Chapter Ten #2
‘Please, don’t get up,’ instructed Vito in English as he reluctantly introduced the two women. ‘Arianna, this is Flora—my fiancée. Flora—Arianna is married to Raffaele, who I’ve known pretty much forever.’
‘You are such a dark horse!’ chided Arianna switching immediately to the same language and smiling widely at Flora. ‘That is a beautiful ring,’ she observed, gazing down at the glittering diamond. ‘How pregnant are you, Flora, and when’s the wedding?’
‘A little over three months,’ said Flora, finding her voice at last. ‘And we…we haven’t decided on any dates yet.’
‘Well, I hope we’re going to see more of you.’ Arianna flashed Flora a warm smile. ‘Perhaps you can encourage Vito to bring you to our party next week! It would be remarkable if your famously isolationist fiancé attended for once.’ She pulled a complicit face. ‘He always claims to be working.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Flora lamely.
After the calm of the obstetrician’s office, the world outside seemed extra noisy and Flora was glad the car was waiting for them kerb-side.
She settled back into the seat, suddenly aware that her hands were unsteady, but maybe that wasn’t surprising.
There had been the slightly disconcerting experience of bumping into one of Vito’s friends, but the appointment itself had been a highly emotional experience.
Emotional for her, anyway. She’d done it solo back in England, but with Vito beside her it had taken on a whole new significance as she’d watched the baby’s heartbeat and seen the movement of the tiny shape.
She’d sneaked a glance at the man beside her and for one brief second he had looked as if he were all choked up, and her heart had lifted with hope and joy.
But just as quickly, his expression had hardened and the moment to ask him about it had been lost, because they had bumped into one of his friends.
Immaculate Arianna, dressed in pale and perfect silk, with hair which looked as if it might have been professionally blow-dried that very morning.
She had stared at Flora as if she had just landed from the moon, though had seemed genuinely welcoming once she had processed the shocking news that Vito was engaged and soon to be a father.
‘Arianna seemed very nice,’ she ventured as their car gathered speed, sensing that neutral topics were probably wisest, in the circumstances.
‘She is.’ But the pause which followed seemed weighted and the tightening of his lips indicated undeniable displeasure. ‘But now the whole damned city will know and my phone line will be hot with journalists peddling intrusive questions.’
‘I thought we’d decided that was inevitable,’ she shot back, before softening her stance a little. ‘You could try putting a more positive spin on it, Vito.’
His head turned to survey her thoughtfully, as if her heated response had activated a neglected part of his brain. ‘Do you want to go to their party?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that what this is all about?’
It was about a lot more than that, Flora thought, but now wasn’t the time to start listing all her other complaints and to question why he seemed to have been going out of his way to avoid her.
He might tell her truthfully that he found her dull company and she would be forced to live with that knowledge!
‘Yes, I would, as it happens,’ she said, unable to suppress her sudden leap of pleasure at the thought of an evening out with him.
But just as quickly came a wash of social anxiety as she remembered what Arianna Bertini had been wearing and found herself comparing it to Amy’s brightly coloured cast-offs, all of which were getting a bit too tight.
Would it sound as if she were on the take if she brought such a mundane matter to his attention?
Surely it was more a case of not wanting to let him down than being materially ambitious.
‘But I’m not sure that any of my clothes will be suitable,’ she ventured cautiously.
‘Oh, that.’ Leaning back against the plush leather seat of the limousine, he gave a quick nod, as if this were a subject he approved of—the ability to solve problems with the use of his wallet. ‘That can easily be remedied. We’ll just have to buy you some new ones.’
‘By next week, you mean?’ she questioned uncertainly.
His smile was unashamedly arrogant. ‘Si, of course. By tomorrow, should you wish it.’
* * *
‘So, what’s this party in aid of?’ Flora questioned in a low voice, as an attendant took her coat and she and Vito headed towards the party.
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘I wonder,’ she said sardonically, as her eyes darted to an instantly recognisable social media star who was clinging to the arm of a high-profile British politician. ‘You don’t think it might have anything to do with the fact that everyone here is so famous?’
‘I agree it’s a fairly glittering segment of society, but so what?
’ Vito murmured, aware that his voice sounded unusually indulgent but weirdly enough, that was the way he was feeling towards her right now.
Protective, yes—that had kicked in from the moment he had discovered that she was pregnant—but also very turned on, in a way which seemed magnified beyond his understanding.
His throat dried as he averted his gaze from the ripe curve of Flora’s bottom.
Santo cielo! He wanted to follow her round the room like a puppy dog and not let her out of his sight.
He wanted to peel that pale green dress from her petite form. And suddenly he was angry with himself.
Why bring her to a damned party when all he really wanted was to take her to some dark corner, alone and unobserved, where he could give into his wildest fantasies.
Fantasies which had been building all week, no matter how much he tried to suppress or deny them.
Or maybe denial was what had fed them to a point where he had become a victim of his own frustrated desire. Because she looked…
His throat thickened.
She looked amazing.
Her sleeveless dress was made of pale green silk the colour of a pistachio, which clung like melted butter to her delicious body.
The scooped neck provided a distracting glimpse of creamy cleavage and was so cleverly cut that only the most discerning eye would have noticed the faint expansion of her waist. But to Vito—she might as well have carried a sign screaming out the fact that she was pregnant.
Her hair was as shiny as glass, her skin full of bloom and vitality and her green-gold eyes were sparking more brightly than the huge diamond ring on her finger.
In a sea of svelte women clad mainly in monotone shades of grey and cream, Flora stood out like a handful of rubies spilt on snow.
‘It’s a birthday party for Raffaele,’ he said at last, as he struggled to remember what her question had been.
Her lips framed a shape of mild alarm. ‘Oh, no! We haven’t even bought him a present!’
He shrugged. ‘He doesn’t need anything.’
‘Ah. I see. Another man who has everything, I suppose?’ she validated mockingly. ‘Just like you?’
But right then Vito didn’t feel like a man who had everything, despite the apartments and houses, the factories and planes, and the small island off the coast of America which he had rewilded after making his first billion.
The one thing he really wanted was tantalisingly within his reach and yet totally beyond it.
Her bright eyes were darting around the room and a small smile was curving her rosy lips.
He had sensed her excitement growing over the past few days, as she had gained more of a foothold in his life.
And he had allowed her to do just that, hadn’t he?
Or maybe he had been less diligent about keeping her at a distance after the extraordinary experience of seeing his baby on the ultrasound.
Hadn’t that driven home the fact that this was all real, and no amount of burying his head in the sand would change that?
But that fact didn’t change him.
He was still the same man. Still unable to give her what she would ultimately need.
But for now, at least, that certainty was weakened by his unwilling fascination for her.
Was she aware of how much he wanted her and that every fibre of his being hungered for her, with a taunting lust which rippled through his body?
That night after endless night he fantasised about her as he’d thought of her, alone in that great big bed?
Yet it had provided some small crumb of comfort that he had not sought her out.
A reassuring reminder of the steely control which had always defined him.
‘There are so many people here,’ Flora observed, plucking a canapé from a passing tray and popping it into her mouth. ‘How do you know Raffaele?’
‘We were at school together.’
‘What, here? In Milan?’
‘No. In Rome.’ He paused, because she was looking at him expectantly. ‘I went to live there with my mother and brother, when my parents divorced. It’s where the Italian film industry is based.’
She nodded. ‘And what was it like growing up, as the child of an actor?’
She had slid the question so effortlessly into the conversation and if it had been anyone other than Flora, he might have quashed it with an arrogant suggestion that perhaps she was moonlighting as a journalist. But something about the noise of the party seemed to absorb the words as he spoke them, soaking them up like blotting paper, so that it felt less like a confidence and more like the relaying of a simple fact.
‘It wasn’t easy,’ he answered. ‘My mother’s ambition never really matched her aptitude for acting and for that I think she suffered. We all did,’ he added on an aside, his voice hardening. ‘Particularly my brother.’
‘Oh?’
‘He was only a baby when they split,’ he informed her, a shiver of distaste rippling down his spine as he recalled the chaos of his parents’ messy divorce. ‘And my mother wasn’t really there for him.’
‘Do you mean mentally, or physically?’ she ventured.