Page 15 of Marriage Made In Hate

‘Forgive me, Signor Visconte, but my father once had the privilege of resetting one of the pearls in the D’Alabruschi betrothal ring.

I was only a boy, but I remember the ring vividly—an incomparable piece.

’ He cleared his throat carefully. ‘But, of course, for everyday wear perhaps something more as the signorina has selected…?’

‘Precisely so,’ said Luca, his voice clipped.

He was aware that Bianca was looking at him, and that she had stiffened. Visibly tensed. As he, perforce, grazed her hand in sliding the ring onto her finger, it seemed to jerk minutely.

The ring fitted perfectly, and the jeweller said as much.

Bianca dropped her gaze to look at it. For a moment that was all she did. And then she spoke. Her voice was as clipped as Luca’s had been. But in it was a sardonic note he’d have needed to be deaf not to hear. And stupid not to know why.

‘So it does,’ she murmured. ‘Who’d have thought?’

Then, with a rapid movement, she removed the ring, handing it back to the jeweller.

‘It had better go in a box for now, please. I have no idea of the price, but I would not like to lose it on the street.’

The jeweller looked uncertainly between them, but Luca only nodded.

As the jeweller found an appropriate case, and then proceeded to the delicate business of payment, Luca was aware that Bianca had turned away, ostensibly to look at the window display from the inside of the shop.

But not before he had seen her blink rapidly. As though something were in her eye.

Payment completed, the ring secured in its dark blue velvet lined case and secreted in the inner pocket of Luca’s jacket, they were politely ushered from the shop.

What the jeweller was speculating, Luca didn’t care—he knew only that he resented it.

He’d never said the word fidanzata , but even so… Plus the man had guessed his identity.

Well, he would just have to rely on the man’s professional discretion.

After all, there must be plenty of times when the jewellery he sold was not destined for a woman who had any legitimately acknowledged place in the purchaser’s life.

Half his stock doubtless went to females without an engagement ring on their finger, let alone a wedding ring.

Men were often all too happy to lavish their innamoratas with expensive jewellery.

Not that he ever did. He considered it insulting and demeaning. Nor did he consort with the kind of women who expected it.

Not even Bianca had. He’d give her credit for that.

‘If you like the ring,’ he heard himself saying as they headed out into the town’s main piazza, ‘please feel free to keep it.’

‘A souvenir from this happy occasion?’ Her tone was openly sarcastic. ‘No, thanks—sell it and get your money back.’

‘As you wish,’ Luca replied repressively.

She’d put his back up again. But at least the ordeal of the farcical ritual of bestowing an engagement ring upon her had been accomplished.

It had left him feeling hungry.

He glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s get some lunch,’ he said. There was a restaurant across the piazza he was familiar with, and it would do well enough.

She halted in her stride. ‘I don’t want lunch with you,’ she said.

Luca halted too, turning towards her. ‘Tough,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry, and I want to eat. If you really can’t stand the thought, go shopping.’

He strode off. He was fed up with her balking at him, the hostility coming off her in wave after wave. Had he asked for this infernal situation? No, he had not. So she could damn well give up on giving him a hard time over it.

He reached the restaurant, sat himself down at a table on the wide pavement under the shading awning.

A waiter glided up, handing him a menu, taking his drinks order.

As he gave it, Bianca stepped through a gap in the planters separating the restaurant’s seating area from the piazza and took the chair opposite him.

He threw a caustic glance at her. ‘Not keen to shop?’

‘Not right now,’ she replied, and held out her hand to the waiter for a menu of her own, asking for ‘agua minerale con gaz’ .

Luca’s eyes went to her. Given the awning, she hadn’t put her sunglasses back on, and nor had he. For a moment…a fraction of a second…their eyes met.

Met—and held.

Hers were the first to drop, and he was glad.

Unreasonably so.

For a longer moment he went on looking at her as she assiduously studied the menu. He felt something change in his expression. Something he was not even fully aware of. But one thing he was aware of. One thing it was impossible for him not to be aware of.

The fact that six years on from his having walked out on her, Bianca’s incomparable beauty still reached out to him…

* * *

Bianca stared blindly at the contents of the menu, taking nothing in. All that was in her vision was that moment just now when Luca had looked at her and she at him. Their eyes meeting…

Memory flooded.

That was just how it had happened that evening at the bar, when she’d been pouring drinks for the Canary Wharf Hooray Henrys. Lifting glasses, lifting her eyes—she’d collided full on with the man waiting for his turn to be served. Waiting…and watching her.

Tall, svelte, lethal.

Looking her over. Liking what he was seeing.

Just as I did. Not just his incredible Latin looks—the sable hair and chiselled features and those dark lidded eyes resting on me—but the whole package of him.

The pale grey expensive business suit that fitted like a glove across those elegant shoulders of his.

That indefinable air of cosmopolitan cool that he possessed so effortlessly.

That awareness… Yes, he knew perfectly well that all female eyes went to him, knew perfectly well that I would welcome his appreciation of me—and that he would welcome mine of him in return.

And return that open appreciation she had.

Handing over the drink she’d poured to the customer who’d ordered it, she had then turned her full attention on the man she wanted to pay attention to.

Asking him what he’d like to drink…mixing and pouring it.

Handing it to him and not minding that his fingers briefly touched hers as she slid it towards him, sending a quiver of awareness through her, quickening of her already quickened pulse.

Letting him engage her in conversation—she asking what part of Europe he came from, with that giveaway accent of his, him answering and then, nodding at the name tag which all the bar staff wore on their shirts, murmuring something soft and fluid in Italian.

And she’d given a laugh, saying with a half-toss of her head that her name was the only Italian thing about her…

Her thoughts slewed away. Her name had not been the only Italian thing about her after all. And it was because of that that she was sitting here now, with Luca, doing what they were doing.

Heaviness weighed her down, pressed upon her. Somehow— somehow —she had to cope with this.

She made her eyes focus on the menu, making her selection, closing it with a click and putting it back on the tablecloth. White linen, posh cutlery, tall-backed chairs—it was an upmarket restaurant. But then, what else would Luca patronise?

Memory came again, whether she wanted it to or not. She’d got such a kick out of being taken to all those posh places in London with him, gazing around, revelling in the expensive classiness of it all. He’d been amused. Indulgent. And she’d been open about how impressed she was by it all.

I never hid who I was from him. Never tried to be anything else. What he saw was what he got.

Except that what he’d got was not what he’d wanted—not for anything more than a fling.

I was a novelty act. That was all. And I have to accept it.

The waiter was returning with her mineral water and a glass of white wine for Luca, plus a bowl of salted almonds, olives and savoury biscotti. They gave their respective selections from the menu—they’d both gone for fish, she realised.

‘You won’t have wine?’ Luca asked, civilly enough.

She shook her head. ‘Not for lunch. I’ll just fall asleep.’ She drank some of her mineral water instead, feeling the fizzing bubbles effervescent in her mouth.

‘Have you had much opportunity to see anything of Pavenza?’ Luca was asking her.

He was still being civil, and she might as well be too. After all, how else were they to endure each other’s company, minimal though she wanted that time to be. Luca had said they should behave as strangers thrown together—maybe he was right. It would be less painful.

She made an effort to reply in kind.

‘I’ve been here a couple of times—just to shop. Matteo’s chauffeur drove me. I don’t dare drive in Italy, and certainly not in a town—least of all a town like this, with such narrow streets. And all those deadly scooters cutting up the cars!’

Luca gave a wry laugh. It did things to her she didn’t want it to. Didn’t want to be reminded of.

‘Pedestrianised zones are the answer…especially in historic town centres,’ he went on. ‘And zonas silencios— you’ll see the sign with the old-fashioned motor horn crossed through—are another advance. Essential, too, given the Italians’ twin love of both noise and protest!’

She laughed. Almost unconsciously she felt the net of tension that had wrapped her ever since seeing Luca appear back in her life like the demon king in a pantomime lessen minutely. For Matteo’s sake they should do this with the least ill grace possible. Let the past go.

Yet even as she made that resolve memory struck—not from six years ago, but from last night.

That kiss…that clinch on the terrace. For a moment, hot and humid, the memory scalded her, a perilous reminder of how vulnerable she was.

She steeled herself. It had been a warning to her—one she’d learn from. One Luca had better learn from too.