‘A smaller version is served as antipasti,’ he informed her, ‘but I thought you would like it as a main course.’
‘I certainly will!’ Laura watched in awe as he dressed the impressive array with olive oil and lemon juice. ‘Lobster, prawns, crab, mussels—but what are the other things, Domenico?’
‘Small squid, also various shellfish found only here in the lagoon.’ He held a chair for her. ‘Sit, signorina.’ He flicked out one of the linen napkins and laid it over her lap, then filled their wineglasses, and as the final touch lit the candles.
Laura smiled ruefully as he took the seat opposite. ‘I’m going to miss all this when I’m scrambling eggs back in London. Think of me now and then at dinner time, Domenico.’
‘I shall think of you a great deal more than that!’ He looked into her eyes. ‘I hope you also will think of me.’
She held his gaze steadily. ‘You can safely count on that.’
‘Bene.’ He smiled. ‘Now, let us think no more of meals apart and enjoy the one we are eating together.’
Laura enjoyed it all the more for eating it alone with him as they lingered over the meal. ‘This is so much better than a restaurant,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Give my compliments to your friend the chef.’
‘I will. Though it is not the food that makes the evening special for me, Laura.’ Domenico got to his feet, holding out his hand. ‘Come, let us sit in the salotto.’
‘First we clear away,’ she said sternly, ‘and this time I help.’
‘You know I have a machine to wash dishes,’ he protested.
‘All we need do is load it, then!’
‘Are you happy now?’ demanded Domenico, when they sat down together later.
She turned to him with a lazy smile. ‘Right now I’m very happy indeed.’
He gave a sigh of deep satisfaction. ‘I, also. This has been a very good day.’
‘Was it strange for you, Domenico? Doing so many tourist things?’
‘I enjoyed it very much. With you for company, Laura, how could I not?’
‘You say the nicest things!’
He was silent for a while, staring down at his handsome shoes, but at last he drew in a deep breath and turned to her. ‘I have something else to say, but perhaps you will not think it so nice.’
‘What is it?’ she said apprehensively.
His eyes darkened. ‘I am in love with you, Laura.’
She sat very still, her heart thumping so loudly she was sure he must be able to hear it.
‘Say something, tesoro,’ he said urgently.
‘We’ve only just met,’ she said at last.
‘This matters?’
‘You can’t say it was love at first sight!’
‘E vero! You were not impressed by me.’
‘I was, really,’ she confessed. ‘When a handsome Italian spoke to me at the airport I was quite excited for a moment—until I realised he was desperate to get rid of me.’
‘I came to seek you out afterwards,’ he reminded her.
‘Only to impress me with your charm and good looks!’
Domenico leaned nearer. ‘Did I succeed, carissima?’
Her eyes dropped. ‘It was good to have company on my first night in Venice.’
‘Yet you did not allow me to escort you back to the hotel.’
‘You were so sure I’d say yes, I just had to say no,’ she said frankly.
He laughed. ‘So. I admit I did not fall in love with you at first sight, but I can tell you the exact moment when I did.’
Laura leaned closer. ‘When you kissed me that first time?’
‘That is when it began, perhaps. But the moment of truth came next morning at the hotel.’ He traced a finger down her cheek. ‘You ran down the stairs to me, flushed and smiling and so desirable it was a very good thing Signora Rossi was behind her desk.’
She took in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘Then why turn me down when I offered to kiss you last night?’
Domenico’s fingers tightened on hers. ‘I think you know this very well.’
They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Then as though two giant hands had propelled them together they were in each other’s arms, his mouth on hers in a kiss she felt right down to her toes. At the touch of his tongue on hers she responded with such fire Domenico lifted her onto his lap, caressing the curve of her breasts through the thin black fabric, and Laura breathed in sharply, arching into the touch of his hands as his kiss grew fiercer. She shivered in delight when his fingers found bare skin and threw her head back in total abandon as his mouth moved down her throat. When his lips reached the warm hollow between her breasts Domenico was utterly still for a moment before his mouth returned to hers and crushed it with a kiss that made her head reel. Then he set her on her feet and strode to the window, his back turned.
‘I will not do this, Laura,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I want you. Dio, how I want you! But if I take you now you will believe I talked of my feelings only to seduce you.’
‘You mean you’re afraid Lorenzo Forli would sack you if he found out,’ she snapped, utterly mortified by another rejection. She caught her breath in dismay as Domenico turned on her, transformed in a heartbeat from lover into a cold, hostile stranger. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said penitently, backing away. ‘That didn’t come out the way I intended.’
His smile chilled her to the bone. ‘You made your meaning very clear. You are mistaken, however. I have no fear of losing my job. I simply believe it would be wrong to make love to a woman who is not only alone in Venice, but also placed in my care. You come from a different culture, so perhaps this is hard for you to understand. Come. I shall take you back.’
‘Domenico—’
He threw up a hand, silencing her very effectively, his eyes hard and cold, like ovals of translucent blue glass. After a tense moment Laura turned away to pick up her handbag and thrust a few straying fronds of hair into place as she fought hard to regain her composure.
When she had command of herself she turned back to him. ‘Thank you so much for dinner, and the help you’ve given me during my holiday,’ she said, frigidly polite. ‘But please don’t trouble yourself to walk back with me. I prefer to return alone.’
He brushed this aside with hauteur. ‘Non importa, I shall see you back to the hotel.’
The look in Domenico’s eyes was so implacable Laura turned away and made for the door he held open for her. They went downstairs and out into the calle in silence, which lasted, unbroken, all the way to the Locanda Verona.
Afraid her voice would never make it past the lump in her throat, Laura gave Domenico a silent, regal nod in response to his formal bow and walked without hurry across the bridge and through the open doorway of the hotel. She took her key from Signora Rossi, and with a mute smile of thanks escaped to the sanctuary of her room and closed the door behind her.
Chapter Five
THE night was endless. Hot and miserable, Laura tossed and turned for hours, embarrassed because her frustrated body refused to give her peace. If this was a side effect of falling in love she was glad she’d never done it before. It was all academic anyway. After throwing the insult at him she would never get the chance to tell Domenico how she felt. Not that it mattered. A relationship of any kind between them was impractical; geographically and every other way. Better to end it now, before any more damage was done.
She sighed in the darkness. Her relationships with men in the past had been light-hearted, uncommitted affairs, with no regrets and no harm done when they were over. Except for Edward. He’d astounded her with the scene at the Ritz because she’d known him since they were children. She regretted the loss of his friendship, but it didn’t keep her awake at night. While the thought of never seeing Domenico again was unbearable. Laura swallowed a dry, despairing sob, turned on the light and reached for her guidebook. The visit to the Guggenheim would obviously be made solo now, so she might as well give up trying to sleep and find out how to get there.
Mission accomplished, Laura picked up a paperback and tried her best to read for a while, but the story was so obviously heading for a much happier ending than her own she gave up and switched off the light, then groaned as she remembered the silk tie intended as a parting gift. She would have to find some way to get it to Domenico. Taking it to his apartment was out of the question. She would just have to deliver it to his hotel. Wherever that might be. Domenico had been surprisingly cagey on the subject.
Laura got up early next morning, feeling groggy from lack of sleep and the overdose of emotion. To put her brain in gear she stood in the shower for a while and took a long time over her hair afterwards. When it was brushed and pinned back in a severe twist without a tendril in sight she put on her last clean white T-shirt and pair of jeans, stuffed her guidebook and supply of postcards in her satchel and went downstairs. Once she had steeled herself to deliver the tie she would make for the Guggenheim and a dose of modern art.
Signora Rossi was at her desk, smiling. ‘Buon giorno, Miss Green.’
‘Good morning.’ Laura smiled awkwardly. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name of the hotel where Signor Chiesa works. Would you happen to know it?’
‘But of course. It is the Forli Palace,’ said the woman, looking surprised.
‘Thank you. Is it far from here?’
Supplied with directions, Laura went out for coffee and drank it at a table for once. She looked through her postcards, singled out a view of Florian’s outdoor tables, and wrote a brief message on it to enclose with the tie.
To Domenico, with thanks for all your kindness, Laura.
She resealed the gift packaging, wrote his name on the label, finished her coffee and went off to search for the Forli Palace. Following the signora’s directions, she crossed the Ponte della Paglia, with its bird’s-eye view of the Bridge of Sighs, and joined the teeming crowds on the promenade on the busy Riva degli Schiavoni. People eddied around the busy stalls and hurried to and fro from the vaporetto stops, but Laura’s interest was centred on the volume of gondolas, tugs, water buses and taxis on the waters of the lagoon, with even a naval ship just visible in the distance. Eventually the crowds thinned out and Laura reached a row of palazzos long since converted into luxury hotels. Her heart sank when she found the Forli Palace, which was as unlike the Locanda Verona as a hotel could possibly be. The foyer was all pillars, mirrors and frescoes, with great urns of flowers, chandeliers of Venetian glass, and an expanse of marble floor to cross to reach a reception desk manned not by Domenico, to her huge relief, but by two young men who smiled courteously as she approached.
Laura said good morning very firmly in English and held out the package to one of them in response to an offer of help. ‘For Signor Domenico Chiesa,’ she said briefly.
‘Did you wish to see him, signorina?’
‘No! No, that won’t be necessary,’ she said hastily. ‘But would you make sure that he receives this fairly soon, please?’
‘Senza fallo! Without fail,’ he repeated. ‘I will personally make sure of this. But I require your name, please, signorina.’
‘Miss Laura Green,’ she said formally. ‘Grazie.’
Her duty done, Laura squared her shoulders and set off on the longish walk to Dorsoduro to explore the Guggenheim, the one-storey palazzo that from the picture in her guidebook looked out of place among the other buildings in Venice. With Domenico for company she would have travelled by water taxi, but for her remaining time in Venice her diminishing finances meant a walk everywhere. The morning was hot, and the combination of a sleepless night and the nervous strain of visiting the Forli Palace had depleted her energy level to the point that when she’d crossed the Accademia Bridge and found the museum her enthusiasm for modern art, or any other kind, was at low ebb. She brightened a little when she found that the young guide who offered help at the Guggenheim actually came from London, but because of this had to pretend interest she didn’t feel. After a detailed tour of works by familiar names like Picasso, Mondriaan and Ernst, others by artists Laura had never heard of, plus a whole room devoted to the works of Jackson Pollock, her guide took her round the statuary in the garden. But when they reached the canal entrance a sculpture of a horse bearing a man in a state of full arousal was a statue too many for Laura, and, face burning behind the dark glasses, she muttered her thanks and left in a hurry to go in search of caffeine.
She came to a halt at one of the cafés along the Zattere, where the views across the Giudecca Canal were delightful and the prices a lot cheaper than in San Marco. Lunch seemed like a good idea now she was here, in case she couldn’t face the prospect of a solitary dinner later. After a toasted sandwich and some orange juice, followed by an espresso to perk her up, Laura walked back to the hotel, so tired by the time she got there she collapsed on her bed, desperate for sleep. And stayed wide awake. Exasperated, she read for a while instead, but at last gave up, dressed again, and went out to look at some of the Renaissance art Venice was famous for.
During her window-shopping in the Mercerie Laura had noticed a side entrance between the shops to the San Salvatore church and made this her first stop. The beautiful Renaissance interior was impressive, but without Domenico for company Laura felt totally overwhelmed by it, and after only a cursory inspection of the two Titian paintings the guidebook mentioned she went back to the shops. She wandered past the tempting merchandise on display in the windows again for a while, but when she reached Campo Santo Stefano Laura dutifully went inside the church to admire the ship’s keel ceiling and marble pillars mentioned in the guidebook. Her duty done, she went back out into the big square and sat down in one of the open-air cafés to cool down with an ice cream. While she waited for it she watched children playing near the central statue and wondered what on earth to do for the rest of the day. But originally she had expected to be alone in Venice for her entire stay. So she would just have to resign herself to spending her last night here with a book in her hotel room or come back to this busy square to eat. It would be too painful to visit Florian’s again.
Laura sighed, took out the postcards she’d bought earlier, and began writing messages on them, ready to post on her way back. Halfway through the pile her phone rang, and she seized it, heart thumping, to say a cautious, hopeful hello.
‘Laura?’
Her heart leapt at the sound of the voice she’d never expected to hear again.
‘Yes?’
‘Domenico. I have just received your gift. Many, many thanks. I did not expect this.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you did. I bought it before we went to the Basilica yesterday.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘In the square where we found the gold mask.’
‘Ah. Campo Santo Stefano.’
‘So my guidebook says.’
‘Laura, ascolta—listen. I know you fly back tomorrow.’
‘I leave after breakfast.’
‘It is a very bad thing to part in such a way. I was angry last night—’
‘You had every right to be. I regretted the words the moment I said them. I apologise.’
‘I said certain words that I do not regret,’ he said, his voice a tone lower.
Not sure what answer he expected in answer to that, Laura played safe. ‘I’m very glad you rang.’
‘Bene. I am glad also. Laura, let us dine together one last time tonight, yes?’
Oh, yes, please! ‘Thank you,’ she said, deliberately polite to mask the joy bubbling up inside her. ‘I’d like that very much.’
‘Then I will call for you at seven.’
Laura put the phone away and sat utterly still for a long time, savouring the blissful feeling of relief. Campo Santo Stefano was suddenly the most beautiful place on earth. She no longer felt tired, and tomorrow she would fly home in far happier frame of mind now the parting with Domenico seemed likely to be at least amicable. She rang her mother to confirm that she’d go straight to Stavely for the weekend for Fen’s hen
party, and then strolled back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. She was in such tearing spirits during the process she was ready and waiting in the airy chiffon dress when the phone rang dead on the minute at seven o’clock.
‘I am here,’ said Domenico.
‘Give me a moment and I’ll be right down.’
Laura sprayed a cloud of perfume into the air, walked through it on her way to the door, and then made herself go downstairs at a sedate pace. Her heart missed a beat at the sight of Domenico in the reception hall, which was deserted for once. He wore a formal dark suit with a gleaming white shirt and the tie she’d bought, and it was all she could do not to run the rest of the way and throw herself into his arms.
‘Buona sera, Laura,’ he said, smiling as he came forward. ‘What an enchanting dress. You look more beautiful each time I see you.’
So do you, she thought fervently. ‘Thank you. I’ll just leave my key.’ She pressed the bell and gave the key to Signora Rossi, who wished them both a pleasant evening.
Outside in the sunset light Domenico eyed her intently as they crossed the familiar bridge. ‘What did you do today, Laura?’
‘After I delivered the package to your hotel I walked to the Guggenheim,’ she said in a tone that won her a wry look.
‘You did not care for this?’
‘It was interesting,’ she said neutrally.
‘Interesting,’ he repeated, smiling a little as they strolled along the familiar route to the Piazza San Marco.
Laura described her tour of modern art and the switch to Renaissance architecture in the afternoon, but as they turned into the piazza she paused to look him in the eye. ‘I didn’t enjoy any of it, Domenico. After our disagreement last night I was miserable all day. I did those things just to kill time, which is a totally barbarous thing to do in a place like Venice.’
He seized her hand. ‘I also was miserable—until this afternoon, when I received your gift.’
‘I left it at the hotel fairly early this morning,’ she informed him huskily.
A Venetian Affair Page 6