Kitabı oku: «From Florence With Love», sayfa 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

THEY didn’t speak on the way back to the palazzo.

She sat beside him, her heart in her mouth, the air between them so thick with tension she could scarcely breathe. They didn’t touch. All the way to her bedroom door, there was a space between them, as if they realised that the slightest contact would be all it took to send them up in flames.

Even when he shut the door behind them, they still hesitated, their eyes locked. And then he closed his eyes and murmured something in Italian. It could have been a prayer, or a curse, or just a ‘what the hell am I doing?’

She could understand that. She was doing it herself, but she was beyond altering the course of events. She’d been beyond it, she realised, the moment he’d walked into the tack room at home and smiled at her.

He opened his eyes again, and there was resignation in them, and a longing that made her want to weep. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek, just lightly, but it was enough.

She turned her face into his hand, pressing her lips to his palm, and with a ragged groan he reeled her in, his mouth finding hers in a kiss that should have felt savage but was oddly tender for all its desperation.

His jacket hit the floor, then his shirt, stripped off over his head, and he spun her round, searching for the zip on her dress and following its progress with his lips, scorching a trail of fire down her spine. It fell away, and he unclipped her bra and turned her back to face him, easing it away and sighing softly as he lowered his head to her breasts.

She felt the rasp of his stubble against the sensitised skin, the heat of his mouth closing over one nipple, then the cold as he blew lightly against the dampened flesh.

She clung to his shoulders, her legs buckling, and he scooped her up and dropped her in the middle of the bed, stripping off the rest of his clothes before coming down beside her, skin to skin, heart to heart.

There was no foreplay. She would have died if he’d made her wait another second for him. Incoherent with need, she reached for him, and he was there, his eyes locking with hers as he claimed her with one long, slow thrust.

His head fell against hers, his eyes fluttering closed, a deep groan echoing in her ear. Her hands were on him, sliding down his back, feeling the powerful muscles bunching with restraint, the taut buttocks, the solid thighs bracing him as he thrust into her, his restraint gone now, the desperation overwhelming them, driving them both over the edge into frenzy.

She heard a muffled groan, felt his lips against her throat, his skin like hot, wet silk under her hands as his hard body shuddered against hers. For a long time he didn’t move, but then, his chest heaving, he lifted his head to stare down into her eyes.

‘Oh, cara,’ he murmured roughly, and then gathering her against his heart he rolled to his side and collapsed against the pillows, and they lay there, limbs entangled, her head on his chest, and waited for the shockwaves to die away.

‘I thought we weren’t going to do that.’

He glanced down at her, and his eyes were filled with regret and despair. ‘It looks like we were both wrong.’

His eyes closed, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her, and easing away from her embrace he rolled away and sat up on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, dropping his head into his hands for a moment. Then he raked his fingers through his hair and stood up, pulling on his clothes.

‘I have to check the children,’ he said gruffly.

‘We need to talk.’

‘Yes, but not now. Please, cara. Not now.’

He couldn’t talk to her now. He had to get out of there, before he did something stupid like make love to her again.

Make love? Who was he kidding? He’d slaked himself on her, with no finesse, no delicacy, no patience. And he’d promised her—promised himself, but promised her—that this wouldn’t happen again.

Shaking his head in disgust, he pushed his feet into his shoes, slung his jacket over his shoulder and then steeled himself to look at her.

She was still lying there, curled on her side on top of the tangled bedding, her eyes wide with hurt and confusion.

‘Massimo?’

‘Later. Tomorrow, perhaps. I have to go. If Antonino wakes—’

She nodded, her eyes closing softly as she bit her lip. Holding back the tears?

He was despicable. All he ever did was make this woman cry.

He let himself out without another word, and went through to his part of the house, up the stairs to the children to check that they were all in bed and sleeping peacefully.

They were. Antonino had kicked off the covers, and he eased them back over his son and dropped a kiss lightly on his forehead. He mumbled in his sleep and rolled over, and he went out, leaving the door open, and checked the girls.

They were both asleep, Francesca’s door closed, Lavinia’s open and her nightlight on.

He closed the landing door that led to his parents’ quarters, as he always did when he was in the house, and then he made his way back down to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of wine.

Why? Why on earth had he been so stupid? After all his lectures to himself, how could he have been so foolish, so weak, so self-centred?

He’d have to talk to her, he realised, but he had no idea what he would say. He’d promised her—promised! And yet again he’d failed.

He propped his elbows on the table and rested his face in his hands. Of all the idiotic things—

‘Massimo?’

Her voice stroked him like a lover’s touch, and he lifted his head and met her eyes.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, his voice rough.

‘I came to get a drink,’ she said uncertainly.

He shrugged. ‘Go ahead, get it.’

She stayed there, her eyes searching his face. ‘Oh, Massimo, don’t beat yourself up. We were deluded if we thought this wouldn’t happen. It was so obvious it was going to and I can’t believe we didn’t realise. What we need to work out is what happens now.’

He gave a short, despairing laugh and pushed back his chair. ‘Nothing, but I have no idea how to achieve that. All I know that whenever I’m with you, I want you, and I can’t just have what I want. I’m not a tiny child, I understand the word no, I just can’t seem to use it to myself. Wine?’

She shook her head. ‘Tea. I’ll make it.’

He watched her as she took out a mug from the cupboard, put a teabag in it, poured on boiling water, her movements automatic. She was wearing a silky, figure-hugging dressing gown belted round her waist, and he’d bet his life she had those tiny little pyjamas on underneath.

‘Just tell me this,’ she said at last, turning to face him. ‘Is there any reason why we can’t have an affair? Just—discreetly?’

‘Here? In this house? Are you crazy? I have children here and they have enough to contend with without waking in the night from a bad dream and finding I’m not here because I’m doing something stupid and irresponsible for my own gratification.’

She sat down opposite him, cradling the tea in her hands and ignoring his stream of self-hatred. ‘So what do you normally do?’

Normally? Normally? he thought.

‘Normally, I don’t have affairs,’ he said flatly. ‘I suppose, if I did, it would be elsewhere.’ He shrugged. ‘Arranged meetings—afternoon liaisons when the children are at school, lunchtimes, coffee.’

‘And does it work?’

He laughed a little desperately. ‘I have no idea. I’ve never tried.’

She stared at him in astonishment. ‘What? In five years, you’ve never had an affair?’

‘Not what you could call an affair, no. I’ve had the odd liaison, but nothing you could in any way call a relationship.’ He sighed shortly, swirled his wine, put it down again.

‘You have to see it from my point of view. I have obligations, responsibilities. I would have to be very, very circumspect in any relationship with a woman.’

‘Because of the children.’

‘Mostly, but because of all sorts of things. Because of my duties and responsibilities, the position I hold within the family, the business—any woman I was to become involved with would have to meet a very stringent set of criteria.’

‘Not money-grabbing, not lying, not cheating, not looking for a meal ticket or an easy family or status in the community.’

‘Exactly. And it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t need it. I can live without the hassle. But it’s more than that. If I make a mistake, many people could suffer. And besides, I don’t have the time to invest in a relationship, not to do it justice. And nor do you, not if you’re going to reinvent yourself and relaunch your career.’

He’d be worth the emotional investment, but only if you’re serious.

Oh, Isabelle, you’re so right, she thought. But was she serious? Serious enough? Could she afford to dedicate the emotional energy needed, to a man who was so clearly focused on his family life and business that women weren’t considered necessary?

If she felt she stood the slightest chance, then yes, she realised, she could be very, very serious indeed about this man. But he wasn’t ever going to be serious about her. Not serious enough to let her into all parts of his life, and there was no way she’d pass his stringent criteria test.

No job, for a start. No independent wealth—no wealth of any sort. And besides, he was right, she needed to get her career back on track. It had been going so well …

‘So what happens now? We can’t have an affair here, because of the children, and yet we can’t seem to stick to that. So what do we do? Because doing nothing doesn’t seem to work for us, Massimo. We need a plan.’

He gave a wry laugh and met her eyes again, his deadly serious. ‘I have no idea, cara. I just know I can’t be around you.’

‘So we avoid each other?’

‘We’re both busy. It shouldn’t be so hard.’

They were busy, he was right, but she felt a pang of loss even though she knew it made sense.

‘OK. I’ll keep out of your way if you keep out of mine.’

He inclined his head, then looked up as she got to her feet.

‘You haven’t finished your tea.’

‘I’ll take it with me,’ she said, and left him sitting there wondering why he felt as if he’d just lost the most precious thing in the world, and yet didn’t quite know what it was.

Nice theory, she thought later, when her emotions had returned to a more even keel. It just didn’t have a hope of working in practice.

How could they possibly avoid each other in such an intimate setting?

Answer—they couldn’t. He was in and out of the kitchen all the time with the children, and she was in and out of his workspace twice a day at least with food for the team of workers.

They were gathering chestnuts this week, in the castagneti, the chestnut woods on the higher slopes at the southern end of the estate. Carlotta told her all about it, showed her the book of chestnut recipes she’d gathered, many handed down from her mother or her grandmother, and she wanted to experiment.

So she asked Massimo one lunchtime if she could have some for cooking.

‘Sure,’ he said briskly. ‘Help yourself. Someone will give you a basket.’

She shouldn’t have been hurt. It was silly. She knew why he was doing it, why he hadn’t met her eyes for more than a fleeting second, because in that fleeting second she’d seen something in his eyes that she recognised.

A curious mixture of pain and longing, held firmly in check.

She knew all about that.

She gathered her own chestnuts, joining the workforce and taking good-natured and teasing advice, most of which she didn’t understand, because her Italian lessons with Francesca hadn’t got that far yet—and in any case, she was very conscious of not getting too close to his children, for fear of them forming an attachment to her that would only hurt them when she went home again, so she hadn’t encouraged it.

But she understood the gist. Sign language was pretty universal, and she learned how to split open the cases without hurting her fingers and remove the chestnuts—huge chestnuts, marrone, apparently—and that night after she’d given them all their evening meal, she went into the kitchen to experiment.

And he was there, sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop and a glass of wine.

‘Oh,’ she said, and stood there stupidly for a moment.

‘Problem?’

‘I was going to try cooking some of the chestnuts.’

His eyes met hers, and he shut the laptop and stood up. ‘It’s fine. I’ll get out of your way.’

She looked guarded, he thought, her sunny smile and open friendliness wiped away by his lack of control and this overwhelming need that stalked him hour by hour. It saddened him. Greatly.

‘You don’t have to go.’

‘I do,’ he said wearily. ‘I can’t be around you, cara. It’s too difficult. I thought I could do this, but I can’t. The only way is to keep my distance.’

‘But you can’t. We’re falling over each other all the time.’

‘There’s no choice.’

There was, she thought. They could just go with the flow, make sure they were discreet, keep it under control, but he didn’t seem to think they could do that successfully, and he’d left the kitchen anyway.

She sat down at the table, in the same chair, feeling the warmth from his body lingering in the wood, and opened Carlotta’s recipe book. Pointless. It was in Italian, and she didn’t understand a word.

Frustration getting the better of her, she dropped her head into her hands and growled softly.

‘Lydia, don’t.’

‘Don’t what? I thought you’d gone,’ she said, lifting her head.

‘I had.’ He sat down opposite her and took her hand in his, the contact curiously disturbing and yet soothing all at once.

‘This is driving me crazy,’ he admitted softly.

‘Me, too. There must be another way. We can’t avoid each other successfully, so why don’t we just work alongside each other and take what comes? We know it’s not long-term, we know you’re not looking for commitment and I’m not ready to risk it again, and I have to go back and try and relaunch my career in some direction.’

He let go of her hand and sat back. ‘Any ideas for that?’ he said, not running away again as she’d expected, but staying to have a sensible conversation, and she let herself relax and began to talk, outlining her plans, such as they were.

‘I’ve been thinking more and more about outside catering, using produce from my parents’ farm. There are plenty of people with money living in the nearby villages, lots of second homes with people coming up for the weekend and bringing friends. I’m sure there would be openings, I just have to be there to find them.’

‘It could be a bit seasonal.’

‘Probably. Easter, summer and winter—well, Christmas and New Year, mostly. There’s always lots of demand around Christmas, and I need to be back by then. Will the olive harvest be over?’

‘Almost certainly. If it’s not, we can manage if you need to return.’ He stood up and put the kettle on. ‘I was thinking we should invite your sister and her fiancé over to meet Anita so she can start the ball rolling.’

‘Anita?’

‘Si. They’ll need a wedding planner.’

‘They can’t afford a wedding planner!’

‘It’s part of the package. I’m not planning it, I simply don’t have the time or the expertise, and Jen can’t plan a wedding in a strange place from a distance of two thousand kilometres, so we need Anita.’

‘I could do it. I’m here.’

‘But do you have the necessary local contacts? No. And besides, you’re already busy.’

‘Can I do the catering?’

He smiled tolerantly. ‘Really? Wouldn’t you rather enjoy your sister’s wedding?’

‘No. I’d rather cut down the cost of it to you. I feel guilty enough—’

‘Don’t feel guilty.’

‘But I do. I know quite well what cooks get paid, and it doesn’t stack up to the cost of a wedding in just three months!’

He smiled again. ‘We pay our staff well.’

She snorted rudely, and found a mug of tea put down in front of her.

‘Don’t argue with me, cara,’ he said quietly. ‘Just ask your sister when she could come over, and arrange the flights and check that Anita is free to see them.’

‘Only if you’ll let me do the catering.’

He rolled his eyes and laughed softly. ‘OK, you can do the catering, but Anita will give you menu options.’

‘No. I want to do the menus.’

‘Why are you so stubborn?’

‘Because it’s my job!’

‘To be stubborn?’

‘To plan menus. And don’t be obtuse.’

His mouth twitched and he sat down opposite her again, swirling his wine in the glass. ‘I thought you were going to cook chestnuts?’

‘I can’t read the recipe book. My Italian is extremely limited so it’s a non-starter.’

He took it from her, opened it and frowned. ‘Ah. Well, some of it is in a local dialect anyway.’

‘Can you translate?’

‘Of course. But you’d need to know more than just classic Italian to understand it. Which recipe did you want to try?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, how do I know? I don’t know what they are.’

‘I’ll read them to you.’

‘You know what? I’ll do it in the morning, with Carlotta. She’ll be able to tell me which are her favourites.’

‘I can tell you that. She feeds them to us regularly. She does an amazing mousse for dessert, and stuffing for roast boar which is incredible. You should get her to teach you those if nothing else. Anyway, tomorrow won’t work. There’s a fair in the town.’

‘Carlotta said there was a day off, but nobody told me why.’

‘To celebrate the end of La Vendemmia. They hold one every year. Then in a few weeks there’s the chestnut fair, and then after La Raccolta, the olive harvest, there’s another one. It’s a sort of harvest festival gone mad. You ought to go tomorrow, it’s a good day out.’

‘Will you be there?’

He nodded. ‘All of us will be there.’

‘I thought we were avoiding each other?’

He didn’t smile, as she’d expected. Instead he frowned, his eyes troubled. ‘We are. I’ll be with my children. Roberto and Carlotta will be going. I’m sure they’ll give you a lift.’

And then, as if she’d reminded him of their unsatisfactory arrangement, he stood up. ‘I’m going to do some work. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She did see him, but only because she kept falling over him.

Why was it, she thought, that if you lost someone in a crowd of that size you’d never be able to find them again, and yet every time she turned round, he was there?

Sometimes he didn’t see her. Equally, probably, there were times when she didn’t see him. But there were times when their eyes met, and held. And then he’d turn away.

Well, this time she turned away first, and made her way through the crowd in the opposite direction.

And bumped into Anita.

‘Lydia! I was hoping I’d see you. Come, let’s find a quiet corner for a coffee and a chat. We have a wedding to plan!’

She looked around at the jostling crowd and laughed. ‘A quiet corner?’

‘There must be one. Come, I know a café bar on a side street. We’ll go there.’

They had to sit outside, but the sunshine was lovely and it was relatively quiet away from the hubbub and festival atmosphere of the colourful event.

‘So—this wedding. Massimo tells me your sister’s coming over soon to talk about it. Do you know what she wants?’

Lydia shrugged, still uncomfortable about him spending money on Anita’s services. ‘The hotel was offering a fairly basic package,’ she began, and Anita gave a soft laugh.

‘I know the hotel. It would have been basic, and they would have talked it up to add in all sorts of things you don’t really need.’

‘Well, they wouldn’t, because she hasn’t got any money, which is why I’m working here now.’

Anita raised an eyebrow slightly. ‘Is that the only reason?’ she asked softly. ‘Because I know these Valtieri men. They’re notoriously addictive.’

Poor Anita. Lydia could see the ache in her eyes, knew that she could understand. Maybe, for that reason, she let down her guard.

‘No. It’s not the only reason,’ she admitted quietly. ‘Maybe, subconsciously, it gave me an excuse to spend time with him, but trust me, it’s not going to come to anything.’

‘Don’t be too sure. He’s lonely, and he’s a good man. He can be a bit of a recluse—he shuts himself away and works rather than deal with his emotions, but he’s not alone in that. It’s a family habit, I’m afraid.’

She shook her head. ‘I am sure nothing will come of it. We’ve talked about it,’ she said, echoing her conversation with Isabelle and wondering if both women could be wrong or if it was just that they were fond of him and wanted him to be happy.

‘He needs someone like you,’ Anita said, ‘someone honest and straightforward who isn’t afraid of hard work and understands the pressures and demands of an agricultural lifestyle. He said your family are lovely, and he felt at home there with them. He said they were refreshingly unpretentious.’

She laughed at that. ‘We’ve got nothing to be pretentious about,’ she pointed out, but Anita just smiled.

‘You have to understand where he’s coming from. He has women after him all the time. He’s a very, very good catch, and Gio is worried that some money-seeking little tart will get her claws into him.’

‘Not a chance. He’s much too wary for that, believe me. He has strict criteria. Anyway, I thought we were talking about the wedding?’

Anita smiled wryly and let it go, but Lydia had a feeling that the subject was by no means closed …

‘What are you doing?’

A pair of feet appeared in her line of sight, slender feet clad in beautiful, soft leather pumps. She straightened up on her knees and looked up at his mother, standing above her on the beautiful frescoed staircase.

‘I’m helping Carlotta.’

‘It’s not your job to clean. She has a maid for that.’

‘But the maid’s sick, so I thought I’d help her.’

Elisa frowned. ‘I didn’t know that. Why didn’t Carlotta tell me?’

‘Because she doesn’t?’ she suggested gently. ‘She just gets on with it.’

‘And so do you,’ his mother said softly, coming down to her level. ‘Dear girl, you shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not part of your job.’

‘I don’t have a job, Signora Valtieri. I have a bargain with your son. I help out, my sister gets her wedding, which is incredibly generous, so if there’s some way I can help, I just do it.’

‘You do, don’t you, without any fuss? You are a quite remarkable girl. It’s a shame you have to leave.’

‘I don’t think he thinks so.’

‘My son doesn’t know what’s good for him.’

‘And you do?’

‘Yes, I do, and I believe you could be.’ She stared at Elisa, stunned. ‘But—I’m just a chef. A nobody.’

‘No, you are not a nobody, Lydia, and we’re just farmers like your people.’

‘No.’ She laughed at that and swept an arm around her to underline her point. ‘No, you’re not just farmers, signora. My family are just farmers. You own half of Tuscany and a palazzo, with incredibly valuable frescoes on the walls painted by Old Masters. There is a monumental difference.’

‘I think not—and please stop calling me signora. My name, as you well know, is Elisa. Come. Let’s go and get some coffee and have a chat.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I have work to do—lunch to prepare for everyone in a minute. I was just giving the stairs a quick sweep.’

‘So stop now, and come, just for a minute. Please? I want to ask you something.’

It was a request, but from his mother it was something on the lines of an invitation to Buckingham Palace. You didn’t argue. You just went.

So she went, leaving the ornate and exquisitely painted staircase hall and following her into the smaller kitchen which served their wing of the house.

‘How do you take your coffee? Would you like a cappuccino?’

‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’

Bone china cups, she thought, and a plate with little Amaretti biscuits. Whatever this was about, it was not going to be a quick anything, she realised.

‘So,’ Elisa said, setting the tray down at a low table between two beautiful sofas in the formal salon overlooking the terrace. ‘I have a favour to ask you. My son tells me you’re contemplating starting a catering business. I would like to commission you.’

Lydia felt her jaw drop. ‘Commission?’ she echoed faintly. ‘For what?’

‘I’m having a meeting of my book group. We get together every month over dinner and discuss a book we’ve read, and this time it’s my turn. I would like you to provide the meal for us. There will be twenty people, and we will need five courses.’

She felt her jaw sag again. ‘When?’

‘Wednesday next week. The chestnuts should be largely harvested by then, and the olive harvest won’t have started yet. So—will you do it?’

‘Is there a budget?’

Elisa shrugged. ‘Whatever it takes to do the job.’

Was it a test? To see if she was good enough? Or a way to make her feel valued and important enough to be a contender for her son? Or was it simply that she needed a meal provided and Carlotta was too unwell?

It didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t refuse. She looked into Elisa’s eyes.

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Just so long as you’ll give me a reference.’

Elisa put her cup down with a satisfied smile. ‘Of course.’