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“Sì.”
“So your house isn’t very far away?”
“Nothing’s very far away. Pantelleria is only fourteen and a half kilometers long and less than five kilometers wide.”
“So we’ll arrive soon?”
“Sì.”
“I understand that’s where we lived before the accident.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Sì.”
Talk about a man of few words! “And we’ve been married how long?”
“A little more than a year.”
“Are we happy?”
He tensed visibly, a scowl marring his forehead. “Apparently not.”
Distressed, she stared at him. She had exchanged vows with this gorgeous man. Taken his name and presumably once worn his ring, although there was no sign of it now. Had slept in his arms, awakened to his kisses. And somehow let it all slip away.
“Why not?”
He shrugged and gripped the steering wheel more tightly. He had beautiful hands. Long-fingered and elegant. And there was no sign of a wedding ring. “Our living arrangement was not ideal.”
She ached to ask him what he meant by that, but the reserve in his voice was hard to miss even for someone in her impaired mental state, so she once again focused her attention on her surroundings.
He’d turned the car off the main road and was navigating a private lane leading to an enclave of secluded villas perched on a headland. By some high-tech method she couldn’t begin to fathom, a pair of iron gates set in a high rock wall opened as he approached, then swung smoothly closed again immediately afer the car had passed through.
A drive bordered with dwarf palm trees wound through extensive grounds to a residence which, while remaining true to what appeared to be a traditional island dwelling, was much larger than any they’d passed on the way, and bore an air of unmistakable opulence. Single-storied, it sprawled over the land in a series of terraced cubes, with a domed roof over the larger, central section.
Dario stopped the car outside a massive front door and switched off the ignition. “This is it?” she breathed.
“This is it,” he said. “Welcome home, Maeve.”
She opened her door and stepped out. The wind had dropped and a stand of pine trees dusted with the mauve shadows of dusk filled the air with their scent. The first stars blinked in the sky. Even from this vantage point, the estate—and estate was the only word to describe it—commanded a magnificent view across the Mediterranean.
Closing her eyes, she breathed in the peace and wondered how she could not remember such a place.
For a moment he leaned against the car and watched. The sight of her body, silhouetted sharp and brittle against the deepening twilight, brought back the shock he’d experienced when she first stepped out of the aircraft. The very second he saw her, he’d wanted to establish his husbandly right to enfold her in his arms. Peruzzi’s warning not to crowd her had been all that stopped him. That, and his fear that he might inadvertently break her ribs.
She had always been slender, but never to the point that the siroccos of autumn might blow her away if she ventured too close to the edge of the cliffs. Never to the point of such fragility that she was almost transparent. Small wonder the good doctor had urged him to patience. Restoring her physical stamina had to come first. The rest—their history, the accident and the events leading up to it—could wait. Ambushed by her intuitive questions, he’d already revealed more than he intended, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He hadn’t risen to the top of a world-wide multi-billion-dollar business empire without learning to dissemble if the occasion called for it. And from where he stood, this amounted to one of those occasions.
“Would you like to stay out here for a while?” he asked her. “Perhaps stretch your legs with a stroll through the gardens?”
She ran her fingers through her short, silky hair. “No, thank you. Even though it’s still early, I find I’m quite tired.”
“Come then, and I’ll have my housekeeper show you to your room.”
“Do I know her?”
“No. She started working for me just last week. Her predecessor moved to Palermo to be closer to her grandchildren.”
He took her one small suitcase from the back of the car and pushed open the front door, then stood back to let her precede him inside the house.
She stepped into the wide foyer and slowly inspected her surroundings, taking in the lazy motion of the fans suspended from the high ceiling, the cool white walls, the black marble floors. “Do you live here all the time?” she asked, her voice hushed.
“Not as a rule. Usually I’m here on the weekends only. It’s where I come to unwind.”
A shiver passed over her. “So I’ll be on my own after today?”
“No, Maeve. Until you feel more at home, I’ll stay with you.”
“In the same room and the same…bed?”
Is that what you’d like? he wanted to ask, beset by memories he almost wished he could forget. Once upon a time, they had shared such insatiable passion for each other. “You have your own room for as long as you want it, but I’ll never be far away if you need me,” he said instead, and congratulated himself on providing an answer that neither threatened her, nor shut the door on their resuming a more normal married life at some future point. Peruzzi would be proud of him.
“Oh,” she said, and he might almost have thought she sounded disappointed. “Well, that’s very nice and considerate of you. Thank you.”
“Prego.”
She inched a little closer. “Um…are my clothes and personal effects still here?”
“Yes,” he assured her. “Everything is exactly as you left it.” Except for the blood-soaked outfit she wore the day of the accident. That was one memory he wished he could erase and hoped she’d never recall. “Here’s Antonia now,” he continued, relieved to be able to change the subject as the housekeeper arrived on the scene. “She’ll take you to your suite and make sure you have everything you need.”
She exchanged a tentative smile with Antonia, then turned to him one last time. “Thank you again for everything you’ve done today.”
“It was nothing,” he said. “Sleep well and I’ll see you in the morning.”
As soon as the two women, one so sturdy, the other so frail, left the entrance hall and disappeared toward the lower left wing of the house where the guest bedrooms were located, he turned in the opposite direction and along the corridor that led to the library and his home office. Closing himself in the latter, he picked up the phone and called Giuliana, his sister, who lived next door.
“I was hoping I’d hear from you,” she said, picking up on the first ring. “Did Maeve arrive home safely?”
“She did.”
“And how is she? Is it as bad as we feared?”
“Ah, Giuliana!” Horrified, he heard his voice crack and had to take a moment to collect himself. “She’s fragile as spun glass, inside and out. The journey down here exhausted her. We got in just a few minutes ago and she went straight to bed.”
“Poor thing! I wish I could see her and tell her how much I love her and how glad I am to have her back among us.”
“I wish it, too. I wish you could bring her son home and have her look at him and recognize at once that she’s his mother. Sadly, the time’s not yet right.”
“I know, Dario. Small steps, isn’t that what her doctor said?”
“Yes, but not, I fear, as small as he’d like. Already she’s wormed too much information out of me and knows our marriage was on shaky ground. Not exactly the best way for us to start trying to put our lives back together, is it?”
“But it can be done if you love each other enough to fight for what you once had. The question is, do you?”
“I can’t speak for her, Giuliana.”
“Then speak for yourself. I know that the way you started out together wasn’t ideal, and that you married her because you believed it was the honorable thing to do and you had no other choice, but it seemed to me that you were making it work.”
“Until it all went horribly wrong.”
And therein lay the crux of the matter. Could either of them get past what had happened, or had they lost too much ground ever to trust each other again?
Seeming to read his thoughts, his sister said softly, “Maeve loves you, Dario. I am certain of that.”
“Are you?” he said wearily. “I wish I was. But I didn’t call to burden you with my doubts, I called to find out how you’re holding up having an extra child to care for. Is Sebastiano wearing you out?”
“Not in the least. Marietta is an enormous help. You were lucky to find so capable and willing a nanny. As for Cristina, she loves her little cousin and plays with him all the time. And he’s such a contented baby. He only ever cries if he’s hungry or tired, or needs to be changed.”
“He’s the one bright spot in this whole unfortunate business.”
“And too young to understand what’s happened.”
“Let’s hope he never will.” Dario paused. “Has anyone else in the family stopped by to see him?”
“If by that you mean our mother, then, yes. She came by this morning and again this afternoon. She’s quite adamant that he should be staying with her, and I’m equally adamant that he should not.”
“I’d hoped she’d go back to Milan with our father. The last thing Maeve needs right now is to run afoul of her.”
“Unfortunately, she seems set on staying here. But don’t worry, Dario. I can hold my own with her, as you very well know, and Lorenzo certainly can. He won’t stand for her interfering in our arrangement.”
That much he knew to be true. His mother might be a handful at times, but his brother-in-law was no more a man to be pushed around than Dario himself was. “I’m grateful to both of you for your support. Kiss my son good-night for me, will you? I’d come over and do it myself, but—”
“No,” his sister cut in. “Tonight, at least, it’s more important that you stay home in case Maeve needs you. It wouldn’t do for her to find herself alone before she gets her bearings.”
And how long before that happened, he wondered moodily, ending the call and pouring himself a stiff drink. It was all very fine for Arturo Peruzzi to counsel patience, but Dario had never been a particularly patient man. Already, after little more than an hour, his tolerance was tested to the limit as far as letting nature take its course in its own sweet time. He’d spent too many days neglecting work because he couldn’t concentrate. Too many evenings like this, with a bottle of single-malt Scotch for company. And a damn sight too many nights alone in a bed designed for two.
Irritably, he threw open the glass doors and stepped out onto the terrace. Night had fallen and the dozens of solar lights dotted throughout the garden and around the perimeter of the pool gleamed softly in the dark.
Once upon a time not so very long ago, Maeve had wanted him as much as he wanted her. They’d slipped naked into the warm, limpid depths of the private spa outside their bedroom and made love with an urgency that bordered on desperation. He’d buried his mouth against hers for fear that someone might hear her cries of surrender. He’d withheld his own pleasure in order to prolong hers, and finally come so hard and fast within the confines of her sleek, tight flesh that his heart almost stopped.
So why was he standing here alone now, hard and aching, and she was sleeping in a guest suite? Dannazione, she was his wife!
A sound punctured the night, closer than the murmur of the restless sea, fainter than a whisper. A footfall so hesitant he might have dismissed it as a figment of his imagination had it not been accompanied by a fragrance he recognized: bergamot, juniper and Sicilian mandarin softened with a touch of rosemary. Her fragrance, and he ought to know. He’d bought it for her.
Turning his head, he found her framed in the open doorway behind him, her silhouette softened this time by the long, loose garment she’d put on. She had never looked more ethereal or desirable.
“I thought you’d turned in for the night,” he said when he was able to speak.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Too much excitement?”
“Perhaps.” She took a step toward him and then another. “Or perhaps I’ve done enough sleeping and it’s time for me to wake up.”
CHAPTER THREE
HE REMAINED so still and watched her so warily that she almost lost her nerve and scuttled back to the safety of her suite. Decorated in shades of celadon and cream, nice soothing colors designed not to agitate the amnesiac mistress of the house, it was more luxurious than anything she could have imagined. The gorgeous bathroom had a steam shower and a tub deep enough to drown in. Adjacent to the bedroom was a sitting room, and outside in the private garden overlooking the sea, a swimming pool.
An oasis of tranquility, she’d have thought, yet she’d found neither answers nor rest there. From the minute she stepped over the threshold into the house, an air of utter desolation had engulfed her. She felt hollow inside. Bereft beyond anything words could describe.
Something bad had happened here. Something that went beyond a less than perfect marriage, and try though she might to dismiss it, the weight of unspeakable tragedy, of an event or events too horrific to contemplate, continued to haunt her. This spectacular seaside villa held a dark and dreadful secret, one she was determined to unearth. And whether or not he wanted to, her tight-lipped husband was the man who’d reveal it to her.
“Are you going to offer me a drink?” she asked boldly, even though her pulse ran so fast that she could hardly breathe. Nothing new there, though. She’d lived with subdued panic most of her life, and had long ago learned to disguise it behind a facade of manufactured poise.
“If you’re asking for alcohol, I’m not sure that I should,” Dario said.
“Why not? Am I a raging dipsomaniac?”
He actually laughed at that, a lovely rich ripple of sound that played over her nerve endings like the bass keys of a finely tuned piano. “Hardly.”
“That’s a relief. For a moment, I was afraid I might be a good-time girl who danced on the table after one beer.”
“I’ve never known you to drink beer. You prefer good champagne, and never more than a glass or two at that. Nor have I ever seen you dance on a table.”
“Then why the reluctance to humor me now?”
“Medication and alcohol aren’t a good mix.”
“I’m not taking any medication. Haven’t for more than two weeks.”
“I see,” he said and ran a hand over his jaw. “In that case, I’ll make you a deal. Join me for dinner and I’ll crack open a bottle of your favorite vintage. It was always your favorite.”
Not wanting to appear too eager, she pretended to give the matter some thought. “All right. Now that you mention it, I am rather hungry.”
“Eccellente. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll let the cook know there’ll be two of us dining tonight.”
“Of course.” She waited until he’d disappeared then, weak at the knees from his departing smile, she tottered to a pair of sun lounges upholstered in blue-and-whitestriped cotton, and practically fell onto the one nearest.
The view spread out in front of her was breathtaking. A big oval infinity pool, strategically placed for maximum dramatic effect, appeared to cling to the very rim of the cliff. An illusion, of course, brought about by the sort of complicated engineering feat only the very rich and famous could afford. But the profusion of bougainvillea framing the picture was nature’s handiwork alone.
Dario returned in a matter of minutes with two slender tulip-shaped flutes and a silver ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne. He poured the wine, sat down beside her and touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Salute!”
“Salute! And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For everything you’ve done since I’ve been ill. They told me at the hospital that you’re the one who sent me flowers every day and who took care of all my expenses.”
“What else would you have had me do, Maeve? I’m your husband.”
“Yes, well…about that…”
“Relax, cara,” he advised her gently. “I didn’t mention our relationship as a prelude to demanding my conjugal rights.”
“Oh,” she said, swallowing a wave of disappointment along with a sip of champagne. Not that she was raring to make love to a man she didn’t know, but that he presumably knew her very well indeed, yet was so willing to keep his distance, wasn’t exactly flattering. On the other hand, what else did she expect? “Under the circumstances, it never occurred to me that you were.”
He turned his head sharply and fixed her in a probing stare. “What do you mean by that?”
“I might not remember marrying you, Dario, but I’ve still got twenty-twenty vision. I know I look more like a scarecrow than a woman.”
“You’re still recovering from an accident that almost cost you your life. You can’t expect to look the same as you did before.”
“Even so, my hair…” She tugged self-consciously at the pathetic remains of what had once been her crowning glory, as if doing so might persuade it to sprout another few inches.
Reaching across the space separating them, he stilled her hand and brought it down to rest beneath his. It was the kind of thing a parent might do to stop a child picking at a scab, but however he might have intended it, his touch electrified her in places not referred to in polite society. Involuntarily she clamped her knees together as primly as a virgin defending her innocence.
Fortunately, he couldn’t read her mind. Or if he could, he didn’t like the direction it had taken, because he let go of her hand as quickly as he’d grasped it. “You have beautiful hair,” he said. “It reminds me of sunshine on satin.”
“It’s too short.”
“I like it short. It shows more of your face, which, like the rest of you, is also quite beautiful, regardless of how you might view it.”
Even though he delivered it as matter-of-factly as a Kennel Club judge might appraise a freshly trimmed poodle, his compliment was more than she’d hoped for or deserved. After her bath, she’d done her best to find something flattering to wear among the clothes she’d discovered in the small dressing room connecting her bedroom to the bathroom, and heaven knew there was quite a bit to choose from.
Layers of lingerie in glass-fronted drawers filled one side, with a shelf of shoes below, and another holding several big floppy sun hats above. Opposite was a row of loose-fitting day dresses, skirts and tops, with two or three more elegant dinner outfits on padded hangers arranged at one end. Nothing too formal, though. Judging by the plethora of beach and patio wear, and the pairs of straw sandals and flip-flops encrusted with crystals, Pantelleria was not the social center of the world.
The quality of the clothes, however, was unmistakable. She’d fingered the expensive fabrics, admiring the cut and color of the various garments. Fashion was in her blood and whatever else might have slipped her mind, her eye for style had not. That most items appeared at least two sizes too large might have proved something of a challenge to a person of lesser experience, but she was on familiar territory when it came to making a woman look her best. Bypassing silky lace-trimmed bras and panties, she’d chosen cotton knit underwear that forgave her diminished curves, and topped it with a loose-flowing caftan in vibrant purple that whispered over her body like a breeze and softened the sharp jut of her hip bones.
Regarding her efforts in the full-length mirror, she’d felt a woman a little more in charge of herself again. But although it had given her the courage to seek out Dario and try to worm more information out of him, now that he was inspecting her so thoroughly, she almost cowered.
“You’re embarrassing me,” she protested.
“Why?” he countered mildly. “You’re lovely, and I can’t possibly be the first man to tell you so.”
“No. My father used to say the same thing, but he was prejudiced. In truth, I was an ugly duckling, especially as a teenager.”
“I quite believe it.”
Her jaw dropped. “You do?”
“Certainly. How else could you have turned into such an elegant swan?”
He was laughing at her, and suddenly she was laughing, too.
It had been so long since she’d done that, and the result was startling, as if she’d opened an inner door and set free a hard, dark knot of misery. For the first time in weeks, she felt light and could breathe again. “Thank you for saying that. You’re very kind.”
“And you’re your own worst critic.” He touched her again, stroking the back of her hand, his fingers warm and strong. “What happened to make you that way, Maeve?”
“I’d have thought I told you that already, seeing that we’re married.”
“Perhaps you did,” he said, “but since we’re starting out all over again, tell me a second time.”
“Well, I was always shy, but never more than when I entered my teens. I’d become paralyzed with self-consciousness in a crowd, and had a miserable adolescence as a result.”
“Didn’t most of us at that age, at one time or another?”
“I suppose, but mine was made worse because, when I turned thirteen, my parents sent me to a very prestigious girls-only private academy, light-years removed from the kind of school I was used to and the few friends I had. Not that I came from the wrong side of the tracks or anything, but the day I walked into that elite establishment sitting across town on its high-priced five acres of prime real estate, I entered a different world, one in which I was a definite outsider.”
“You made no new friends?”
“Not really. Teenage girls can be very cruel, even if they don’t always mean to be. At best I was tolerated. At worst, ignored. I wasn’t entirely blameless, either. I compensated by withdrawing and trying to make myself invisible, which isn’t easy when you’re taller than everyone else, and painfully awkward to boot. I suppose that’s when I became fixated on long hair. I used to hide behind it all the time.”
She took another sip of champagne and stared at the empty sea, for the second time in one day harking back to that awful, unhappy era. “I wanted to be different. Be braver, more outgoing, more interesting and lively. More like those other girls who were so sure of themselves and so at ease in their environment. But I was me. Ordinary, dull. Academically acceptable, but socially and athletically inept.”
“When did all that change?”
“How do you know it did?”
“Because the person you describe isn’t the woman I know.”
Not on the outside, perhaps, and usually not on the inside either. Until someone poked too cruelly at those hidden insecurities and made them bleed. Then she was exactly that girl all over again. Not good enough. A nobody masquerading as somebody.
“Maeve,” he said, watching her closely, “what happened to make you see yourself in a different light?’
She remembered as if it had occurred just last week. “The day in my senior year that the headmistress called me up on stage during morning assembly and ordered the entire student body to look at Maeve Montgomery and take notice. Believing I was about to be castigated for having broken some unwritten rule of decorum, and to hide the fact that I was shaking inside, I stood very erect and stared out at that sea of faces without blinking.”
“And?”
“And what she said was, ‘When members of the general public meet girls from this academy walking down the street or waiting at the bus stop, this is what I expect them to see. Someone who doesn’t feel the need to raise her voice to draw attention to herself, but who behaves with quiet dignity. Someone proud to wear our uniform, with her blouse tucked in at the waist, her shoes polished and her hair neatly arranged.’”
Maeve paused and shot Dario a wry glance. “In case you’re wondering, by then I’d progressed to the point that I wore my hair in a French braid, instead of letting it hang in my face.”