by Lynne Graham
Dante was palpably disconcerted by her reference to his being a widower and he breathed in deeply, as if he was bracing himself. ‘To say the least, my life as a child and adolescent was dysfunctional. I thought that if I married young I could do it all differently and create the happy home I had never known. I also thought I loved Emilia. I never refer to my marriage because I made a mistake and I still feel guilty about that.’ Dante virtually grated that final hard-edged admission. ‘Are you satisfied now?’
‘Satisfied with what? You’re still not telling me what happened.’
‘Emilia died, running across a busy road to meet me for lunch. While I was waiting for her...before I learned what had happened,’ Dante framed jerkily, ‘I was wishing she would at least leave me alone during working hours... That’s how lousy a husband I was.’
Topsy was frowning, taken aback. ‘You didn’t love her?’
‘I thought I did but with mature hindsight I think it was more a fond friendship on my side than love. Her parents had divorced. We both wanted a stable home life but she wanted too much of me and I felt suffocated, trapped,’ he explained roughly, guiltily.
‘How did she want too much of you?’
‘If I wasn’t with her she was phoning me constantly and she couldn’t stand me leaving her to work. It was as though I had no right to a life of my own any more, but as far as Emilia was concerned that was how you loved someone. It didn’t work for me; it was like living in a cage. I knew I shouldn’t have married her within weeks. I realised we were too different but I could never have hurt her by telling her that.’
‘It’s not your fault that she died,’ Topsy told him gently.
‘I know that...but I wasn’t the best husband while she was alive. I was too young and selfish and she was too needy,’ he confided tight-mouthed. ‘But there’s nothing I can do about that now.’
He had regrets and Topsy was appalled to feel a dart of jealousy piercing her even on poor Emilia’s behalf because she could not bear to picture Dante having been married to anyone.
‘So, after that experience you didn’t do serious in relationships,’ Topsy guessed.
‘I didn’t think I was cut out for serious after Emilia and I went for variety rather than quality,’ Dante acknowledged, his face forbidding in its detachment as though he seriously loathed having to tell her such a thing.
‘There’s no shame in avoiding what doesn’t suit you,’ Topsy mumbled abstractedly. ‘We’re all different—we’re not meant to be the same. I’ve never done serious with anyone.’
Dante shot her a literal stabbing glance from glittering green eyes. ‘I thought what we had was serious.’
‘Which just goes to show how mistaken you can be,’ Topsy parried with a strangled little laugh.
‘Stop being so obstinate and listen to me!’ Dante growled at her out of all patience, his eyes flashing with angry hostility. ‘I was paired up with Cosima by her agent! She was not my girlfriend or my mistress or my lover or anything. She was chosen to publicise the ball and persuade other celebrities that the event was fashionable enough for them to attend. We went out to dinner twice and attended a couple of parties to make it appear to the press that we were a couple. It is not an uncommon arrangement when good PR is required...’
Topsy was staring fixedly at him. ‘You mean the hottest society couple in Italy was a fake romance? A show-mance?’ she whispered shakily. ‘Totally fake?’
‘Totally fake,’ Dante confirmed. ‘There was...er...a casual relationship with someone else at the time but that was over before I even met you.’
‘But the way Cosima spoke to you at the ball...about your “agreement”. What was that all about?’ Topsy persisted, frowning, afraid to believe what he was telling her.
‘I explained that I had met someone who would also be at the ball and she threw a fit at the threat of the paparazzi realising that I had lost interest in her and then assuming that she had been dumped. And Cosima naturally doesn’t do dumped as part of her glossy image. She refused to come to the ball until I promised that I would maintain the act of being with her all evening and have nothing to do with any other woman,’ he explained heavily. ‘If I had had any idea how much grief that promise would cause me, I would never have agreed. But, at least, she turned up and gave the fund the publicity we needed for it.’
‘But you must have fancied her,’ Topsy breathed before she could think better of it. ‘I mean, come on, Dante. Cosima’s gorgeous and she’s got a title like you, and even I have to admit that you look very well together.’
‘No, I didn’t fancy her in the slightest and she was very irritating company, talks about nothing but fashion and cosmetics,’ Dante complained sardonically. ‘At one point she called me a dinosaur for not being a fan of guy-liner.’
Topsy was surprised to find herself on the brink of laughing at the thought of that conversation. ‘Let’s face it, you are kind of conservative.’
‘Please tell me you don’t want me to wear guy-liner,’ Dante urged, almost making that pent-up laughter bubble over inside her. ‘I will do almost anything to get you back but I won’t use make-up.’
‘You don’t need guy-liner. You’ve got great eyelashes,’ she told him comfortingly.
Her brain had, however, leapt into a frantic whirl of excited and not particularly logical thoughts. He wanted her back. She wanted him back. For the first time that week the sick, tight feeling of isolation and loss had eased its stranglehold. He said he was serious about her. Could she believe that? Take the risk that he might respond to her feelings for him and give him another chance? But even through the chaos of her over-excited thoughts, there was one question she still had to ask and it was an obvious one.
‘So, why didn’t you tell me about your arrangement with Cosima before the ball?’ Topsy asked doggedly, and as his gaze cloaked she immediately saw that it was a question he had hoped she wouldn’t ask him.
‘I hadn’t quite worked out where you and I were going and making a big explanation about Cosima struck me as unnecessarily dramatic,’ he advanced with visible reluctance.
‘Unnecessarily dramatic?’ Topsy yelled, jumping upright, a flush of frustrated fury colouring her heart-shaped face. ‘How on earth could it be unnecessarily dramatic to explain about Cosima when you were sleeping in my bed with me every night?’
Dante shifted his feet restively, turned away, turned agitatedly back. ‘I felt that it would be like making a big statement about our relationship and I was already uneasy about the way I was behaving with you.’
‘A big statement,’ Topsy repeated, unimpressed by that excuse. ‘Why...uneasy?’
A deeply pained expression crossed his face. ‘Do we have to discuss this now?’
‘Yes, we do.’ Topsy was sticking to her guns, recognising that she was in a much stronger position than she had appreciated.
‘Even that I got involved with you in the first place was unusual for me. You were living in my home and I have never before developed an uncontrollable desire to ravish one of the staff. That felt weird,’ Dante recounted flatly. ‘And then I was staying with you every night, all night and that felt even weirder because I never hang around after sex.’
‘My goodness, I was getting a treat and I didn’t even know it!’ Topsy fired back with spirit. ‘What was so weird about being attracted to me?’
‘I thought you weren’t my type but you’re so much my type it’s ridiculous,’ Dante confessed and, without warning, suddenly stalked forward to reach for her hands with both of his. ‘Please tell me that you’re willing to move to Italy and live with me for ever, gioia mia.’
Topsy’s eyes opened very wide indeed, her astonishment at that rapid turnaround unconcealed. ‘That’s a bit of a tall order, Dante. For ever?’ she questioned weakly.
‘Nothing less than for ever will do and I’ve
‘Permission for what?’ she echoed.
And Dante got down on one knee in front of her, altogether depriving her of breath and voice, and extended a glittering diamond ring. ‘Will you marry me?’
Topsy was so shattered by the marriage proposal that she crumpled back down on the edge of the sofa again. ‘You’re not serious...you can’t be?’
‘Why can’t I be?’ Dante demanded almost aggressively.
‘You said you didn’t do serious... I mean, you were really clear about that.’
‘And then I met you...’ A hand braced on her denim-clad thigh like a brand. ‘And I fell insanely in love with you so fast I didn’t know what was happening to me.’
‘But you thought all those bad things about me...that I was chasing Vittore, that I was a regular escort girl.’
‘And then you seduced me at the picnic,’ Dante slotted in, green eyes glowing with sudden amusement.
‘I seduced you?’ Topsy gasped.
‘You knew I couldn’t keep my hands off you. Letting me take you somewhere that private wasn’t a wise move,’ Dante reasoned, quietly lifting her left hand and threading the diamond ring onto her engagement finger with a level of satisfaction he couldn’t hide.
‘But I didn’t say yes yet!’ Topsy protested. ‘I may be in love with you but it’s too soon to talk about marriage.’
His hands curved to her cheeks and he leant forward to extract a hungry, demanding kiss that sent the blood crashing through her veins like a tidal wave as her pulses speeded up.
‘You can stay the night,’ she told him on the back of an ecstatic sigh.
‘Not without a yes to the proposal. You get me back in bed only with a wedding ring,’ Dante informed her combatively.
‘You’re the same man who just told me that marriage made you feel suffocated and trapped.’
‘I’m not the same person I was a decade ago. You’re not the needy, clingy type either. I can see you working away at a whiteboard in maths research and forgetting I even exist for hours at a stretch!’ Dante confessed ruefully.
Topsy knew her own flaws. ‘That is a possibility and you’re right, I’m not clingy, but I still think it’s too soon to be talking about marriage.’
‘Without you in my life, I’ll get stuffy and ruthless.’
‘You’re already ruthless and more stubborn than any man should be. You almost lost me because you wouldn’t admit what you were feeling for me,’ Topsy pointed out while she tangled her fingers lazily in his black hair in a caressing move that might have warned him that losing her was becoming increasingly unlikely.
‘I love you,’ Dante confided with breathtaking sincerity. ‘And it makes me feel insecure. I won’t be happy until you tell me that you’ll marry me and stay with me for ever.’
Her amber eyes danced. ‘The more you talk, the more I’m warming up to the prospect.’
‘Do you want to stay here tonight or go back to my hotel with me?’ Dante’s hands were sliding up and down her slim thighs, rousing tingling heat in dangerous places.
‘I think I might ravish you in the car if we leave,’ Topsy admitted shakily.
‘How do I match up to your list of required male characteristics?’ Dante prompted, gathering her up into his arms with great care and tenderness.
‘The truth? You don’t match at all but you have other more important attributes,’ Topsy whispered, smoothing a possessive hand over a high cheekbone that shifted down into a strong jawline. ‘You love me. I love you, Dante Leonetti. Now let’s go and find a guestroom for two.’
‘And you’ll marry me?’ Dante pressed stubbornly.
‘Well, I’m certainly not letting you go,’ Topsy laughed, admiring the glitter of her ring in the lamplight.
‘I couldn’t bear to let you go,’ he groaned, tightening his arms appreciatively round her. ‘I love you so much I want you on a for ever and ever lease, amata mia.’
Topsy gave him a sunny smile, happiness darting and dancing through her like sunlight in the wake of a long winter. ‘Oh, I think that can be arranged at no extra cost,’ she teased.
EPILOGUE
TOPSY RACED OUT of the research department of the University of Florence, frantically checking her watch. She was late, she was always late, and sometimes it drove Dante, who was punctual to a fault, crazy.
Her husband awaited her in the car park, tall, dark and so breathtakingly handsome that not a female head in his vicinity failed to turn and look in his direction while his entire attention remained pinned to his windblown wife, half in and half out of her coat. He was lounging with folded arms and an air of long-suffering fortitude against the bonnet of his pristine Pagani Zonda.
‘Do you know how fine you’re cutting this, Dr Leonetti?’ he demanded ruefully, beautiful green eyes tracking over her brightly smiling face with a love he couldn’t and never tried to hide.
‘I just got tied up with something.’
Dante opened the door for her and she slid in, smoothing her tunic top over the very small bump beneath.
‘It’s very important that you don’t miss any appointments,’ Dante told her anxiously. ‘I want you to have the best possible care and attention.’
‘Shut up,’ his wife told him, lurching awkwardly into his lap before he could start the engine and kissing him breathless. ‘I’m as healthy as a horse and I come from good breeding stock as well. How many nephews and nieces do I have?’
Dante, who had loosened up in his habits since Topsy came into his life, wrapped both arms around her and sighed into her tumbled dark hair. ‘I know, but I can’t take your casual attitude and I couldn’t stand anything to happen to you.’
‘It’s you things are going to happen to!’ Topsy warned him cheerfully. ‘You’re going to have me and a mini-me to torment you. Life as you know it has ended.’
‘Life as I knew it ended the day I met you, amata mia,’ Dante retorted with a wide smile of satisfaction, settling her back into the passenger seat and doing up her belt for her. ‘Have you ever heard me complain?’
And Topsy had to admit, she had not heard him utter a single complaint in the three years since she had come to live in Italy. She had insisted on a long engagement and, regardless of Dante’s eagerness to get to the altar, it was a year before the wedding actually took place. Topsy had wanted both of them to be absolutely certain of what they were doing because she really did want their marriage to last for ever and ever.
Deciding to try for a baby had been a big decision and she had waited until she was twenty-six to do so, confident that she would be a more caring parent than her mother had been and convinced that Dante would make a terrific father. It had been something of a shock when she fell pregnant the first month but she was truly excited about her baby.
She had had no difficulty finding a research job at the university and was currently up for an award following the publication of her most recent maths paper. Her career took up a good deal of her time and she was frequently invited abroad to speak and share her research, as well as continually fending off head-hunters desperate to employ her in more profit-inspired fields. Dante had not been able to tolerate living away from her during the week to be at the bank headquarters in Milan. Nowadays, although he made regular business trips, he mostly worked from home.
The fancy-dress ball that had caused so much trouble between them was now a more positive memory for them both for the little girl suffering from leukaemia had travelled to the USA for highly specialised treatment and was now in recovery with every hope of maintaining her improved health.
On a less important note, Topsy still couldn’t drive, had decided she didn’t like driving and flatly refused to get behind a steering wheel with Dante beside her but it wasn’t really a big problem when Dante had hired a local driver to motor her around instead.
Vittore and Sofia and little Agnese, their daughter, who was now a cherubic toddler, had moved into their new home, Casa di Fortuna. Family contact was frequent and informal and everything that Topsy had learned to enjoy with her sister and their families. Kat had given birth safely to her much-longed-for little daughter. Topsy’s relationship with her father was open and affectionate and more than she had ever hoped to have with a parent. Dante had learned to recognise Vittore’s deep love for his mother and the awkwardness between the two men had slowly melted away.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, nothing had changed about Topsy’s relationship with her mother. Odette had been tried in court and had got off the charges through lack of acceptable proof, but the older woman’s jubilation had not lasted long when she realised that all her regular clients had deserted her because they had feared exposure after her arrest. In the end, Odette had closed down the escort agency and retired to the South of France to live on the pension she received from her sons-in-law. Neither Topsy nor any of her sisters had heard from Odette since she had relocated abroad two years earlier and, as the older woman had not written the tell-all book she had threatened to write, her daughters were inclined to think that silence from their mother was a blessing.
‘There...we just made it,’ Dante pronounced with a touch of superiority as he shot the car into a parking spot beside the obstetrician’s consulting rooms.
‘I knew we would,’ Topsy teased, tenderly stroking the back of a lean brown hand where it still rested on the steering wheel. ‘You would hate to miss a scan of our daughter.’
Dante tucked a straying strand of dark hair gently back behind her ear, his reflective green gaze resting warmly on her animated face. ‘I never knew I could be so happy...and just to think there’s going to be two of you. I can’t believe my luck, amata mia.’
Topsy gave him a knowing look that engulfed him in love. ‘I believe we make our own luck.’
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Whisper of Disgrace by Sharon Kendrick
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