by Liz Fielding
It was like nothing he had ever felt before. Always, before, he’d known exactly what he wanted. This uncertainty, this doubt, was unknown territory.
Time to cool down, with several countries between them, was exactly what he needed.
So why did it feel like a lifetime until Friday?
Matteo texted her on Wednesday evening: ‘I am in Paris. It’s raining and I’m soaked to the skin. I wish you were here.’
Sarah texted back: ‘I am in the bath. I’m soaked to the skin, too. Wish you were here?’
The reply was in Italian.
Her phrase book was no help. On Thursday morning, she texted him after her run: ‘I’m marking twenty essays on the Cold War before I go to school. My head aches, my shoulders ache and my fingers ache. Would a shot of grappa help?’
‘Not grappa, cara. You need someone to stroke your temples, massage your shoulders, bring you coffee and pastries. Someone to kiss your fingers while you work.’
‘That would do it. So where are you?’
‘In Madrid. Reading a hundred-page report before a climate-change conference.’
‘And this evening?’
‘Working on my own paper.’
‘I wish I was there to rub your shoulders. Instead I’ve got a friend coming for supper.’
‘Keep Friday free. On Saturday I have to fly to New York. But tomorrow, amore mio, I am all yours.’
Matteo was smiling as he tossed the phone on his desk. Perfect lover checking in, job done. But as he eased his own shoulders, picked up the paper he had been studying, the words refused to come into focus. It was Sarah’s face he saw. Her quick smile. Her sense of humour, her tenderness that filled his heart.
What would it be like to have someone to travel with you? A lover. A friend. Someone to talk to, laugh with. Who would kiss away the ache, shut out the world at the end of the day.
A hand to reach for in the darkness. A new thought and a dangerous one. He pushed it away.
Sarah’s first run had been to shake off a disturbed night but it had been all she needed to get back into the routine. By the end of the week she was back in her stride, her muscles stretched and toned, her heart rate slowed.
On Friday she stopped on her way back to pick up fruit for her breakfast and was juggling the bag so that she could unclip her keys from her pocket when she looked up and saw a pair of legs blocking her way.
So much for her heart rate. It went right through the roof and she hadn’t moved a step.
‘Matteo …’
‘I had hoped to get back last night but here I am as promised with coffee and fresh pastries.’
Strands of her hair, where they’d worked out of the elastic band holding it back, were sticking to her face. She was slicked with sweat, no doubt steaming slightly in the cool of the stairwell.
Not the image a girl wanted to present to a man who sent her untranslatable texts.
Matteo, on the other hand, looked every inch the well-groomed Italian male as he rose to his feet, balancing the tray containing coffee, the box of pastries in one hand.
‘A man bearing coffee and cake is always welcome,’ she managed. ‘Can you give me a couple of minutes for a shower?’
‘You say the most provocative things, cara.’
‘I say the most ordinary things,’ she said as she unlocked the door, put the fruit she’d bought on the table. ‘You choose to put a provocative spin on them. I won’t be long.’ Heavens above, but he was gorgeous and she wanted to touch him. Kiss him. Show him how pleased she was to see him. As she was hot and sweaty, she contented herself with being provocative and, with a grin, said, ‘Help yourself to an apple.’
‘Wait …’
‘What?’
He lifted a strand of damp hair from her cheek, tucked it behind her ear and then he cradled her face in his hands.
‘Matteo, I’m …’
‘Wait,’ he said. And then he kissed her. Slow, thoughtful, it was everything his last kiss had not been. Where that had been fire, this had a gradual all-the-time-in-the-world warmth that had her toes curling with pleasure. When he finally lifted his head, he said, ‘We missed our hello.’
‘So we did.’
And she kissed him back, hopefully getting the same response from some part of him. Although her kiss had further to go to reach his toes.
‘Ciao, Matteo. Buongiorno. Come sta? Felice di—’
‘Go,’ he said, laughing. ‘Or your coffee will be cold.’
Saying hello to Matteo could—if she were lucky—lead to a whole lifetime of cold coffee but she emerged from the shower in record time, her hair wrapped in a towel, wearing only a bathrobe. She couldn’t wait to get dressed. Or maybe she didn’t want to be dressed.
‘I’ve got five minutes,’ she said, joining him on the terrace. ‘We have a regular staff meeting on Friday morning and I’m still too new to risk being late.’
‘Ten minutes. My driver is waiting. I will give you a lift.’
‘No.’ Being delivered to school in a chauffeur-driven car would raise eyebrows. ‘Thanks. But I’ll walk fast.’ He laughed, offered her a pastry.
‘Oh, yum,’ she said, choosing a cornetto filled with cream. ‘You certainly know the way to a woman’s heart.’
‘A misspent youth has its advantages. Turn around.’
‘But …’
‘You have no time to waste on buts, cara.’
She continued to look at him, no buts, no maybes, no hesitation … She wanted to soak up the sight of him. Imprint his face on her memory. The slight kink in the straightness of his nose. A tiny scar, high on his right cheekbone. His scandalously thick dark lashes. The way his hair was struggling to break free from a ruthless cut and curl around his ear.
And for a moment he looked right back at her.
Shiny pink face. Lashes non-existent without the special mascara that, according to the adverts, was supposed to turn them into thick fur, but didn’t. Every blemish revealed.
Why on earth couldn’t she have waited another moment to slap on a touch of foundation, make a quick pass with the mascara wand, lipstick?
Because she couldn’t wait. Waste precious time putting on a face. Because he’d seen her at her worst and there was no need for pretence.
And that was how you fell in love, she thought.
Not with a desperate, rip-your-clothes-off kiss when you were looking your best. How could you not love a man who kissed you when you were red-faced, sweaty and looked about as bad as you possibly could?
A pull-you-close, I’m-glad-to-see-you, I’ve-missed-you kiss.
Matteo made a swivelling motion with his hand and, without a word, she turned so that her back was to him, but she was still looking over her shoulder.
‘What is this …?’
The words died in her throat as he eased the robe away from her neck to reveal her shoulders, settling his hands in the curve of her neck.
‘Coffee, pastry and a shoulder rub,’ he reminded her as he began to gently knead at muscles she had thought were relaxed.
She groaned with pleasure, pastry forgotten.
‘Good?’
‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to stop …’
And then his thumbs reached the base of her neck, working into the top of her spine, and she forgot about everything except the heat pooling low in her belly.
His breath against her skin as he placed just one moist kiss in the nape of her neck.
This was how you fell in love. Not in glamorous trips to the opera, but in quiet moments of intimacy. A caring gesture.
The idea should terrify her. This was so not what she wanted. The prescription had been for wild nights and hot sex. Something to remember when you were so old that only the cats listened to you.
A lover, not this precious sharing of five minutes at the beginning of the day.
‘Until tonight, cara,’ Matteo said, lifting her robe back into place.
‘I don’t think I can wait that long.’
His smile was slow. ‘You cannot be late and I, too, have meetings.’
‘More meetings?’ He was tired, she thought. He’d been working long hours, travelling incessantly, had only just arrived back in Rome; tomorrow he was leaving for New York and yet he had taken the time to come and spend a few minutes with her. ‘I thought you worked on your vines.’
‘That was last week. And maybe, if I am lucky, the week after next.’
‘And this week?’ she asked. ‘What have you been doing in Paris and Madrid?’ Apart from getting soaked to the skin. Aching shoulders as he bent over reports. ‘What will you be doing in New York?’
‘Giving papers at conferences. Chairing discussions.’
‘And today?’
‘Catching up at the office. I’ve spent the last couple of years working with the FAO, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. The world needs food more than it needs wine.’
The time scale was not lost on her. After Katerina’s betrayal he had changed his life and she instinctively lifted her hand to his cheek. ‘It needs your wine, too, caro.’
‘Pleasure and beauty. Italy’s gifts to the world.’
‘Yes …’
Without a doubt. But the superficial image of the gossip magazines had missed the real Conte di Serrone.
He may have inherited a little of his father’s wildness, but he carried the genes of his grandfather and great-grandfather. Men of principle, honour whose commitment to country, to community, ruled their lives. That was who he was.
‘Have you been to the Monte Testaccio?’ he asked, shaking off the moment of darkness that clouded his brow. ‘Perhaps you would like to go to a club this evening?’
‘Another time.’
‘You have something else in mind?’
‘An early night?’ She reached out, laid her hand against the faint roughness of his cheek. ‘You are tired, caro.’
‘Sei bellissima.’ He took her hand, kissed the palm, placed it against his cheek. ‘Will you have dinner with me?’
‘Of course. But here. I will cook—’ ‘No. I want to sit with you. To be with you. I have no idea what time I will finish this evening, but I will send a car for you at seven.’ ‘You don’t have to take me out, Matteo.’ ‘I am not. I am taking you home.’ He leaned in for a final brief kiss and a moment later the door closed behind him.
It was considerably longer before Sarah could persuade her legs to support her.
The driver who knocked on her door promptly at seven was the same man who’d driven her from Isola del Serrone. Not chance, she would have bet the cashmere coat she’d thrown over her shoulders. Unable to come himself, he’d made sure she would feel comfortable with someone she knew.
Or was she reading too much into it?
She mustn’t read too much into it. This was not for life but for fun, she reminded herself.
The car was different, though. Not a film star limousine, nothing to draw unnecessary attention, just an anonymous grey Mercedes with untinted windows which, having negotiated the Rome traffic, drew up in a narrow street in front of a pair of impressive doors.
The driver rang the doorbell and waited until it was opened by a middle-aged woman.
‘Signora Gratton?’ A middle-aged woman regarded her for a moment, then smiled. ‘Benvenuta.’
‘Grazie.’
The hallway she stepped into was stunning and, remembering how she’d dismissed the idea that Matteo might actually live in a genuine palazzo as nonsense, she felt rather stupid.
‘Io sono Anna … I am the Conte’s housekeeper,’ she added carefully. ‘He is … fare il bagno.’
In the bathroom … ‘Taking a shower?’ she ventured.
Anna smiled. ‘Si! He is in the shower. Una momenta.’ She took her coat. ‘Vuole qualcosa de bere?’
‘No, Grazie.’ What was Italian for I will wait? ‘Vorrei …’ I would like … She had been in Italy for weeks—she should be doing better than this. ‘Vorrei … to wait for Matteo. The Conte,’ she added quickly.
Anna nodded, indicated a formal sitting room where, with a mixture of Italian, English and many gestures, she invited her to make herself comfortable. Sarah, more interested in a Roman mosaic mounted behind a glass panel in the hall, abandoned her tote on the nearest chair and went back to take a closer look.
‘It’s the real thing.’
She spun around to see Matteo descending the stairs, casually dressed in a pair of chinos, a black polo shirt. Hair still damp from the shower.
‘This place was built on the remains of a Roman villa. The tesserae were found in the basement when the plumbing threw in the towel a few years back.’
‘I’ll bet that slowed down replacing the pipe-work.’
‘Just a bit,’ he agreed with a rueful smile. ‘I shouldn’t have made the archaeologists so comfortable. Would you like to look around?’
‘Please.’
They toured the house. On the ground floor there was the formal sitting room, a vast dining room filled with portraits of long dead Contes and their Contessas. A library filled with leather-covered volumes that were no doubt worth a fortune.
On the first floor there was a large sitting room with a television, more books, but mostly modern paperbacks this time, and comfortable furniture with no pretensions to grandeur.
‘This is what my mother would call a “feet up” room,’ she said.
‘Good name. My brother puts his feet up in here all the time.’
‘Does he live with you?’
‘No. He has an apartment, but his mother is in Milan so he comes here when he wants to eat, or someone to do his laundry.’
‘Students …’
‘He crossed a wide hall to a room where the desk, the computer, filing cabinets told their own story. ‘This is my office. It’s where your postcard was lost in a pile of mail for an entire week,’ Matteo said. He picked up the heap that had arrived while he had been away by way of demonstration.
‘I gave it to the driver. I still can’t believe I had the nerve,’ she admitted, still brought to a blush at the thought of her saucy PS.
He lifted a hand to her cheek, stroking it lightly with the back of his fingers. ‘I would have come to find you in your schoolroom if you had not sent it.’
‘Would you?’
‘I could not get you out of my mind.’
‘That makes two of us,’ she said. No pretence.
Then, because it was all much too intense, she said, ‘Is there any chance you could teach me a few useful phrases over supper? Pippa, the school secretary, wanted to come around tonight and I’m afraid I told her a big fat lie about starting Italian lessons.’
‘Because you don’t wish to be gossiped about?’
‘No, Matteo. Because I don’t want you to be gossiped about.’
He seemed about to say something but instead took her hand. ‘A few useful phrases? Very well. Say after me—Voglio tenere voi.’
‘Voglio tenere voi?’
‘It is not a question, carissima, it is a declaration. To be said with all your heart. Try again.’
She gave it another go, fairly sure that this was not something along the lines of Please can you tell me the way to the railway station.
‘Perfetto,’ he said, and he put his arms around her, drew her close, holding her against him so that her head was on his shoulder and she could feel his pulse.
‘Now say—Voglio baciare si …’
He said the words softly, tenderly and when she lifted her head and repeated them her reward was a long, slow kiss.
Her hands looped around his neck, she leaned back and looked up at him. ‘This is the say-and-do lesson plan?’
‘Simple but effective. Will you sign up for the whole course, do you think?’
‘I’m liking it very much so far. What comes next?’
‘Voglio fare l’amore con te …’
She repeated the words but he did nothing, said nothing, just looked at her with an intensity that sent a
shiver through her.
‘What did I just say, Matteo?’
‘I want to make love with you …’
‘And do you?’ she whispered.
‘Do you doubt it? Perhaps I’m not the hot lover that you were looking for, amore mio.’
‘No?’
‘Always away. Always busy.’
He turned away, but she reached up, took his face in her hands and made him look at her.
‘Everything you do is more than I was looking for, Matteo. This morning, when I saw you waiting at my door …’ She stopped. She had no words to describe how she’d felt when she’d seen him there. Not without using that terrifying four-letter word that he hadn’t signed up for. That she hadn’t signed up for. But she’d carried the warmth of it, the joy of it with her all through the day. ‘Our journey may be slow but it is infinitely enjoyable. And the scenery is spectacular.’
He raised an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth tucked up into a smile. ‘Please. Don’t stop.’
‘You said it. If all I wanted was sex I could have gone to the Testaccio any night of the week, taken a quick flight to nowhere.’
‘Instead of which you are …?’ he prompted.
‘Taking a trip on the Orient Express. First class. Stopping at every station to explore.’
‘What happens when the train eventually arrives in Ven ice?’ he asked.
‘Whatever we want. Kiss goodbye and move on with a pocketful of memories to take out and smile over when we’re old,’ she suggested.
‘And if we don’t want it to end?’
‘We could turn around and go back. Do it all over again.’
‘Better to travel on. We could charter a sailing ship and explore the Mediterranean,’ he offered. ‘Let the wind blow us where it will.’
‘You see how easy it is,’ she said. ‘Beauty and pleasure. No stress. Taking it one stop at a time.’
‘That’s what you said on your blog.’
‘You read it?’
‘Do you want me to stop?’
She swallowed hard. ‘You are on the journey with me, Matteo …’ Then, ‘Weren’t you showing me your house?’
‘There are two more floors, a dozen more rooms, but they will keep. Come, I want to show you my favourite place.’
He led her back downstairs, through the formal sitting room towards French windows that stood open to a sunken, colonnaded courtyard.