quick…and slow. Her breathing shallow…and intense.
She gazed almost blindly at the woman she could see in the glass.
The quietness of the room lapped about her, dimly lit by the bedside lamp she had switched on and the lamp that sat on the dressing table, casting only a soft glow in the darkness. After the chatter of voices in lively conversation, the music from the band, the clink of crystal glasses, the silence seemed absolute. She could not even hear her own breathing.
But the click of her door catch she could hear.
She turned. It would be a maid, surely, come to help her divest herself of the beautiful silk gown and put away her jewellery. Surely only that?
But, as at the start of this long, difficult evening, when she had been nerving herself to go down and play the part her uncle had cast her in, it was not the maid.
As she had known since that moment he had taken her into his arms out on the terrace, into that dance…that slow, seductive waltz…it was Luca.
Only Luca…
Luca…
* * *
She was so beautiful. So exquisitely, incredibly beautiful. It took his breath away. For an endless moment he simply stood there, gazing at her, as she turned towards him where she sat at the dressing table.
He did not speak. There was no need to. He knew that she knew why he was here. Why this had been waiting to happen. Not just since they had danced on the terrace, but since she had come back into his life. Uninvited, unthought-of, uncalled-for—but back.
He moved towards her, closing the bedroom door behind him, absently placing the champagne and the glasses on a pier table beside the door. She did not speak, and he did not want her to. Did not want protestations or resistance…
Because there will be none. Not any more. For she wants what I want too.
And he wanted to do only what he was doing now. Reaching out his hand to find hers…drawing her to her feet.
She rose with a soft rustle of silk, her face uplifted to his.
‘Bianca…’
It was all he said. All he needed to say.
His mouth lowered to hers.
* * *
How long ago it had been…how achingly long ago…since she had given herself to him. For this was a giving of herself—and a taking too. Slowly, sensuously, as his mouth softly caressed hers, his hands reached to her back. Slowly, sensuously, he eased down the long zip…eased open the catch on her strapless bra.