CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
S IENA ’ S EYES FLASHED to him.
‘You have another name for it?’
She didn’t say it angrily—she wasn’t going to get upset. But she wasn’t going to whitewash it either. ‘Mess’ was—bluntly and bleakly—the only word for the situation.
His eyes were levelled on her. She could not read them.
‘I think,’ he said, and his voice matched his eyes, his expression, ‘that we must find one.’ He paused, his eyes still on her. ‘Because it is not...helpful to call it that. To think of it as that.’
She saw him take a breath, a thin one, and it pressed his mouth for a moment before he went on.
‘We must get beyond it.’
His eyes dropped from her and he reached for his wine. For the second time that evening Siena wished she had a glass of wine to turn to as well. Instead, she took a mouthful of her soft drink, slightly effervescent. Memory shot through her of how the mousse of the champagne she’d knocked back at that fateful party had filled her mouth...her senses...her blood... Loosening her inhibitions, making her impulsive, adventurous, daring...
Reckless.
Landing her where she was now.
She set down her glass with a click, eyeballed Vincenzo.
‘How?’ she said bluntly.
There was a careful, watchful air about him as he answered her.
‘We have made a start,’ he said. ‘I have given you an apology that you have accepted, and we are dining together in a civil fashion.’ His mouth twisted suddenly. ‘That is a definite start. Something to build on.’
She kept on eyeballing him. ‘And just how,’ she rejoined tautly, ‘do you intend we do that?’
She could feel the tension building inside her again. She didn’t want it to.
And now he was answering her, and she knew he was picking his words carefully.
‘We should get to know each other better,’ he said.
Siena’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Don’t we know enough? The essentials? You are rich and I am pregnant. Isn’t that what it boils down to? For you, at any rate.’
It was her turn to twist her mouth.
His expression changed again. As if what she’d said so bluntly had been more blunt than he would have preferred.
‘I have already apologised to you on that score,’ he said stiffly. ‘So perhaps we could move on from there?’ His tone was pointed.
‘Move on to where?’
‘As I say, to knowing each other better,’ he replied.
She sat back. ‘So, what do you want to know?’
If it helped to stop her tension rising, then she would go along with him. Maybe...
He lifted a hand slightly. ‘Well, I made a start, asking you about your work. You chose not to answer me.’
She gave a shrug, helping herself to a bread roll. She was hungry suddenly. ‘Because there isn’t much to say. I don’t have a glittering career—unlike Megan.’
‘So what have you been doing with your life so far?’ he continued.
She busied herself buttering her roll. She didn’t want to talk about having hoped to go to art school. Let alone second time around. Let alone why it was second time around.
She felt memories from those anguished years seek to intrude, painful and difficult. But she must not let them. There was no reason now, in her condition—healthily pregnant—for such haunting, such apprehension.
It’s nothing like it was for them—it’s all quite different. Quite different for my baby...
Vincenzo was speaking again, and she found herself glad of the distraction from thoughts—fears?—she did not want to have.
‘Did you grow up in London?’ Vincenzo put to her.
Siena shook her head. This was safe enough, surely? ‘No, I’m a country girl, born and bred.’
‘What part of the country?’ he pursued.
‘East Anglia...a small country town.’ Without her being conscious of it her voice softened as she remembered her happy childhood. ‘My father was a vet, my mother his veterinary nurse. My brother trained as a vet too, ready to take over the practice in due course—’ She broke off.
It wasn’t that safe after all...
She was aware that Vincenzo was resting his gaze on her, and that it still had that careful, watchful quality to it.
‘Have you told your family you are pregnant?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. She tried not to let her voice sound short. ‘My parents—’
She stopped, took another drink from her glass, her mouth suddenly dry. She looked away, out over the restaurant, which was now starting to fill up.
‘My parents did pro bono work every year. My father was an equine vet, and he and my mother went out to North Africa regularly, to help at a donkey charity they supported. Donkeys are crucial to the livelihoods of most of the rural population in that part of the world—but sadly their owners often don’t have the means to look after them properly. My parents gave their own services to the charity, and helped to train local practitioners as well. They did it for years... Except that one year—’ She stopped again. Took a painful breath. ‘One year, while they were out there, there was an earthquake.’
She felt her throat tighten, reached for her glass again.
‘I’m sorry.’
She heard the words, spoken quietly, but she could not look at him. Nor could she say anything.
Into the silence he spoke again, careful still. ‘You mentioned a brother—?’
‘He lives in Australia,’ she said quickly. ‘We’re not estranged or anything...’ She could hear the awkwardness in her voice and tried to speak over it. ‘But, well...it’s the other side of the world.’
That was all she wanted to say. But inside her head thoughts were running that she did not wish to think. Thoughts about her brother. At some point she must tell him that she was pregnant. It would not be easy...
She looked up at Vincenzo, setting down her knife. ‘What about you?’ she asked, turning the tables on him. Deflecting questions away from herself.
Did she even want to know anything about him?
If they were going to get beyond their destructive, exhausting hostility she must make an effort to.
He’s apologised—I’ve accepted it. Now we move on.
He did not get a chance to answer her. At that moment their food was arriving, and Siena quickly made a start on her fish. It was delicate, and delicious, the tiny new potatoes and fresh peas served separately equally delicious. Across from her Vincenzo was eating his lamb—which looked, to her mind, too rare for her palette.
‘How is your sole?’ Vincenzo asked politely.
‘Very good,’ she answered, equally politely.
For a few minutes they did nothing but make inroads into their dinner, then Vincenzo resumed their conversation.
‘You asked about me,’ he said, picking up on the question she’d turned on him. He took another forkful of lamb before he went on.
Was it an effort for him as well? Siena wondered. His voice sounded stilted, but he was answering her all the same.
‘I cannot claim to be a country boy—I grew up in the suburbs of Milan. My background was not as...’ She heard him hesitate suddenly, then continue. ‘Not as affluent as my life is now. I have improved it since then.’
Siena looked across at him. There had been an edge to his voice as he’d finished that sentence—she’d have had to be deaf not to hear it.
‘How?’ she asked.
His wealth was clearly of prime importance to him, and he guarded it from wannabe pregnant gold-diggers, so presumably it was a subject dear to his heart—and his ego.
And his fears...
Just in case I get my sticky, greedy little fingers into it...
‘Hard work,’ he came back succinctly. ‘I studied, took an interest in economics and finance—because that, after all, is where the money is. I worked to earn money during the day and studied by night. I got my qualifications, and went to work for one of Milan’s finance houses—it is the financial centre of Italy, as well as its fashion capital—and then, when I felt I had learnt enough to try and make my own fortune, I set up for myself.’
She looked at him, frowning slightly. ‘What is it exactly that you do?’
‘I make investments,’ he said. ‘I started by using my own money to accumulate sufficient funds by making investments on the Milan stock exchange. Then I used profits from that to invest in other companies, other ventures. I persuaded others to contribute as well, and made money for them as well as myself. Money,’ he said, and now Siena could hear not just an edge, but a dryness to his voice, ‘makes money. Once you have it, it is easy to make more of it.’
His voice changed, and now the dryness had gone, but not the edge. The dryness was replaced by something that might even have been bitterness.
‘The challenge is the initial capital formation,’ he said. ‘That is where the hardest work is.’
‘You started from nothing?’ she asked.
She saw him reach for his wine, take a mouthful, set the glass back with a decided click.
‘More or less,’ he said.
There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice now. She let her eyes rest on him. His face had closed—that was the only word for it. Instinctively, she moved the subject away.
‘You asked about my family,’ she said. ‘What about yours?’
But his expression remained closed and he turned his attention to his lamb.
‘None worth mentioning,’ he answered tersely.
Then he set his knife and fork down abruptly, looked straight across at her. There was a strange expression in his eyes now, one she could not make out.
‘Apparently,’ he said, ‘we have something in common. Neither of us comes with a large family around us.’
Words rose in Siena’s head. Words she did not want to hear and would not say. But they said themselves inside her head for all that.
Yet between us we are making a family.
Immediately, instantly, she refuted them—rejected them. No, that was not what they were doing. There was nothing of ‘family’ about their situation. Nothing at all.
We are strangers who fell into bed in a moment of reckless, unthinking lust—and that does not, cannot, must not, should not have anything at all to do with ‘family’!
She broke eye contact, dipped her head again. She got stuck back into her sole Veronique...stabbed a potato with the tines of her fork.
As if she could stab the words that had just forced their impossible, unnecessary and totally wrong way into her head.
Vincenzo heard his own words echo in his head.
‘Apparently we have something in common.’
His mouth tightened.
Something else besides the child she carries.
Doggedly, he went on eating, though for an instant the tender lamb tasted like cardboard in his mouth. He swallowed it down, reached for his wine. This whole evening had been his idea, and he must stick with it. It was...necessary.
Necessary to have made that apology to her, whether or not he’d meant it.
Necessary to attempt civil conversation with her.
Necessary for them to talk to each other. Get to know each other.
Because one day soon we will be parents.
It seemed impossible to believe that a single night had turned them into what they would be for the rest of their lives.
He pulled his mind away, finished off his lamb, pushed his plate away from him. He took another mouthful of wine. Time to make conversation again. To get to know each other a bit more. The way they had to.
He frowned inwardly. Her parents had been professionals, and so was her brother, it seemed. Had she really not done anything similar? Just worked as a clerk, or whatever, in her friend’s office?
He gave a shrug mentally. What did it matter? She wasn’t going to be working at all now. Courtesy of her pregnancy and his wealth.
No, don’t go there again. It is as it is. You will be funding her existence because you are funding the existence of the child that is yours. And you can afford it, so if she benefits from it, why care?
She had finished her fish and the waiter was gliding up again, carefully placing the dessert menus on the table, whisking away the empty dishes.
Vincenzo picked up his menu. ‘Do you care for dessert?’ he asked.
Memory shot through him again. That night at the Falcone she had ordered an iced parfait , he recalled now. And he had watched her spooning little mouthfuls, openly relishing them. He recalled that frisson now, untimely and unwelcome though it was, of watching her sensuous enjoyment. It had only fuelled his impatient desire for her, his wanting the meal to be over and the real purpose of being with her that night to begin.
He put the memory from him. It was inappropriate.
She’d picked up her menu, was scanning it assiduously.
‘I’m torn,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot to choose from...’ she mused.
‘I see there is a raspberry parfait on offer. You had something similar at the Falcone,’ Vincenzo heard himself saying, and instantly wished he had not.
Yet even as he cursed himself for referencing that fateful evening he became aware of something else he wished he had not done. And it wasn’t about the unwelcome outcome of that night.
It was about what had led to it in the first place.
Now that wall of hostility that had been there since she’d walked into his office to drop her bombshell all those weeks ago had gone, other things were taking its place. Things he did not want. Oh, he wanted a degree of basic civility between them—just as he’d told her when he’d made himself apologise, and when he’d said they must get beyond it—but now more was happening. Some line of self-defence had been breached. Something he’d been holding at bay. Something their mutual hostility had kept at bay...
But now it was running again...
He felt his gaze fasten on her. Though she looked very different from the way she’d looked at that party, her image now—nothing like a siren flaunting her sexuality—did not mean he could not see just how appealing her looks were. She might be wearing no make-up to enhance those blue-green eyes of hers, she might have her hair drawn back into a simple ponytail, and she might be wearing an open-necked shirt not designed for allure, but he was increasingly aware that it did nothing to detract from what nature had endowed her with.
If anything, it enhances it—shows off her natural beauty...
He felt it reach to him—not with the full-on, seductively sensual allure he’d been unable and unwilling to resist indulging in that night at the Falcone, but with a pull that made him want to go on letting his eyes fasten on her, appreciate what she had on show.
It was having an effect on him—an effect he did not want. Because it was irrelevant. His attraction to her, overpowering as it had been that night, was what had landed him in this situation—the very last thing he wanted now was for that to rear its head again.
He shifted in his seat, forcing his gaze away, wishing to God he’d not made that damn remark about their dinner together that evening.
‘In which case I’ll definitely avoid it!’ he heard her say, and by the way she said it she knew she had found the reference unwelcome as well.
His mouth tightened again. Something else they apparently had in common...
Not wanting to remember that night—think about it at all...
The waiter had glided up again, ready to take their orders. Vincenzo specified cheese, in a voice curter than he would usually have used. Then he heard Siena say, her voice as tight as before, ‘And for me the tarte citron .’
She handed her menu back.
‘And coffee,’ she added. ‘Decaf. Thank you.’ Her voice was staccato now.
Vincenzo, not looking at her, ordered coffee for himself. ‘Not decaf,’ he stipulated.
The waiter moved off again.
For a moment there was silence.
Vincenzo cast about for something neutral, anodyne to say. The trouble was he couldn’t think of anything.
As if she had come to the same conclusion, Siena spoke abruptly. ‘So, we don’t really have anything to say to each other, do we?’ she said.
She reached for her glass, drank from it and set it down again. Looked across at him.
Her blue-green eyes, so striking, so expressive, were now expressing something caustic.
‘So there’s no point us trying to get to know each other, is there?’ she went on, her voice caustic too.
Vincenzo dragged his thoughts from her eyes and frowned slightly. ‘I’m not used to getting to know people,’ he heard himself say tightly.
He saw Siena’s expression change. Become veiled.
‘Especially women?’ she said. ‘After all, what’s the point in getting to know them? You won’t be sticking around, so why bother?’
The hostility was back in her voice, in her face.
His own face tightened. This was not what he wanted. His resolve not to make any reference back to their searing night together vanished. This was another part of her wall—like it or not—and he had to dismantle it if he could. In the same way as before.
‘Do you want an apology for that, too?’ he asked. ‘For not staying to have breakfast with you?’ He didn’t wait for a response, but spoke bluntly. ‘It wasn’t possible. I had a business meeting at eight-thirty, and after that meetings back to back all day—it’s what I do when I come to London: max out my time here. And as for that eight-thirty meeting—I had made the appointment,’ there was a caustic note in his voice too now, ‘long before I met you.’ There was an infinitesimal pause. ‘I had not envisaged that the previous night would be as it was.’
She broke eye contact. ‘Make that both of us,’ she said. Then, almost immediately, her eyes flashed back to his. Full-on. ‘Despite your charming assumption that it’s a way of life for me.’
Antagonism bit in every word.
Vincenzo stilled.
‘I believe,’ he said tightly, ‘that my original apology to you covered that issue.’
‘Did it?’ Her challenge was open.
‘Yes.’ He spoke with precision. ‘However, if you wish me to clarify, I herewith apologise for any inference I drew that you make a habit of spending the night with men you have only just met, so that identifying the one who might be responsible for any consequent pregnancy would require extensive paternity testing. It was a slur on your character as unmitigated as it was unwarranted.’
He paused again, then half lifted an eyebrow.
‘Will that do?’ he said.
She didn’t say anything but he could see her face working, as if conflicting emotions were cutting across it. He saw her swallow painfully. On an impulse he didn’t understand, he let his hand start to reach towards her, then he pulled it back.
He spoke again. But in a different tone of voice now.
‘Look, shall we just accept and believe that each of us acted out of character that night? That, for whatever reason, our id got the better of us—if you want to analyse it in Freudian terms. That seems as good a way as any, but do choose any other that makes sense to you personally. We succumbed to something we very probably would never have done under other circumstances. And...’ he drew a breath ‘...if we accept that, then maybe we can also accept that what happened just happened, for whatever reason, and put it behind us.’
Even as he spoke, making himself sound reasonable and rational, he was conscious of a level of hypocrisy deep within him. But he set it aside. The fact that whether she was dressed to kill, as she had been that night, or dressed deliberately plainly, as she was on the present occasion, her looks would always draw his attention was completely irrelevant to the current situation...
I have to ignore that. Because it is the very last thing that I can allow into the situation we are trying to deal with.
He could see the same conflicting reactions playing across her face.
‘I did put it behind me,’ she said.
Her voice was low. Troubled. She wasn’t making eye contact with him, but looking down at the tablecloth.
‘It was the only way I could deal with it. Deal with what had happened. What I had let happen.’ Abruptly, her eyes flashed back up to him. ‘I made myself angry,’ she said. ‘I made myself angry about the way you walked out the next morning. Angry with you so that...’ She paused, her face working again. ‘So that I didn’t have to be angry with myself for what I’d done.’ She drew a breath. ‘Because what happened that night was something that has never happened to me before. And...and it shocked me. Shocked me that I’d done it.’
Her face contorted suddenly and she squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were shutting out the world. Shutting him out with it.
Vincenzo’s hand moved again, and this time he did not draw it back. Instead, he very lightly—very briefly—touched her cheek. Then he took his hand away.
‘There is no need to beat yourself up about it,’ he said.
His voice sounded different—he could hear it—but didn’t know why. Didn’t know why he had made that impulsive gesture of...
Of what?
Comfort? Was that it? Or collusion. Maybe that was it.
‘And if it’s any consolation,’ he went on, ‘you’ve probably pretty much described my own reaction.’
His voice was dry, but it was not dry with the acerbic tone he’d used before. This was self-knowledge. Belated self-knowledge. He, too, had used his anger at her—anger whipped up when she’d come to his office to tell him she was pregnant—to disguise his own shock that he had fallen into bed with a woman within hours of meeting her.
She had unscrewed her eyes, unscrewed her face, and was looking across at him now. Something had changed in her face.
‘Men always think that it’s OK to slut-shame a woman,’ she said. ‘While they themselves stay squeaky-clean and fragrant...’
Her voice had an edge—and with cause, he acknowledged.
He gave half a smile...a twisted one. ‘Then they are hypocrites,’ he said. ‘And that applies just as much now, in the twenty-first century, as in any earlier period when women’s sexuality was used as a weapon against them.’
He took a breath—a heavy one, but a releasing one too. Looked across at her. There was an open expression on her face now, and her eyes were meeting his. For the first time there was neither hostility in them nor challenge, nor reserve or guardedness.
‘Siena,’ he said, and he used her given name for the first time that evening, ‘let’s just accept what happened, shall we? We acted out of character that night, both of us. For whatever reason, it happened. Let’s make peace with it.’ He moved on, because it seemed the natural thing to do now. ‘Just as we should make peace with your being pregnant and all that entails. We neither of us wished for it, but it happened. Let’s at least try to keep on with what we’ve been trying to do this evening.’
He held her eyes for a moment. Hers were not veiled, but what was in them he did not know. Maybe it was simply exhaustion at hearing him out.
Whatever it was, their waiter was now gliding up to their table again, bearing his cheese board and Siena’s tarte . He set them down, murmuring something about their coffee, and disappeared again.
‘That looks good,’ Vincenzo said, indicating her dessert.
It seemed a sufficiently neutral comment to make. He followed it with another one.
‘In Italy, it’s the custom to serve cheese before dessert, rather than after, as in England.’
She picked up her fork. ‘Yes, cheese usually rounds off a meal here—unless you count the petit fours or chocolate mints that come with coffee and liqueurs.’
She echoed his neutral, conversational tone, and Vincenzo was glad. He felt in need of it. In need of something simple...easy...
The waiter was approaching again, bearing down on them with their respective coffees. Vincenzo made a start on his cheese. The atmosphere between them had relaxed. Or if not relaxed exactly, it had eased, at least. And he was grateful for it.
For a while there was silence between them, yet it was not a strained one.
We’ve moved on.
To what, he didn’t know. But one thing he did know.
Wherever they’d moved on to, it had to be better than where they’d come from...
That, too, was something to be grateful for.
Siena went on forking up her dessert. Her mood was strange. She tried to find a word for it, but the only one she could come up with was ‘exhausted’. Maybe that did sum up the situation. But another one came, too.
Relieved.
She wondered at it for a moment.
Relieved? Did she really feel relieved? And if so, why?
Because we’ve got something out of the way—something else.
Something other than the apology that she knew must have stuck in his craw.
But he made it all the same.
She frowned inwardly. Yes, he had. She had to give him that. And she had to give him something else—even if it stuck in her craw to do so.
He’s making an effort.
Because he was—that was obvious.
And I have to as well.
She looked up...looked across at him. His face was unreadable again. Not closed, just...unreadable.
Suddenly, she wanted to read it. ‘Were you really shocked that you fell into bed with me like that?’
The words were out of her mouth before she could filter them.
He met her eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s not something I’ve ever done before.’
She looked puzzled. He had spoken calmly, but she’d picked up something in the timbre of his voice. ‘It’s not supposed to be something men think is a big deal,’ she said slowly. ‘Instant sex with a stranger.’
He set down his cheese knife. ‘That depends on the man, doesn’t it?’
She pondered his answer. Pondered her reaction to it.
She knew that she was if not glad, precisely, at what he’d just said, then she was not the opposite. She also knew she wanted to ask another question—needed to ask it. But it was riskier...much riskier.
‘What is it?’ he asked. His eyes were still resting on her.
‘What’s what?’ she returned.
‘What is it you want to ask me?’ he said.
She was taken aback. How did he know...?
‘Your face is expressive,’ he said, as if he’d heard her ask that very question out loud.
There was a touch of dryness in his voice, but it was not harsh, or acerbic. It had the same quality as when he’d said, ‘There is no need to beat yourself up about it.’ Then he had touched her cheek...
She swallowed. Her throat had tightened, but she didn’t know why.
‘If it’s a difficult question, I will try to make it easier for you,’ he was saying now, and there was still that different timbre to his voice, the new way he was letting his eyes rest on her. She didn’t know what it was, but it made her take a breath. Risk asking the question. Blurting it out.
‘If...if you hadn’t had that early-morning meeting, would you...? Would you have...?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
She felt her throat untighten—and again she didn’t know why. Only knew that as he went on talking something was changing.
‘I would have been tempted to stay...to have breakfast with you.’
She heard his words. Heard the note of admission in them. Heard him continue.
‘I don’t know what would have happened had I not left as precipitately as I did.’
‘Well, we’ll never know now, will we?’ she said.
‘You’re right. We’ll never know, either of us, what might have come of that night together had I not walked out on you that morning...had you not found yourself pregnant. Which is why we can only deal with the situation as it is—not as it might have been, or might not have been. So...’ he drew a breath ‘...here we are. Trying to find a way forward that is more viable than perhaps either of us thought at first, with my accusations and your anger.’
‘I suppose we are,’ she said slowly.
She picked up her spoon, absently started to stir the coffee in her cup. Decaf wasn’t very appetising, but she took a mouthful anyway. Thoughts were going through her, and what might be emotions or might not—she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything...
He said he might have stayed—at least for breakfast. He’d acknowledged what had happened between them. Acknowledged the night before and the morning after.
That was something. Maybe...
She realised he was talking again, and made herself focus.
‘I was thinking...’ he was saying, and she could hear the note of reserve in his voice, see the watchfulness in his eyes. ‘Perhaps our next step should be to spend some time away. A few days together.’
She stared.
‘Somewhere out of London,’ he went on. He paused. ‘Would you consider that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly.
Could she cope with spending that kind of time with him?
‘There is no rush to decide. I have to return to Italy tomorrow, and then I am in Geneva, and then Turin. But after that... Well, that might be a good time, if it’s something you decide to do. Why not give some thought to where might be a good location?’
He left it at that, went back to eating his cheese and biscuits, and she went back to finishing her dessert. They didn’t speak, but for the first time the silence didn’t seem palpable.
She pushed her empty plate away, drained her unappetising coffee.
‘Would you like a refill?’ Vincenzo asked.
She shook her head. ‘I’ll have a fruit tea at the apartment. That way I won’t miss the caffeine,’ she said.
There was a rueful note in her voice, but it was only lightly rueful.
‘Then shall I call for the bill?’ he checked.
She nodded, and he summoned their waiter. The waiter came immediately, even though the restaurant had filled up and he was in demand. But then, she thought, Vincenzo Giansante was the kind of man who got waiters’ attention whenever he wanted it. Or his wealth got it...
But he hadn’t always been wealthy, had he? He’d said he’d made his money from scratch. So maybe there was a time when he couldn’t just click his fingers and have waiters come running.
And there was also a thought in her head, disquieting and disturbing, that maybe there had been a time when he didn’t have to be suspicious that any female interest in him was influenced by his wealth...
Like wanting to get pregnant by him.
He was putting away his fancy-looking credit card, getting to his feet. She did likewise. They fell into step as they headed back towards the apartment. The night air was cool, and she gave a slight shiver. A moment later he was draping his jacket around her shoulders.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, taken aback. Then: ‘Thank you,’ she said awkwardly.
It would be ungracious to divest herself of it—and besides, the warmth was welcome.
His body warmth...
It was a disturbing consciousness. Evoking memories...
They didn’t speak as they walked—but, again, it was not a tension-filled silence.
At the entrance to the apartment block he stopped. ‘ Mi dispiace , but I must relieve you of my jacket. My key is in the pocket.’
‘Oh...oh, yes...’
Siena slipped the jacket from her, felt the beautiful soft silk lining sliding over her shoulders. Vincenzo took it from her, fetched out his key, and opened the door into the lobby.
‘I’ll see you to your door, then bid you goodnight,’ he said.
And he did just that, ushering her into the lift, and then out again, and on to the apartment. By then she’d got her own key out of her handbag, and she used it to open the front door. Then she turned.
In the low light of the landing he seemed very tall, his face half shadowed, his profile thrown into relief. She felt something go through her, but she didn’t know what it was.
Didn’t want to know.
Because it’s not relevant. Not any more. Nor is it appropriate.
‘Thank you for dinner,’ she said, self-conscious suddenly.
He’d shrugged himself back into his jacket as she’d opened her apartment door. His eyes were resting on her. In the dim light she could not make out his expression. But perhaps that was just as well.
‘I think the evening did some good,’ he said. ‘I will leave you now. You have my contact details, should you need anything, otherwise I will be in touch at the end of next week.’ He paused. ‘I would ask you to consider what I suggested. See whether you think that our going away together might also do some good?’
She gave a half-nod, not wanting to commit.
‘I hope it goes well in Geneva and Turin,’ she said instead. It seemed a polite thing to say.
He nodded in the same grave fashion. ‘Thank you. And now, buona notte .’
‘Goodnight,’ she echoed, awkward again, and then stepped inside the apartment, closing the door. Shutting him out.
There was a studied expression on her face as she walked into the kitchen. It seemed a long time since she had set off from here earlier in the evening. As if she’d travelled a great distance.
But where she had reached she did not know...