‘And I want to see in your eyes how you want me.’
He removed his hand from her waist and led her onwards once more. ‘Keep them closed,’ he warned, and dropped his hand from her face.
Meghan longed to open her eyes—if just to see the expression on Alessandro’s face. Smug because he’d made her want him so easily? Would there be the residual flicker of desire in own brilliant eyes?
Somehow she kept them closed. It had become a matter of pride. Of trust.
He tugged her along the stony path and she followed, her limbs still weak, flooded with sensation. With need.
Alessandro had recovered from their kiss more quickly than she had, she thought ruefully.
He held her hand gently, helping her over rocks and twisted roots. Meghan clung to him, moving carefully over the unfamiliar ground.
The rushing sound had become increasingly louder with every step, and when Alessandro finally brought her to a stop it was a roaring in her ears. She could feel the spray of water on her face.
‘Now open them.’
Meghan obeyed, and found herself staring at a magnificent waterfall, a pure cascade of rushing whiteness that dropped over a hundred metres into a restless surging river below.
She clapped her hands in delighted surprise. ‘A waterfall! I’d no idea!’
‘Cascata delle Marmore. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Alessandro leaned against the balustrade of the viewing balcony he’d brought her to. The waterfall was like a huge sheet of streaming glass, surrounded by dense green foliage and trees. Meghan felt as if she were on a tropical island, despite the cool breeze teasing her hair into her eyes.
She stared at the water, rushing blue-green turning to pure white foam. It was both beautiful and frightening in its sheer power. ‘I didn’t realise there were natural waterfalls in this part of Italy,’ she marvelled.
‘It’s not actually natural,’ Alessandro told her. ‘The Romans built it nearly two thousand years ago. They created viaducts to drain off the swampy land around the River Velino and pour the excess water off the Marmore Cliff into the Nera. Now it’s only turned on for a few hours a day. The rest of the time it’s little more than a trickle.’
‘You mean it’s not real?’ She felt a twinge of disappointment that this powerful beauty hadn’t been here since time began. Wasn’t even meant to be here.
Alessandro turned to her, one eyebrow raised. ‘What’s real?’ He gestured to the falls, raising his voice over the sound of rushing water to be heard. ‘That looks rather real to me.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Meghan said slowly. ‘I certainly wouldn’t want to go over it in a barrel!’ she joked, then shook her head. ‘I don’t know—somehow it would be more impressive if it hadn’t been manufactured by man.’
‘Isn’t that what makes it so amazing?’ Alessandro countered. ‘It was a swamp, a stagnant river—useless, dangerous, even— and they made it into something beautiful.’
‘And still dangerous,’ Meghan couldn’t resist saying.
‘Yes. Still dangerous.’
What were they really talking about? The falls, or something deeper? An even stronger current that threatened to pull her under, drowning her self-respect, her independence, and leaving only need.
A current that, like the falls, had been manufactured, created by an impossible and unreal situation.
Currents like that couldn’t last. What was once a torrent would become a trickle, turned off at the source, by the source.
Alessandro. This was his game, she knew, and he was calling all the shots. He was in control.
Just one day, she reminded herself. One day couldn’t be dangerous.
Except perhaps it could, with Alessandro.
‘Come on.’ Alessandro put an arm around her shoulders easily, as naturally as if he’d done it many times before. ‘We can have lunch in Montefranco.’
Back in the car, he gave her a knowing glance. ‘Still disappointed the falls aren’t real?’
She shrugged. ‘I can’t deny they were beautiful.’
‘Do you know the story behind them? Nera was a wood nymph who fell in love with a shepherd boy. The goddess Juno was jealous, so she turned Nera into a river.’
‘The River Nera,’ Meghan surmised. ‘Bad luck for her, falling in love with the wrong man.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alessandro conceded with a wry smile. ‘But do you know what her shepherd Velino did?’
‘Found a shepherdess?’
He chuckled softly. ‘No, he was so anguished at the loss of his love, he threw himself off the Marmore Cliff. His tears became the waterfall, and so they are joined for ever, the Rivers Velino and Nera. Their love lasting into eternity.’
Meghan smiled tightly. ‘A sweet story.’
‘You don’t believe in lasting love?’ There was a cynical edge to his voice that was impossible to miss.
‘No, I don’t,’ Meghan said baldly. ‘Do you?’
Something flickered in his eyes—disappointment? Relief? Who knew? Meghan looked out of the window, refusing to be drawn in. It didn’t matter what Alessandro thought about everlasting love, because there was nothing lasting about their situation.
‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘No, Meghan. In that respect I’m like you.’
And, strangely, Meghan suddenly felt sad for them both.
Two people together, bound by desire and disillusion.
Montefranco was one of Umbria’s classic hillside towns, its houses and churches perched on the green slopes as if they’d sprung up from the soil. Alessandro led her to a little trattoria tucked away on a narrow cobbled street, and the proprietor, a jolly man in an apron-covered suit, greeted him like a friend. After speaking briefly in his usual rapid-fire Italian, Alessandro slowed down to introduce Meghan.
‘Antonio—my friend from America—Meghan Selby.’
He made her sound like a pen-pal. Smiling, Meghan shook the older man’s hand. Yet how else could he possibly explain her presence?
It didn’t make sense. This entire day didn’t make sense. It was something out of a story, a fantasy, and it would end tonight.
Meghan’s mouth turned dry. Tonight … when she walked away with a wave and a smile. If she could.
And if she couldn’t…?
‘You know what they say,’ Antonio said, ‘a friend of Alessandro di Agnio’s is a friend of mine.’ He turned to Alessandro, still speaking slowly for Meghan’s benefit. ‘So good to see you! It’s been too long.’
‘I’ve been busy, Antonio,’ Alessandro said as he clapped the older man on the shoulder.
‘I know! I know! All this work in the city—no time for rest, for play. I never thought I would say that to you, of course …’ His chuckle faltered at Alessandro’s wintry look.
‘You along with many others.’ He smiled, but it was as if a light had gone out in his eyes, turning them from blue to lifeless black.
‘The poached cod is delicious,’ Alessandro told her after they’d both silently perused the menus. ‘If you care for fish.’
Meghan grimaced. ‘Sorry, I’m a smalltown girl from the Midwest. I’m not much of a one for seafood.’
He chuckled. ‘How about the strascinati with black truffle sauce? The truffles are famed in this region. It’s a long- guarded secret where you can find them.’
‘Do you know?’ she asked, and Alessandro gave an eloquent, arrogant shrug that forced an unwilling laugh from her lips.
‘Of course. You must try the vino santigrano as well. It’s made locally, from some of the best vineyards in all of Italy.’
‘Sounds like you know the menu,’ Meghan commented. ‘Do you come here often?’
‘Do you mean, do I bring all my women here?’ Alessandro said, his eyes alight with rueful humour.
‘Something like that.’ She smiled in admission, a tell-tale blush stealing across her cheeks.
‘I told you—I like food.’
It was, she realised, not an answer to her question. How ma
ny women had he had? He was a man who knew women, who understood them, who was made for lovers … if not for love.
Alessandro steered the conversation into calmer waters, regaling her with tales and antics of the Umbrian locals, peppered with the mythology of the region.
Antonio himself brought the food and poured the wine, and Meghan could feel herself relaxing, enjoying. Laughing. Flirting.
‘Try this.’ Antonio had laid a sumptuous-looking rolled pastry on the table between them, and now Alessandro lifted a forkful to Meghan’s lips.
Closing her eyes, she opened her mouth, and Alessandro slid a forkful of heaven inside.
The taste of chocolate, raisins and walnut melted onto Meghan’s tongue. It was delicious. It felt like a sin. ‘Mmm … what is this?’
‘Attorta … a speciality of Umbria.’
Meghan opened her eyes to find Alessandro smiling at her, his gaze heavy-lidded, languorous. Sensual.
The pastry turned tasteless in her mouth, her throat so dry she could barely swallow.
Desire pulsated between them, coiled around Meghan’s heart, her lungs, until she found she couldn’t breathe. When she finally managed to drag air in, her breath came out in a shudder.
Alessandro smiled. ‘Have another bite.’
Obediently, Meghan opened her mouth, and Alessandro slid in another forkful. She could feel a drip of chocolate on the corner of her mouth and, mesmerised, watched as Alessandro wiped it before licking it off his own finger.
‘Mmm.’
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘What’s going on here?’ she whispered.
‘We’re eating dessert.’
‘Alessandro, you know what I mean.’
He shrugged, though his eyes blazed into hers. ‘I want you. You want me.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Meghan shook her head. ‘I wish it were.’ She gazed down at the crumbled remnants of their shared feast, delicious while it lasted but gone so quickly. She’d travelled that route before.
She would not do it again.
She looked up, her eyes wide and bleak. ‘I won’t sleep with you.’
‘So you’ve said.’ Alessandro took a sip of wine, looking amused.
Meghan sighed wearily. ‘I know you think you’ll wear me down eventually, and in truth you might get close. You might even win.’
‘Is this a battle?’ he murmured.
‘You know it is. If I sleep with you I’ll lose my self-respect, my dignity. I’ll have given into desire, and I’ll hate myself for it.’
‘Why couch it in those terms? Why can’t we love each other as two responsible, mature adults?’
Meghan laughed without humour. ‘Because it’s not about love.’
‘You said you didn’t believe in love.’
There was no mistaking the look of surprise on Alessandro’s face, the heavy-lidded languor replaced with a wary tension.
‘I don’t. That doesn’t mean I’m going to give myself to every— any—man I’m attracted to. I don’t operate that way. Sorry.’
‘So. You don’t believe in love, but you won’t make love with someone out of simple desire. What are you going to do? Become a nun?’
Meghan gave a shaky laugh. ‘At times that prospect is appealing.’ She twirled her fork between her fingers. ‘I don’t know what is going to happen in the future.’ Her tone and face were bleak as she considered the prospect. The future was something she avoided thinking about. Sometimes it didn’t seem as if she had one at all. ‘I just can’t ever see myself falling in love again. If that means being alone, then I guess I’ll just have to get used to that.’
‘It’s not easy, being alone,’ Alessandro said after a moment.
Meghan glanced at him, surprised by the guarded note in his voice, the vulnerability in his eyes. ‘Sometimes it’s safer.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Safety is important to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘This man you were with—you loved him? And he made you feel unsafe?’
‘Of course he did,’ Meghan replied shortly. ‘Stephen was married. I didn’t know it—’
‘Stephen?’ Alessandro’s eyes darkened. He reached across the table to pluck the fork from her hand. He took her fingers in his, stroking her wrist with soft, tender movements. ‘This Stephen— he was an ass. Even I can see that. But you can’t let one man— one experience—spoil the rest of us for ever.’
‘I’m sure,’ Meghan said with a little smile, struggling to hold onto her composure as the fluttery little movements on her wrist went straight to her heart, ‘you’d like to be the man to break the pattern.’
‘One man, one relationship, is not a pattern.’
‘Well, no.’ Meghan glanced down, her eyes suddenly blurred with tears as memories rushed to the surface—memories she had firmly stamped down when she’d fled Stephen’s apartment, fled the memories and the tears and kept running.
She still hadn’t stopped.
‘Meghan? Gattina?’ Alessandro lifted her chin with his fingertips. ‘What is wrong? What did I say?’
‘Nothing.’ Meghan blinked back the tears and smiled. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, I am sorry. We’ve wasted enough time indoors. We can walk through the town, up to the old fortress. There is a beautiful view from its walls.’
And as easily as that, he dispelled the tension, the sorrow. Meghan let herself be led, her hand in his, out into the Umbrian sunshine.
The last thing she wanted to think about was Stephen, or the night she’d finally had the courage to walk away.
That was a memory she had locked deep into her soul. Something she never, never wanted to talk about. Certainly not to Alessandro. Not to anyone. Ever.
The fortress was built into the hill, overlooking the tumbled buildings of the town, and Meghan could imagine how it had once been formidable, impenetrable.
Now its walls were crumbling, mellow in the sunshine, and children played in the street below. Meghan let Alessandro lead her up the steps onto the top of the crenellated wall, the Umbrian countryside spread out before them in a peaceful patchwork of earthen colours.
A teasing wind blew her hair around her face and she breathed in the clean, pine-scented air, as pure and satisfying as a drink of water.
Alessandro and Meghan silently surveyed the panorama of tumbled hills and olives groves, taking in the majesty of an unchanged landscape.
‘Did you grow up here?’ Meghan asked after a long moment.
‘Yes and no. As I told you, I went to school in England. My parents’ main house of residence is in Milan. And yet …’ He smiled with wry honesty. ‘This was home.’
‘Your brother’s villa?’
‘Yes. It was my father’s before that.’
But not yours, Meghan realised silently, wondering what lay behind his careful choice of words.
‘Well, it’s beautiful,’ she said with a smile. ‘I happened on Spoleto by chance, but I’m glad I came.’
‘So am I,’ Alessandro murmured, and sudden expectant tension thrummed between them, heavy with meaning, with possibility.
Meghan stared out at the countryside, blind now to its charms.
‘I should take you back to Spoleto tonight,’ Alessandro said suddenly. His face looked hard.
Meghan’s stomach plunged icily. She realised she was disappointed. She had expected to stay. She’d expected Alessandro to want her to stay.
‘If that’s what you want,’ she said, only just managing to keep her voice steady.
Alessandro raked a hand through his hair. ‘You know it is not!’ He dropped his hand, tracing her cheek with his fingers. ‘But you are haunted, Meghan, by the past. This man—he is like a shadow. I can almost see him at your shoulder.’
Meghan touched his fingers briefly with her own, her fingers winding around his, clinging. Pleading. ‘I don’t want him there.’
Alessandro smiled sadly. ‘Neither do I.’
He cupped her cheek and she closed her eyes, revelling in the touch, the tenderness. She couldn’t go yet. She couldn’t leave this man—this hold he had on her senses, her soul. Perhaps even her heart. It wasn’t love. She knew that. It was desire; it was need.
‘Don’t take me back yet,’ she whispered.
His hand stilled. ‘Are you sure?’
Meghan opened her eyes, swallowed audibly. Panic was fast setting in. ‘I don’t mean … I’m not …’
Alessandro smiled. His thumb caressed her lips. ‘I know.’
He drew her naturally to him, in an embrace that was gentle rather than passionate. ‘Stay,’ he murmured against her hair. ‘God knows, I don’t want you to go.’
Meghan knew their time had been extended by only a day, perhaps two. Soon she would have to move on, and so would Alessandro. Their lives had never been meant to intertwine.
This was going to end. It was just a matter of when … and what happened beforehand.
The drive back to Tre Querce was quiet, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Meghan gazed out of the window at the fallow fields and bare vineyards, the sky above streaking lavender and gold.
She’d never reacted to any man the way she reacted to Alessandro—even Stephen hadn’t affected her so profoundly, so deeply … as if he were stroking not just her hand or her body, but her soul.
Her whole body—her whole self—yearned towards his touch, his understanding. The two, she realised, were intimately connected.
He didn’t love her.
He made no promises.
And yet … she wanted him.
She wanted him.
More than she’d ever wanted anything in her whole life.
More than your self-respect?
Meghan closed her eyes against the setting sun now blazing over the hills and fields.
I don’t know.
As Alessandro turned the car up the twisting drive, Meghan wondered what the night would hold. She turned to look at him, and he sensed her gaze and smiled, reaching over to twine her fingers with his.
‘Don’t be afraid, Meghan. There don’t have to be any shadows.’
Shadows. Meghan thought of Stephen. She could still see his face, hear his words.
I thought this was what you wanted.
One Night In Collection Page 23