Chapter Eight #3
He grinned. He seemed younger, freer than he had in Puglia.
And he was young, she realised with a jolt.
Too young to have had so much responsibility thrust on him out of the blue.
Losing his brother, his mother, being injured himself and then having to step up and take care of the estate and his family.
How had he coped? He looked after everyone else but who looked after him now that his mother was gone?
‘Are you happy?’
He looked stunned, as if nobody had asked him that question in a long time, then pleased. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.’
It was just words. It had to be, she thought. How could it be true? This wasn’t real. It was a charade. Or that was how it had started. Now though this life with Ettore felt more real, more stable and constant than her so-called ‘real life’ had ever felt.
He leaned in, his mouth fitting to hers, and kissed her softly.
‘What would you like to do now? I’m at your disposal.’
Her mind clicked through a series of X-rated images and his pupils dilated as if he were reading her thoughts.
She laughed. ‘No, we can’t. We’re going to be civilised and cultured. We’re going to go up the Eiffel Tower and then I would like to go to the Jardin des Plantes. Would that work for you?’
He seemed stunned again as if nobody had asked him that question either. ‘It would. It does. But I would also like to take you out to dinner.’
‘Deal. Although, I don’t know if Valentina packed anything that dressy.’
‘That won’t be a problem.’
It was a day she would never forget. Ettore was the best company, she decided. He was smart and knowledgeable, and she loved how curious he was about everything.
As they wandered hand in hand around the Jardin des Plantes, he asked her questions about the evolutionary diversity of plants and listened carefully to her answers.
His golden gaze made her chest feel full, as though her ribs had shrunk.
It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, just not one she could explain.
Although she’d felt the same way back in Puglia when he’d told her that he would fly her home to England.
Home.
She tried to picture her small terraced house and her vegetable patch and her flowers. But it was like staring down through the ocean to the sea floor. She knew it was there, but it felt distant, blurred.
The Castiglione Fiana and its petal-strewn lawn was far clearer.
After visiting the gardens, they returned to the hotel and stripped each other naked, reaching for one another in the shower and then again in the bedroom.
‘I suppose I should get dressed.’ She stretched against him, her back arching against his chest, her fingers curling into his hair, and he leaned over her face to kiss her.
‘We don’t have to—’
‘We do. Everything else we did today was my choice. This is yours. And we don’t have to stay for dessert.’
‘You love desserts.’ The smile that was breaking free on his mouth made everything inside her feel like warm honey straight from the comb.
‘I do, but I love—’
Her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest because she was about to say I love you more.
She felt dizzy all of a sudden. It couldn’t be true.
This was a deal brokered in anger in a hotel room in London.
But none of that mattered now that she was here in a different hotel room in Paris.
Because the truth was that she loved him.
And she wanted to tell him. Because he was the person she wanted to tell everything to. He was her everything. But the words stayed silent and unspoken in her head.
How could she tell him what she was feeling? This was a temporary arrangement. It didn’t matter that they were having sex now or even that Ettore had brought her on this honeymoon.
Sex was intimate but it wasn’t love. And just because her feelings had altered, didn’t mean that Ettore’s had or would.
‘What do you love?’ He was staring down at her, his light eyes intent, curious. A lock of dark hair had fallen across his forehead, and she smoothed it back, smiling.
‘I love petits fours more. So, what shall I wear?’
‘I’m sure Valentina packed something suitable. Go and check the dressing room.’
She slid off the bed and walked across the carpet, feeling his gaze follow her like a searchlight, liking the power her naked body had over him.
‘I didn’t ask her to pack anything special—’
She broke off mid-sentence as her eyes locked onto the dress that was hanging face-on from a hook on the door.
‘Is that mine?’ she said slowly.
Ettore was behind her, and she felt her body flutter to life as he leaned in to kiss her shoulder. ‘It’s not really my colour. So, I suppose it must be yours.’
It was a beautiful dress. The other dresses, the ones the stylist had chosen, were lovely but in an objective way. But this was a different kind of dress. ‘Did you choose this?’
He nodded. ‘I saw it today when we were in the car coming from the airport. I know you’re not a dress person, but I couldn’t imagine anyone else wearing it but you.’
‘I love it,’ she whispered. Her heart felt as if it were going to burst. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘I’ll let you get ready.’
The dress fitted perfectly. She stared at herself in the mirror, pleased for once with her reflection. The dress was sleeveless, and the pleated silk was the colour of a robin’s egg and the intricate ruffles on the bodice of the dress made her think of water moving.
When Ettore saw her, she felt naked again. His eyes burned into hers and as his gaze moved over her hungrily, it was like tiny flames licking over her body.
‘Do you like it?’
He nodded. ‘You look beautiful.’ His voice was rough, his bedroom voice, and it was all too easy to imagine his hands on her belly and hips and between her thighs.
‘You kept your hair loose.’
She nodded. ‘Do you mind?’
‘I like it. I like all of it.’
She liked the way he looked too in his dark suit and a crisp white shirt that he’d left loose at the neck. Nobody wore a suit like Ettore, she thought. He was just so intensely male and impossibly handsome.
Abruptly he leaned forward and lifted her face to his and kissed her hard until she thought she might melt into a liquid pool of desire.
‘You’re making it very hard for me to go out tonight,’ he grumbled as he broke the kiss.
‘Then stop kissing me,’ she said softly. ‘Come on, I want to make every woman in Paris jealous.’
Table Margaux was an astonishing restaurant. It was full but there was no sense of urgency. The service was low-key but efficient and the decor was fin de siècle, all eau de Nil paintwork and gilt mirrors and yet it didn’t feel like a pastiche. As for the food.
‘That was incredible,’ she said as she put down her spoon and pushed her plate away.
‘Would you like coffee or a tisane? Nightcap?’
She shook her head. ‘Could we go back to the hotel?’
‘You read my mind,’ Ettore said, doing one of those minuscule uptilts of his head that managed to be both gracious and authoritative. ‘L’addition, s’il vous pla?t?’ he murmured as the ma?tre d’ appeared by the table.
As they walked into the private lift to their suite, their security detail melted away. ‘Do they bother you?’ Ettore glanced down at her. ‘I can tell them to back up a little for the rest of our stay.’
‘It’s fine. I just forget about them when we’re home.’
Home. That word again.
She felt Ettore’s gaze pick over her profile and she wondered if he had picked up on it too, and, if so, what was he thinking?
‘Speaking of home,’ he said as they walked into the huge living area. ‘I was wondering how you would feel about sitting in on a conversation I want to have with Gianni. About the estate? I have some ideas I’d like to run past him, and I could use your expertise.’
‘You’re pretty expert yourself.’
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. But why? Did he not see what an incredible job he had done at the estate?
‘Barely. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes.’ He gave her a smile. Or at least his lips curved into the shape of a smile. But his body told a different story.
‘Shall we sit outside?’ He gestured towards their private terrace, and she followed him into the warm, still air. Across the city, the Eiffel Tower was shimmering with lights, but she was too distracted by the strange, taut set to his mouth to do more than glance at it.
‘Did you ever talk to him about it?’
‘Who?’ He stared at her blankly.
‘Your brother, Edo. Before he died. About running the estate.’ She was floundering suddenly. Ettore looked confused, but surely Edo was running it before Ettore. ‘Or had your father not stepped down?’
‘My father never stepped up.’ He gave her a small, tight smile. ‘Gianni’s father, Stefano, oversaw the vineyard, and my father chased unsuitable women. When the bank got involved, I took over.’
‘When was that?’
‘I’d just started my final year at university. I had to drop out. But I was studying history so my degree wouldn’t have been of much use to me even if I had graduated.’
Dulcie frowned. But that would mean…
‘So, you were running the estate when we got married.’
‘Yes. No. Sort of. Edo had decided he wanted to take over the running of the estate, so I took a few weeks off. To be honest, I was relieved. I was supposed to be this custodian, safekeeping everything for future generations, only I didn’t know what I was doing, and then I met you, and it felt like everything was falling into place.
I could walk away. Live the life I wanted.
With you.’ He leaned forward and rested his arms against the balustrade.
‘But then we split up, and Edo was killed, and I had no choice. I had to go back.’
Dulcie frowned. No choice? Had to?
As if sensing her confusion, Ettore met her gaze, his forehead creasing. ‘I love the castle. I love the history of it, and that it’s a living, breathing, working estate. And I love my family, but I never wanted to be the heir. I was never meant to be.’
‘So why did you stay? Why not let Stefano keep running it?’
‘I couldn’t leave. Not after Edo died.’
She remembered Ettore’s face when Edoardo had given her the bracelet. ‘You went back for your mother. She needed you.’
Ettore leaned more heavily against the balustrade, his gaze fixed on the lights fanning out from the centre of the city, his heart thudding against his ribs.
Below him, Paris stretched out into the distance. It had been here so long, surely there was nothing it hadn’t seen or heard.
‘My mother thought I had died. When she realised it was Edo, she told me that the wrong son had been taken.’
Finally, he had said it out loud. And it felt so momentous that he half expected the lights to snap off or cracks to appear beneath his feet. But instead, everything stayed as it was. Except that Dulcie’s hand was now wrapped around his. He felt her fingers tighten.