From Florence With Love: Valtieri's Bride / Lorenzo's Reward / The Secret That Changed Everything

‘No! Massimo, it wasn’t your fault! I don’t need your guilt as well as my own! This is not your problem.’

‘Nevertheless, you would have won if you hadn’t fallen, and yet when I took you back to my home that night you just waded in and helped Carlotta, even though you were hurt and disappointed. You didn’t need to do that, but you saw she was struggling, and you put your own worries and injuries out of your mind and just quietly got on with it, even though you were much more sore than you let on.’

‘What makes you say that?’

He smiled tenderly. ‘I saw the bruises, cara. All over your body.’

She blushed furiously, stooping to pick the rag up off the floor, but it was covered in dust and she put it down again. The saddle was already soaped to death.

‘And that dinner party—I know quite well that all of those dishes were yours. Carlotta doesn’t cook like that, and yet you left an old woman her pride, and for that alone, I would give you this wedding for your sister.’

The tears spilled down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them away with the backs of her hands. Not a good idea, she realised instantly, when they were covered in soapy filth, but he was there in front of her, a tissue in his hand, wiping the tears away and the smears of dirt with them.

‘Silly girl, there’s no need to cry,’ he tutted softly, and she pushed his hand away.

‘Well, of course I’m crying, you idiot!’ she sniffed, swallowing the tears. ‘You’re being ridiculously generous. But I can’t possibly accept.’

‘Why not? We need you—and that is real and genuine. I knew you’d refuse the wedding if I just offered it, but we really need help with the harvest, and it’s the only way Carlotta will allow us to help her. If we do nothing, she’ll work herself to death, but she’ll be devastated if we bring in a total stranger to help out.’

‘I was a total stranger,’ she reminded him.

He gave that tender smile again, the one that had unravelled her before. ‘Yes—but now you’re a friend, and I’m asking you, as a friend, to help her.’

She swallowed. ‘And in return you’ll give Jen this amazing wedding?’

‘Si.’

‘And what about us?’

Something troubled flickered in his eyes for a second until the shutters came down. ‘What about us?’

‘We agreed it was just for one night.’

‘Yes, we did. No strings. A little time out from reality.’

‘And it stays that way?’

He inclined his head. ‘Si. It stays that way. It has to.’

Did it? She felt—what? Regret? Relief? A curious mixture of both, probably, although if she was honest she might have been hoping …

‘Can I think about it?’

‘Not for long. I have to return first thing tomorrow morning. I would like to take you with me.’

She nodded. ‘Right. Um. I need to finish this—what are you doing?’

He’d taken off his jacket, slung it over the back of the chair and was rolling up his sleeves. ‘Helping,’ he said, and taking a clean rag from the pile, he buffed the saddle to a lovely, soft sheen. ‘There. What else?’

It took them half an hour to clean the rest of Bruno’s tack, and then she led him back to the house and showed him where he could wash his hands in the scullery sink.

‘Don’t mention any of this to Jen, not until I’ve made up my mind,’ she warned softly, and he nodded.

Her sister was in the kitchen, and she pointed her in the direction of the kettle and ran upstairs to shower. Ten minutes later, she was back down in the kitchen with her hair in soggy rats’ tails and her face pink and shiny from the steam, but at least she was clean.

He glanced up at her and got to his feet with a smile. ‘Better now?’

‘Cleaner,’ she said wryly. ‘Is Jen looking after you?’

Jen was, she could see that. The teapot was on the table, and the packet of biscuits they’d been saving for visitors was largely demolished.

‘She’s been telling me all about you,’ he said, making her panic, but Jen just grinned and helped herself to another biscuit.

‘I’ve invited him to stay the night,’ she said airily, dunking it in her tea while Lydia tried not to panic yet again.

‘I haven’t said yes,’ he told her, his eyes laughing as he registered her reaction. ‘There’s a pub in the village with a sign saying they do rooms. I thought I might stay there.’

‘You can’t stay there. The pub’s awful!’ she said without thinking, and then could have kicked herself, because realistically there was nowhere else for miles.

She heard the door open, and the dogs came running in, tails wagging, straight up to him to check him out, and her mother was hard on their heels.

‘Darling? Oh!’

She stopped in the doorway, searched his face as he straightened up from patting the dogs, and started to smile. ‘Hello. I’m Maggie Fletcher, Lydia’s mother, and I’m guessing from the number plate on your car you must be her Italian knight in shining armour.’

He laughed and held out his hand. ‘Massimo Valtieri—but I’m not sure I’m any kind of a knight.’

‘Well, you rescued my daughter, so I’m very grateful to you.’

‘She hurt herself leaving my plane,’ he pointed out, ‘so really you should be throwing me out, not thanking me!’

‘Well, I’ll thank you anyway, for trying to get her there in time to win the competition. I always said it was a crazy idea.’

‘Me, too.’ He smiled, and Lydia ground her teeth. The last thing she needed was him cosying up to her mother, but it got worse.

‘I promised her some produce from the estate, and I thought, as I had a few days when I could get away, I’d deliver it in person. I’ll bring it in, if I may?’

‘Of course! How very kind of you.’

It wasn’t kind. It was an excuse to bribe her into going back there to feed the troops by dangling a carrot in front of her that he knew perfectly well she’d be unable to resist. Two carrots, really, because as well as Jen’s wedding, which was giving her the world’s biggest guilt trip, there was the problem of the aging and devoted Carlotta, who’d become her friend.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said hastily, following him out to the car so she could get him alone for a moment.

He was one step ahead of her, though, she realised, because as he popped the boot open, he turned to her, his face serious. ‘Before you say anything, I’m not going to mention it to your family. This is entirely your decision, and if you decline, I won’t say any more about it.’

Well, damn. He wasn’t even going to try to talk her into it! Which, she thought with a surge of disappointment, could only mean that he really wasn’t interested in picking up their relationship, and was going to leave it as it stood, as he’d said, with just that one night between them.

Not that she wanted him to do anything else. She really didn’t want to get involved with another man, not after the hatchet job Russell had done on her self-esteem, and not when she was trying to resurrect her devastated career, but …

‘Here. This is a case of our olive oils. There are three types, different varietals, and they’re quite distinctive. Then this is a case of our wines—including a couple of bottles of vintage Brunello. You really need to save them for an important occasion, they’re quite special. There’s a nice vinsanto dessert wine in there, as well. And this is the aceto balsamico I promised you, from my cousin in Modena.’

While she was still standing there open-mouthed, he reached into a cool box and pulled out a leg of lamb and a whole Pecorino cheese.

‘Something for your mother’s larder,’ he said with a smile, and without any warning she burst into tears.

‘Hey,’ he said softly, and wrapping his arms around her, he drew her up against his chest. He could feel the shudders running through her, and he cradled her against his heart and rocked her, shushing her gently. ‘Lydia, please, cara, don’t cry.’

‘I’m not,’ she lied, bunching her fists in his shirt and burrowing into his chest, and he chuckled and hugged her.

‘I don’t think that’s quite true,’ he murmured. ‘Come on, it’s just a few things.’

‘It’s nothing to do with the things,’ she choked out. Her fist hit him squarely in the chest. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, and I was trying to move on, and then you just come back into my life and drop this bombshell on me about the wedding, and of all the times to choose, when I’m already …’

Realisation dawned, and he stroked her hair, gentling her. ‘Oh, cara, I’m sorry. When did he die, the pony?’

She sniffed hard and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her, he just held her tight, and after a moment she went still, unyielding but resigned. ‘Last week,’ she said, her voice clogged with tears. ‘We found him dead in the field.’

‘And you haven’t cried,’ he said.

She gave up fighting and let her head rest against his chest. ‘No. But he was old.’

‘We lost our dog last year. She was very, very old, and she’d been getting steadily worse. After she died, I didn’t cry for weeks, and then one day it suddenly hit me and I disintegrated. Luca said he thought it was to do with Angelina. Sometimes grief is like that. We can’t acknowledge it for the things that really hurt, and then something else comes along, and it’s safe then to let go, to let out the hurt that you can’t face.’

She lifted her head and looked up at him through her tears.

‘But I don’t hurt.’

‘Don’t you? Even after Russell treated you the way he did? For God’s sake, Lydia, he was supposed to be your lover, and yet when he’d crippled your sister, his only reaction was anger that you’d left him and his business was suffering! What kind of a man is that? Of course you’re hurting.’

She stared at him, hearing her feelings put into words somehow making sense of them all at last. She eased away from him, needing a little space, her emotions settling now.

‘You know I can’t say no, don’t you? To your proposition?’

His mouth quirked slightly and he nodded slowly and let her go. ‘Yes. I do know, and I realise it’s unfair to ask this of you, but—I need help for Carlotta, and you need the wedding. This way, we both win.’

Or lose, depending on whether or not he could keep his heart intact, seeing her every day, working alongside her, knowing she’d be just there in the room beside his office, taunting him even in her sleep.

She met his eyes, her own troubled. ‘I don’t want an affair. I can’t do it. One night was dangerous enough. I’m not ready, and I don’t want to hurt your children.’

He nodded. ‘I know. And I agree. If I wanted an affair, it would be with a woman my children would never meet, someone they wouldn’t lose their hearts to. But I would like to be your friend, Lydia. I don’t know if that could work but I would like to try.’

No. It couldn’t work. It was impossible, because she was already more than half in love with him, but—Jen needed her wedding, and she’d already had it snatched away from her once. This was another chance, equally as crazy, equally as dangerous, if not more so.

It was a chance she had to take.

‘OK, I’ll do it,’ she said, without giving herself any further time to think, and his shoulders dropped slightly and he smiled.

‘Grazie, cara. Grazie mille. And I know you aren’t doing it for me, but for your sister and also for Carlotta, and for that, I thank you even more.’

He hugged her—just a gentle, affectionate hug between friends, or so he told himself as she slid her arms round him and hugged him back, but the feel of her in his arms, the soft pressure of her breasts, the smell of her shampoo and the warmth of her body against his all told him he was lying.

He was in this right up to his neck, and if he couldn’t hold it together for the next two months—but he had to. There was no choice. Neither of them was ready for this.

He let her go, stepped back and dumped the lamb and the cheese in her arms. ‘Let’s go back in.’

‘Talk to me about your dream wedding,’ he said to Jen, after they’d taken all the things in from the car.

Her smile tugged his heartstrings. ‘I don’t dream about my wedding. The last time I did that, it turned into a nightmare for Lydia, so I’m keeping my feet firmly on the ground from now on, and we’re going to do something very simple and quiet from here, and it’ll be fine.’

‘What if I was to offer you the palazzo as a venue?’ he suggested, and Jen’s jaw dropped.

‘What?’ she said, and then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘The same deal as the hotel.’

She stared, looking from Lydia to Massimo and back again, and shook her head once more. ‘I don’t …’

‘They need me,’ Lydia explained. ‘Carlotta’s not well, and if I cook for the harvest season, you can have your wedding. I don’t have another job yet, and it’s good experience and an interesting place to work, so I thought it might be a good idea.’

‘I’ve brought a DVD of my brother’s wedding so you can see the setting. It might help you to decide.’

He handed it to her, and she handed it straight back.

‘There’s a catch,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘Lydia?’

‘No catch. I work, you get the wedding.’

‘But—that’s so generous!’

‘Nonsense. We’d have to pay a caterer to do the job, and it would cost easily as much.’

‘But—Lydia, what about you? You were looking for another job, and you were talking about setting up an outside catering business. How can you do that if you’re out of the country? No, I can’t let you do it!’

‘Tough, kid,’ she said firmly, squashing her tears again. Heavens, she never cried, and this man was turning her into a fountain! ‘I’m not doing it just for you, anyway. This is a job—a real job, believe me. And you know what I’m like. I’d love to know more about Italian food—real, proper country food—and this is my chance, so don’t go getting all soppy on me, all right? My catering business will keep. Just say thank you and shut up.’

‘Thank you and shut up,’ she said meekly, and then burst into tears.

Lydia cooked the leg of lamb for supper and served it with rosemary roast potatoes and a redcurrant jus, and carrots and runner beans from the garden, and they all sat round at the battered old kitchen table with the dogs at their feet and opened one of the bottles of Brunello.

‘It seems wrong, drinking it in here,’ she said apologetically, ‘but Andy’s doing the accounts on the dining table at the moment and it’s swamped.’

‘It’s not about the room, it’s about the flavour. Just try it,’ he said, watching her closely.

So she swirled it, sniffed it, rolled it round on her tongue and gave a glorious sigh. ‘That is the most gorgeous wine I have ever tasted,’ she told him, and he inclined his head and smiled.

‘Thank you. We’re very proud of it, and it’s a perfect complement to the lamb. It’s beautifully cooked. Well done.’

‘Thank you. Thank you for trusting me with it.’ She smiled back, suddenly ridiculously happy, and then the men started to talk about farming, and Jen quizzed her about the palazzo, because she’d hardly said anything about it since she’d come home.

‘It sounds amazing,’ Jen said, wide-eyed. ‘We’ll have to look at that video.’

‘You will. It’s great. The frescoes are incredible, and the view is to die for, especially at night, when all you can see is the twinkling lights in the distance. It’s just gorgeous, and really peaceful. I know it’ll sound ridiculous, but it reminded me of home, in a way.’

‘I don’t think that’s ridiculous,’ Massimo said, cutting in with a smile. ‘It’s a home, that’s all, just in a beautiful setting, and that’s what you have here—a warm and loving family home in a peaceful setting. I’m flattered that you felt like that about mine.’

The conversation drifted on, with him telling them more about the farm, about the harvest and the soil and the weather patterns, and she could have sat there for hours just listening to his voice, but she had so much to do before they left in the morning, not least gathering together her clothes, so she left them all talking and went up to her room.

Bearing in mind she’d be flying back after the harvest was over, she tried to be sensible about the amount she took, but she’d need winter clothes as well as lighter garments, and walking boots so she could explore the countryside, and something respectable in case he sprang another dinner on her—

‘You look lost.’

She looked up from her suitcase and sighed. ‘I don’t know what to take.’

‘Your passport?’

‘Got that,’ she said, waggling it at him with a smile. ‘It’s clothes. I want enough, but not too much. I don’t know what the weather will be like.’

‘It can get cold. Bring warm things for later, but don’t worry. You can buy anything you don’t have.’

‘I’m trying to stick to a sensible baggage allowance for when I come back.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ll pay the excess. Just bring what you need.’

‘What time are we leaving?’

‘Seven.’

‘Seven?’ she squeaked, and he laughed.

‘That’s a concession. I would have left at five, or maybe six.’

‘I’ll be ready whenever you tell me. Have you been shown to your room?’

‘Si. And the bathroom is opposite?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry it doesn’t have an en suite bathroom—’

‘Lydia, stop apologising for your home,’ he said gently. ‘I’m perfectly capable of crossing a corridor. I’ll see you at six for breakfast, OK?’

‘OK,’ she said, and for a heartbeat she wondered if he’d kiss her goodnight.

He didn’t, and she spent a good half-hour trying to convince herself she was glad.

They set off in the morning shortly before seven, leaving Jen and Andy still slightly stunned and busy planning their wedding, and she settled back in the soft leather seat and wondered if she’d completely lost her mind.

‘Which way are we going?’ she asked as they headed down to Kent.

‘The quickest route—northern France, across the Alps in Switzerland, past Lake Como and onto the A1 to Siena. We’ll stay somewhere on the way. I don’t want to drive through the Alps when I’m tired, the mountain roads can be a little tricky.’

Her heart thudded. They were staying somewhere overnight?

Well, of course they were, he couldn’t possibly drive whatever distance it was from Suffolk to Tuscany in one day, but somehow she hadn’t factored an overnight stop into her calculations, and the journey, which until now had seemed simple and straightforward, suddenly seemed fraught with the danger of derailing their best intentions.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘LYDIA?’

She stirred, opened her eyes and blinked.

He’d pulled up in what looked like a motorway service area, and it was dark beyond the floodlit car park. She yawned hugely and wrapped her hand around the back of her neck, rolling her head to straighten out the kinks.

‘Oh, ow. What time is it? I feel as if I’ve been asleep for hours!’

He gave her a wry, weary smile. ‘You have. It’s after nine, and I need to stop for the night before I join you and we have an accident.’

‘Where are we?’

‘A few miles into Switzerland? We’re getting into the mountains and this place has rooms. It’s a bit like factory farming, but it’s clean and the beds are decent. I’d like to stop here if they have any vacancies.’

‘And if they don’t?’

He shrugged. ‘We go on.’

But he must be exhausted. They’d only stopped twice, the last time at two for a late lunch. What if they only have one room? she thought, and her heart started to pound. How strong was her resolve? How strong was his?

She never found out. They had plenty of space, so he booked two rooms and carried her suitcase for her and put it down at the door. ‘We should eat fairly soon, but I thought you might want to freshen up. Ten minutes?’

‘Ten minutes is fine,’ she said, and let herself into her lonely, barren motel room. It was clean and functional as he’d promised, just another generic hotel room like all the rest, and she wished that for once in her life she had the courage to go after the thing she really wanted.

Assuming the thing—the person—really wanted her, of course, and he’d made it clear he didn’t.

She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. What was she thinking about? She didn’t want him! She wasn’t ready for another relationship. Not really, not if she was being sensible. She wanted to get her career back on track, to refocus her life and remember where she was going and what she was doing. She certainly didn’t need to get her heart broken by a sad and lonely workaholic ten years her senior, with three motherless children and a massively demanding business empire devouring all his time.

Even if he was the most fascinating and attractive man she’d ever met in her life, and one of the kindest and most thoughtful. He was hurting, too, still grieving for his wife, and in no way ready to commit to another relationship, no matter how deeply she might fall in love with him. He wouldn’t hurt her intentionally, but letting herself get close to him—that was a recipe for disaster if nothing else was.

‘Lydia?’

There was a knock at the bedroom door, and she turned off the bathroom light and opened it. Massimo was standing there in the corridor, in a fresh shirt and trousers, his hair still damp from the shower. He looked incredible.

‘Are you ready for dinner?’

She conjured up a smile. ‘Give me ten seconds.’

She picked up her bag, gave her lips a quick swipe of translucent colour as a concession to vanity and dragged a comb through her hair. And then, just out of defiance, she added a spritz of scent.

She might be travel weary, and she might not be about to get involved with him, but she still had her pride.

The dinner was adequate. Nothing more, nothing less.

He was tired, she was tired—and yet still they lingered, talking for an hour over their coffee. She asked about Isabelle and Luca’s baby, and how the children were, and he asked her about Jen’s progress and if she’d be off the crutches by the time of the wedding, whenever it would be.

They talked about his time at boarding school, and she told him about her own schooling, in a village just four miles from where she lived.

And then finally they both fell silent, and he looked at his watch in disbelief.

‘It’s late and tomorrow will be a hard drive,’ he said. ‘We should go to bed.’

The word bed reverberated in the air between them, and then she placed her napkin on the table and stood up a little abruptly. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry, you should have told me to shut up.’

He should. He should have cut it short and gone to bed, instead of sitting up with her and hanging on her every word. He paid the bill and escorted her back to her room, leaving a clear gap between them as he paused at her door.

Not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t, and if he got any closer, he didn’t trust himself to end it there.

‘Buonanotte, bella,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll wake you at five thirty.’

She nodded, and without looking back at him, she opened the door of her room, went in and closed it behind her. He stared at it for a second, gave a quiet, resigned laugh and let himself into his own room.

This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? For her to keep her distance, to enable him to do the same?

So why did he suddenly feel so lonely?

It was like coming home.

This time, when she saw the fortress-like building standing proudly on the hilltop, she felt excitement and not trepidation, and when the children came tumbling down the steps to greet them, there was no look of horror, but shrieks of delight and hugs all round.

Antonino just wanted his father, but Francesca hugged her, and Lavinia hung on her arm and grinned wildly. ‘Lydia!’ she said, again and again, and then Carlotta appeared at the top of the steps and welcomed her—literally—with open arms.