CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
T HE SEA WAS a mix of grey and blue. Blue when the intermittent sun came out from behind a scudding cloud, grey when it went behind.
‘Would you care to sit down? Are you feeling tired? We’ve walked some way.’ Vincenzo’s enquiry was polite.
‘Thank you, yes.’ Siena’s reply was equally polite.
She lowered herself onto the empty bench they had paused beside on the paved promenade. Beyond the railing the tide was in, leaving only a strip of shingle below. Gulls swooped haphazardly, and though the sea breeze was light, white caps dotted the changing surface of the water. Further off shore Vincenzo could see a sailing boat, skimming west to east along the English Channel.
Memory pierced. He’d been watching the yachts off the Sardinian coast, having a leisurely lunch, when that call had come through and had ripped through his life like a cannonball through tissue paper.
And now...
Now he was here, at this genteel seaside resort in east Devon on the coast, sitting beside the woman who had changed his life completely. Changed it irreversibly and for ever.
‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked her now.
‘Thank you, yes,’ she said, in the same polite tone.
Politeness was their watchword, and each of them was applying it scrupulously. He was glad of it. Appreciative. They were making progress. But where they were going was still uncertain.
All he could do was keep on in the same direction, glad that she seemed to be acquiescing to his suggestion that they take a break from their lives, have some time away. She had chosen this place—he’d never heard of it—and it seemed acceptable in the circumstances.
‘It’s supposed to be the prettiest seaside town in Britain,’ Siena had told him when she’d let him know that, yes, she would consider his suggestion of getting out of London for a few days.
Overall, Vincenzo felt the description justified. The resort dated, so Siena had told him, to the end of the eighteenth century, when sea bathing was becoming fashionable and resorts were springing up all along the south coast from Brighton to Devon.
Selcombe was small, and all the more charming for it, he thought. He had booked them into the town’s main hotel at the far end of the promenade—a handsome white stucco-fronted house, with gardens giving direct access to the shingle beach beyond. Though hardly a luxury hotel, it was comfortable in an old-fashioned way, and he was not displeased with it.
‘How are you feeling?’ He turned to Siena, sitting beside him—she had left a good space between them, but not pointedly so. ‘Can you make it back to the hotel, or shall we take a taxi?’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she answered. ‘It’s such a lovely day. Let’s keep walking—it’s only about half a mile, and flat going.’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘It’s really important I keep myself fit, you know.’
‘But you must not overdo it,’ Vincenzo said.
‘A leisurely stroll along a mile of promenade is hardly overdoing it!’ There was no sting in her words. ‘But it’s nice to sit and watch the sea in the sunshine.’
He heard her pause for a moment, as if wondering whether to say what she said next.
‘Do you like the seaside? I mean, in Italy? Is it your thing? Some people love the sea...some don’t.’
‘It’s very pleasant,’ Vincenzo said.
‘Did you go to the seaside when you were young? We lived less than an hour from the coast, and my parents used to take my brother and me to the seaside for the day quite regularly. What about you?’
She was making conversation, he could tell. In principle, he welcomed it, because he was doing likewise. Had been doing so ever since he’d collected her the day previously, in the hire car he’d rented for the week, and headed out of London towards the west country. They had been civil to each other the whole time...polite, pleasant.
And guarded, too, he knew. Both himself and her.
That aspect rose to the fore now.
‘No,’ he said. He didn’t mean to sound curt. ‘Milan is not near the coast,’ he went on.
‘I suppose not,’ she said, her gaze going back out over the sea beyond the railings at the edge of the promenade. ‘But isn’t it close to the Italian lakes?’
‘Lake Como is the closest.’
He never went near Como—too many bad associations...
‘Did you go as a child? I don’t know whether one can swim in the Italian lakes... Not like at the seaside.’
‘No,’ he said again. This time he managed to make his voice sound less curt. ‘And, yes, one can swim, but it is not that safe. The lakes are very deep. They are more appropriate for water sports—there is a lot of sailing, windsurfing, motor boats...that sort of thing.’
‘Do you indulge?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He paused, his eyes resting on a sailing boat skimming along the horizon. ‘I never seem to have time.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he heard her say. ‘I’ve never done anything like that either.’
From nowhere, Vincenzo heard himself say, ‘Perhaps we can do it here—go out on the sea. I’ve seen signs advertising boat tours along the coast. We could take one. Would that appeal?’
He looked at her again, and saw she had turned her head as well.
‘It sounds nice,’ she said. There was more than politeness in her voice now.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Perhaps tomorrow...if the weather is kind.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ Siena agreed peaceably.
Almost subliminally, Vincenzo felt his mood improve, felt himself relax. He stretched out his legs, enjoying the sunshine on his face. It was not hot—that would be impossible compared with Italy—but it was warm, and the light breeze was ruffling his hair.
He let his glance go sideways to Siena. She had leant back on the bench, face lifted to the sunshine that had emerged from behind a scudding cloud, and the sunlight played on her face. She was wearing no make-up, but her hair was not confined to its usual ponytail. It was held back by a band, wisping a little in the breeze. Her eyes were closed.
Vincenzo watched her. With part of his mind he was taking in the delicacy of her profile, the sculpture of her cheekbones, the length of her eyelashes, the curve of her lips, the fall of her hair over her shoulders. He felt something stir within him, and knew what it was—knew he must set it aside promptly, immediately.
But her eyes were still closed, her face still lifted to the sunshine. Her features were in repose—exposed to him. He went on looking at her.
Knowing why.
Knowing he should not.
Deliberately, he dragged his gaze downwards. Her pregnancy was still barely visible—only the slightest roundness beneath the cotton sweater she was wearing over slimly cut trousers. But, barely visible though it was, her pregnancy was real. Increasing...
So the kind of thoughts he was having were simply...
Impossible.
Necessarily so.
After all, he reminded himself acidly, it was those thoughts—heated to a white-hot temperature—that had led to him sitting here, on a bench on a seaside promenade in Devon, rearranging his entire life on account of having indulged in them.
He frowned. She was looking so entirely different from the way she’d looked that fateful night at the Falcone. Not vamped up in the slightest. So why was he reacting in the same way?
He made himself look back out to sea again. That was better—safer.
Isn’t this situation complicated enough, without adding any more into the mix?
The question was entirely rhetorical. The answer was obvious. And besides...
We are finally getting beyond all that ugly hostility, shock and anger. We are finally capable of being civil to each other, dealing with the situation we face in a calm, rational manner. So the very last thing it needs is disturbance.
Whatever his thoughts were when he let his eyes rest on her, he must keep them entirely private. She’d made it crystal-clear she regarded that night as a mistake.
And so do I—of course I do!
Yet even as he said the words inside his head he could hear refutation taking shape. Did he regret that night? Or only the consequences of it?
His thoughts went back to the restaurant on Holland Park Avenue, where she’d asked him whether, had he not had that prearranged business meeting, he’d have stayed with her...at least for breakfast.
What would we have said to each other had I not left her as I did?
Thoughts moved within him, raising more questions than they answered. Distilling down to one.
Would I have still ended up walking away from her? Putting her into a taxi and out of my mind? Going back to the life I lead. Writing off that night simply as a one-off aberration?
His gaze withdrew from the sea, went back to her face. His head turned.
Her eyes were still closed.
Her face was still lifted to the sun.
Still effortlessly beautiful...
Siena opened her eyes. She wasn’t sure why. It had been so peaceful just sitting there, relaxed, her face lifted to the warmth of the sun, hearing the gulls cry and the waves break on the beach below, with the rhythmic sound of the shingle sliding and tumbling.
But for whatever reason she opened her eyes, turned her head slightly.
And then stilled completely.
Vincenzo was looking at her. Right at her.
No veiling, no guarding, no unreadability.
She felt his eyes on hers, holding hers. As if he could see right into her. Shock rippled through her. The last time he’d looked at her like that it had sent her into meltdown, pooling like honey at his feet... Liquid with answering desire...
For a second—just a second—she felt colour start to flare, her pulse surge, her heart thud. Then, with an effort of will, she dragged her gaze away, back to look out over the sea. Then she got to her feet.
‘Shall we keep going?’ she said brightly. Too brightly, but she didn’t care.
She didn’t wait for his answer, only started along the promenade in the direction of their hotel at the far end. The equanimity that she had so assiduously striven for ever since Vincenzo had turned up yesterday after lunch and they’d set off for Devon had evaporated like drops of water on a hot stove.
And she knew exactly what fuel that stove had been heated with...
No! Don’t go there! Just don’t! It’s too dangerous, impossible, and totally inappropriate... Irrelevant...out of order. Embarrassing.
And embarrassment was the predominant reaction to that moment back there on the bench. Of course it was! What else could it be?
She’d been caught unawares.
So had he.
The words were stinging in her head, making her acknowledge them. Without realising it, she quickened her pace. Then, realising that might be revealing, she slowed again. Vincenzo fell into step beside her. For the first time she was horribly conscious of his physical presence at her side.
Conscious in that way...
No! She crushed the thought out of her head. That burning night had done quite enough damage to her life—the very last thing she must allow was that it should start smouldering again. She had done her best since Vincenzo had reappeared in her life—dear heaven, she had! Had managed to totally blank him in every way except one.
We just need to be civil with each other, that’s all. We can afford no disturbances, no disruption, nothing else to cope with...
‘Did you want to have lunch somewhere along the way, or back at the hotel?’ she asked now, quite deliberately.
Lunch was a neutral topic, a safe one. Vincenzo seemed to agree.
‘Shall we see if we spot anywhere likely as we go?’ he said. ‘And if we don’t, we can always eat at the hotel. Dinner last night was perfectly acceptable, but maybe we don’t want to eat there all the time. There may be other good restaurants around...cafés, even. That kind of thing for lunch?’
‘OK,’ Siena agreed.
She cast her eye across the road that ran between the promenade and the row of buildings on the other side. They were, she could see, Regency-style upmarket villas, a long terrace of them, interrupted every now and then by smaller roads leading away from the seafront. Although the upper floors of the former villas might now be apartments—holiday lets, probably, she thought—the ground floors were mostly either eateries or shops.
‘What about over there?’ Vincenzo said beside her, pointing to a restaurant with seating on the wide pavement, an awning overhead, and hanging baskets of colourful flowers.
‘It looks quite Mediterranean,’ Siena said.
‘So it does—shall we give it a try? See what’s on offer?’
There was a crossing nearby, and he ushered her across. The little restaurant did look nice. Quite a few of the tables were occupied, but Vincenzo guided them to one that was empty, and set back a little.
‘Will this do?’ he asked her politely.
She nodded with a half-smile and sat down. A waitress bustled up, proffering menus and asking cheerfully what they might like to drink. Siena gave her usual order, and Vincenzo ordered a beer. Siena noticed the waitress paying a lot of attention to Vincenzo. But then, a man with Vincenzo’s looks would always draw female eyes...
Mine included...
She put the thought away. Been there, done that—and got the Baby Bump tee shirt for her pains...
She studied the menu, trying to replace such thoughts, and opted for a chicken and avocado salad. Vincenzo chose the house speciality—crab salad.
The waitress smiled. ‘Fresh-caught this morning,’ she said encouragingly, before disappearing with clear reluctance.
Vincenzo sat back in his seat, looking out across the road and the promenade beyond.
‘I assume this must have been a fishing village originally,’ he observed. ‘Before it became a seaside resort.’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Siena said.
It was a good safe topic to discuss, and would help to keep her mind off the things it must be kept off.
All the same, a thought went through her head...
Had it really been wise to do this? Agree to Vincenzo’s suggestion that they spend some time together away from London like this? Well, it was too late now. Too late for a whole lot of things in her life...
Including my art degree...again.
But as she responded to Vincenzo’s question about the fashion for sea bathing that had emerged in the mid-eighteenth century, leading to Regency resorts like this and any number of others along the Channel coast, she found herself thinking about something else. Found herself wishing she had her sketchpad with her. She would happily sit on a bench on the promenade...do some pencil sketching of the seascape.
The idea was appealing. Maybe she could find some kind of art shop here and buy some basic kit?
‘Did they really have those strange caravans drawn into the sea by horses, so the bathers could walk down the steps right into the sea?’ Vincenzo was asking, his voice amused.
‘Yes,’ said Siena. ‘Bathing machines, they were called. I’ve seen prints and early photos. Women wore massive swimsuits—for want of a better word—that covered them voluminously from head to toe. Rather like a modern burkini, but even more encompassing! But it let them get into the sea, so it was probably worth it.’
‘The cold sea,’ observed Vincenzo.
‘Well, a lot colder than the Med, that’s for sure!’ she said lightly. She gave a wry laugh. ‘In England we say “bracing”—which translates as totally freezing!’
He gave a low laugh. It did things to her.
She went on hurriedly, because she must not let that happen. ‘I’m wondering whether to be brave enough to go in myself,’ she mused. ‘The Channel can’t be any colder than the North Sea—but then, of course, back then I was a child, and didn’t care about cold water! Besides, after a while you warm up.’
He cast a sceptical glance at her.
She gave another wry smile. ‘You could always just paddle. You know—take your socks and shoes off, roll up your trouser legs and wade in.’ Now her smile turned to a laugh. ‘You could also do the time-honoured old-fashioned English thing that men did a couple of generations ago, and that is to take a linen handkerchief, knot it at each corner, and put it on your head.’
He looked at her. ‘To what purpose?’ he enquired, nonplussed.
‘To keep the sun off,’ she explained.
‘If the sun ever gets that hot, I shall purchase a hat,’ he told her decisively.
She laughed again. ‘Definitely more stylish. The knotted handkerchief was never a good look!’
‘Thank you for the warning,’ he said dryly. His mouth quirked. ‘And as for paddling... I think I may give that a miss too. The hotel pool will suffice—it is heated.’
‘Yes,’ she conceded, ‘I have to agree it sounds more tempting. But when the tide is out we can walk along the beach, at least. Feel the shingle crunching. It’s a shame it’s not a sandy beach,’ she mused. ‘Where we went as a child had a wonderful sandy beach, with dunes behind. My brother and I were delirious, making sandcastles, playing beach cricket, as well as actual sea bathing. My parents would sit on deckchairs, glad just to watch us, and my mother would knit, and my father would read a paperback, and then they’d call us back to them for a picnic lunch. We were always starving by then, and when it was finally time to go home we were treated to ice creams to eat before setting off.’
She realised Vincenzo was looking at her with a strange expression on his face.
‘You sound as if you had a happy childhood,’ he said slowly.
‘I did,’ she said. ‘Very happy...’
‘How old were you,’ he asked quietly, ‘when your parents were killed?’
‘I was eighteen. My brother twenty-three. He’d just qualified as a vet and was newly married, and—’
She broke off. This was painful territory. The attentive waitress bustled back to their table with their drinks, and Siena was glad. She sipped hers thirstily, and Vincenzo took a leisurely mouthful of his beer. She looked away, over the other holidaymakers having their lunch, carefree and happy. Or were they? How could you tell just by looking? After all, who, looking at her and Vincenzo, would know why it was they were there, apparently together, apparently a couple...
When all we have between us is a baby that neither of us planned, envisaged, expected or wanted.
She felt her throat tighten suddenly, and slid her hand over her abdomen. It was rounding more day by day, making its presence felt. Inexorably, unstoppably...
She became aware that Vincenzo was saying something, setting his beer glass back on the table.
‘It is hard to lose a parent at any age,’ he was saying, and there was a quality to his voice that made Siena look across at him. ‘I, too, lost my father at eighteen—a heart attack. My mother died when...’
He paused, and she had the impression he had stopped himself. She looked at him questioningly, sympathy in her eyes.
‘She died when I was four,’ he said.
‘That is very hard,’ Siena said slowly.
It seemed strange to think of Vincenzo as a child—as having a family at all. Hadn’t he said he had ‘none worth mentioning’? But if both his parents were dead...
We have that in common.
It was a painful thing to share...
Vincenzo was frowning. ‘I don’t have many memories of her. Just one or two. And they may be from my father telling me about her. It’s hard to say.’
‘Do...do you have any siblings?’ Siena heard herself asking. ‘For me, it was such a comfort to have my brother, and he to have me.’
Vincenzo gave a shake of his head. His expression had tightened. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Which was one of the reasons why my father—’
He broke off, and Siena looked at him questioningly again.
‘Why he wanted to remarry.’
‘Did...did he remarry?’
‘Eventually.’ Vincenzo’s voice was even tighter. ‘I was thirteen.’
She was feeling her way forward. To hear Vincenzo open up like this was strange...
He wouldn’t do it if we weren’t in this situation. And nor would I.
But maybe it was important that they were doing so? Knowing more about each other. Coming to terms with each other.
‘Did...did you get on with your stepmother?’
Something hardened in his face, making him look the way he had that nightmare day in his office, when she’d blurted out that she was pregnant.
‘No.’
A single word. He reached for his beer, took another mouthful. Set down the glass with a click.
‘Nor did I ever consider her my stepmother—nor do I still.’
‘Still?’
He gave a shrug—a dismissive one. ‘She took herself off when my father died...set herself up in a villa on Lake Como.’
Siena spoke slowly, carefully. ‘That sounds...expensive.’
Vincenzo’s eyes flashed. ‘She took my father for everything he had left,’ he bit out harshly.
In the silence, things reshaped themselves in Siena’s head.
Things were making sense...
Dark and difficult sense—but sense.
So that is why he made all those vile assumptions about me—thinking the worst of me...
Quietly, she spoke again, wanting him to hear—wanting him to believe. ‘I’m not like that,’ she said. Her voice was low, intense.
For a long moment—dark and difficult—his eyes held hers. She could feel her heart beating in her breast as she went on holding his eyes still.
Suddenly, his lashes swept down over his eyes, shutting her out, cutting off the moment. Then they opened again. His expression had changed, and Siena felt her stretched nerves ease. A half-smile, twisted, pulled at Vincenzo’s mouth, as if in acknowledgement of what she had said.
‘I should not need you to say it,’ he said.
‘No,’ she agreed, still meeting his eyes, ‘but perhaps it helps all the same...’
He gave a nod. ‘Perhaps it does,’ he echoed.
He glanced away for a moment, out over the promenade across the road, then looked back at Siena. The wry expression in his face was there again.
‘We have moved on again,’ he said.
He was making his voice light, she could hear it, and she answered him in the same fashion. Wanting to for her own sake—and for his.
‘Yes,’ she said.
She reached for her own drink and took a draught, her mouth dry.
The arrival of their salads was timely, giving respite from what had been said...revealed. They were huge—Vincenzo’s laden with flaked crab meat.
‘Enjoy,’ said their waitress, casting a look at Vincenzo.
He gave her a polite nod of thanks, but nothing more, and with her sigh almost audible the waitress headed away.
The waitress’s were not the only female eyes to be lingering on Vincenzo, Siena could see. At least two other women sitting nearby were throwing him covert glances.
It was totally obvious why. The combination of his lethal looks, fatally augmented by his Mediterranean aura, made it impossible for anyone in possession of a double X chromosome to be unaware of him.
She let her eyes rest on him for a moment as he got stuck into his crab salad. He was casually dressed, but the style and expense of his clothes was unmistakable. The open-necked polo shirt bore a designer mark on the breast pocket that she vaguely recognised as that of a top Milan fashion house. It was worn with superbly cut but casually styled chinos, and rounded off with an even more beautifully cut and styled dressed-down jacket.
He looked cool, Italian—and devastating.
She gave a silent gulp, bending her attentions to her own salad.
Casting about for a safe subject, wanting an easier topic of conversation—less intense, less dark and difficult—she said, ‘I wonder if Lyme Regis is very far. It would be worth seeing. The harbour has a high, protective breakwater called the Cob, made famous by Jane Austen,’ she said.
Vincenzo raised a querying eyebrow.
Siena elaborated. ‘She set a key scene there in Persuasion , her last novel. The heroine’s sister-in-law, whom the heroine fears is going to marry the man she herself loves, but who no longer loves her, impulsively jumps down from the steps on the upper Cob to the lower and is nearly fatally injured.’
‘Only nearly? No tragic ending, then?’ he said sardonically.
‘No, it’s all right. The rival to the heroine does make a full recovery, but she falls for one of the hero’s friends and marries him instead, so the hero is free to realise he loves the heroine after all, and they get their happy-ever-after.’
‘That is reassuring,’ observed Vincenzo. ‘At least in novels there can be good resolution of life’s problems.’ Siena heard his voice change. ‘Perhaps we must strive to do likewise in our lives too,’ he said. ‘Even when those problems seem...intractable.’
His eyes rested on her. His expression was grave.
‘I appreciate, Siena, all that you are doing. Truly I do. You are meeting me halfway, and I hope I am doing the same.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Do you think this is helping? Time together like this?’
She met his gaze, and there was honesty in hers. ‘Yes. It’s strange—it can’t be anything but strange. But, yes, I think it is helping.’
But helping us to do what? Helping us be civil to each other, yes—and to understand each other more, to see where we are coming from, each of us. But it can’t change anything else. I still wish I had not got pregnant. And, given that I am, I still want to move somewhere on my own to have my baby, not be dependent on Vincenzo.
Her thoughts were turbid. If he could finally believe she wasn’t interested in his money, now that she understood where that fear had come from— that I might be like his father’s second wife —couldn’t he accept her making a home for herself and the baby? If he wanted, he could visit from time to time—set up a trust fund or whatever, if he felt that was his responsibility. Wouldn’t that be more feasible, now that they were not at war any longer?
She broke her gaze, letting it go back out over the bustling promenade. She was very conscious of Vincenzo’s presence so close across the table. Conscious, too, that there was another reason other than her being independent for not giving him any grounds to think she was after his money, for why she wanted him at a distance once the baby arrived.
Because anything else is dangerous...
She felt her gaze wanting to return to his face, and that was proof itself of the danger she felt flickering around her.
He was dangerous to me that night at the Falcone—disastrously so. And for all that the hostility and accusations between us are gone, that danger is still there.
Lethal. That was what Megan had called his darkly handsome looks—and it was an apt word. Didn’t just sitting here having lunch with him demonstrate that, with every female around turning their heads just because he was there?
I have to keep myself safe from him, safe from the danger he is to me...to my heart. It’s not as though he would ever truly see a future with someone like me—if he sees a future with anyone at all. So it’s safest, surely, just to focus on what we are doing now—getting used to each other, letting there be some kind of peace between us. Asking nothing more than that. Wanting nothing more than that... Not letting myself want more.
Because that would only spell danger.
She gave a silent sigh. Life was already far too complicated to allow anything more into it. All she must focus on was the baby—nothing else.
Nothing else at all...
Least of all the man she had been unable to resist that fateful night, who had brought her to the now she had to deal with.