by Liz Fielding
He didn’t look convinced. ‘When did you last have something to eat?’
‘I don’t know. I had a sandwich at the airport when they announced that my flight had been delayed.’
‘Nothing since then?’ He looked horrified. ‘No wonder you’re trembling. Sit down while the pasta cooks.’ He tested it. ‘Another minute or two. It’s nothing fancy—pasta al funghi. Pasta with mushroom sauce,’ he added in case her Italian wasn’t up to it.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it’s wonderful but, honestly, I couldn’t eat a thing.’ He didn’t argue but reached for a couple of dishes. ‘The apartment looked so perfect and the rent was so reasonable...’ Stupid, stupid, stupid! ‘I assumed it was because it was the middle of winter, off-season, but it was a trap for the gullible. No, make that the cheap.’ She’d had it hammered into her by Elle that if something looked too good... But she’d been enchanted.
‘Did you give them details of your bank account?’ Dante asked.
‘What? No... At least... I set up a direct debit for the rent...’ As she realised what he was getting at, she blinked, looked down at her phone and then swiftly keyed in her password.
As she saw the balance she felt the blood leave her head.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘When things are bad, send ice cream. With hot fudge sauce, sprinkles and mini-marshmallows.’
—from Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream
‘MADONNA...’
Dante caught her before she hit the floor and carried her through to the living room. He placed her gently on the sofa, her head flat and her feet propped up on the arm, and knelt beside her until she opened her eyes.
For a moment they were blank as she tried to work out what had happened, where she was.
‘Angelica...’ She blinked, focused, saw him, tried to sit up but he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lie still for a moment. Breathe...’
He’d thought she was pale before but now she was white, emphasising the size of those extraordinary silver fox eyes, the splendour of her luscious crimson mouth.
‘What happened?’
‘You fainted.’
She groaned. ‘How unutterably pathetic.’
‘The combination of shock and a lack of food,’ he suggested. Then, as she made an effort to sit up, ‘No. Stay there. I’ll get you some water.’
‘Dante—’ For a moment she challenged him, but then sank back against the cushion. ‘Why do you call me Angelica?’
‘Geli is not a name for a grown woman.’
‘Oh...’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘Right.’
Once he was sure that she was going to stay put, he fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. Angelica had dropped her phone and, as he bent to pick it up, he saw why she’d fainted. The con artists had cleaned her out.
He half expected her to be sitting up, fretting when he returned but she was exactly where he’d left her, flat on her back but with one arm thrown across her eyes. The gesture had pulled up her dress, exposing even more of her thighs, and it was a toss-up whether he gave her the water or threw it over himself.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘take a sip of this.’
She removed her arm, turned her head to look up at him. ‘Your first aid skills are being thoroughly tested this evening.’
‘I may have been a bit slow on the kissing-it-better cure,’ he assured her, ‘but I remembered the head down, feet up recovery position for a faint.’
‘Gold star. I said so...’ She made a move to sit up and take the glass.
‘Don’t sit up too quickly,’ he said, slipping his arm beneath her shoulders to support her while he held it to her lips.
‘Sì, dottore...’ She managed a smile which, under the circumstances, was pretty brave but drew unnecessary attention to her mouth. The temptation to see just how much kissing it would take to make this better was almost irresistible. So much for his declaration to Lisa about not taking advantage...
Putting the glass down on the end table, he moved to the safety of her feet.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked when he slid a hand beneath her ankle and reached for the zip of her boot.
‘Taking off your boots. Didn’t they teach you that at your very comprehensive first aid course?’
‘Absolutely. It came right after kissing it better, but I thought you were absent that day.’
‘It’s just common sense. Everyone feels better with their boots off.’
‘That’s true,’ she said, stretching her foot and wiggling her long toes. Apparently there was no ‘safe end’ when it came to Angelica Amery, and he quickly dispensed with the second boot and took a step away.
‘Okay. You can sit up when you feel up to it,’ he said, ‘but slowly. Take your time.’
She eased herself up into the corner of the sofa, smoothing her skirt down and tucking her feet beneath her. ‘What happened to my phone, Dante? I have to call the bank.’
He took it from his pocket and handed it to her.
‘You saw?’ she asked.
‘When I picked it up. Will they refund you?’
She sighed. ‘Not the first month’s rent and deposit, that’s for sure. I created the direct debit so that was a legitimate withdrawal as far as they’re concerned. The rest would appear to be straightforward fraud so I should get that back. Eventually.’ She found the number in her contact list and hit call. ‘After they’ve done everything in their power to imply that it’s my fault.’ She looked up at him. ‘Dante...’
‘Angelica?’
‘Thank you. For catching me.’
‘Any time.’
The jet brooch at her throat moved as she swallowed down her emotions. ‘You rate a gold star while I’m a triple chocolate idiot. With fudge topping. And sprinkles.’
‘You won’t be the only one who’s been caught.’
‘That doesn’t make me feel any less stupid.’ She shook her head then winced, clearly wishing she hadn’t, and he had a hand out to comfort her before he could stop himself. Fortunately, she was listening to the prompts and didn’t see. ‘I should have run some checks, but we’d found a short-term tenant for the house and it was all a bit of a rush.’
‘You’ve let your home in England?’
‘Yes.’ So, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t run for home... ‘My sisters moved out when they married so it was just me, Grandma and Great-Uncle Basil. Grandma’s arthritis was playing up and Basil wanted to take her somewhere warm for the winter so we decided to let the house to finance it—’
‘And you were in a rush to escape from the horror of all that pink and white ice cream.’
‘I shouldn’t mock it.’ She managed a somewhat watery smile. ‘Ice cream has been very good to my family and, let’s face it, art and fashion have never been safe career choices.’
‘We do what we have to.’
‘Yes...’
Leaving her to speak to the bank, he returned to the kitchen. She might think she had no appetite, but if it was put in front of her it was possible that she would be tempted.
When he returned, with a tray containing two bowls of pasta al funghi, a couple of forks and some napkins, she was staring into the fire.
‘Sorted?’ he asked, and she surprised him with a grin. ‘What?’
‘“Sorted...” You sound so Italian and yet you use English as if it was your first language. It sounds odd.’
‘Not that odd. My mother is English.’
‘That has to help,’ she said.
‘That and the fact that when she left my father she took me with her to England and refused to speak another word of Italian for as long as she lives.’
‘Tough on you.’
He shrugged but there was nothing like a reminder of that first endless cold, wet English summer hearing, speaking only an alien language, to dampen his libido.
Her eyes softened. ‘How old were you?’
He handed her a fork, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘Twelve, just coming up to my thi
rteenth birthday.’
‘A bad age.’
‘Is there a good one?’
She shook her head. ‘I guess not, but it was tough enough to be faced with your parents splitting up without losing your home, your language.’
‘My mother was angry, hurt...’ He shrugged. ‘She’d discovered that my father had been having an affair with the woman she thought was her best friend. She offered me the choice to go with her or to stay in Italy.’
‘And you chose her.’
‘She needed me more than he did.’ He passed her a bowl of pasta. ‘Eat...’
She looked at the dish she was holding as if unsure how it had got there but, as he’d hoped, she was too well-mannered not to eat food put in front of her. ‘It smells very good,’ she said politely and took a mouthful.
‘Life is short,’ he said as he settled at the far end of the sofa. ‘Eat pasta every day.’
‘I have to admit that on a cold, snowy Milan night it’s the perfect comfort food.’ Her brave attempt at a smile lit up her eyes, fringed with thick lashes and set in a soft smudge of charcoal. It went straight to his groin and he propped his foot on one knee in an attempt to keep that fact to himself. The kiss had been a mistake. Kissing anyone was a mistake... ‘Of course, come spring I might be persuaded to make you a Bellini sorbet and then it would be a close run thing,’ she added.
‘A Bellini sorbet?’ he repeated, mentally grabbing onto the thought of something ice-cold slipping down his throat.
‘Fresh peach juice, Prosecco... The real thing, sparkling on the tongue, but frozen.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, I see. You thought my sisters use mass-produced vegetable fat goo for their events business.’
He shrugged. ‘The British are not famous for their ice cream.’
‘Unlike Italians?’
‘I believe you mentioned an ice cream van? If it’s one of those stop-me-and-buy-one vans it won’t be loaded up with Bellini sorbet.’
‘True, but Rosie is a bit special. She goes to children’s parties, hen nights, weddings...any fun bash that ice cream is going to enhance.’
‘Is there a demand for that?’
‘Huge. Of course, the fact that she makes the occasional appearance in a popular television soap opera means that we could book her three times over. We...they...my sisters...also make bespoke ices for weddings, corporate events and the like—that’s the Bellini sorbet market—and now Sorrel, she’s the sister with the business brain, is franchising a chain of retro American-style ice cream parlours.’
‘And you design the interiors?’
With luck, talking would keep her mind off the non-existent flat until she’d finished the pasta. He prompted her to talk about how the business had evolved, looked at the photographs on her phone of the ice cream parlours she’d designed. She was very talented...
‘So, you’re a designer, an ice cream maker and you rescue kittens in your spare time?’ he asked.
‘Rescue is a two-way thing, Dante. People think that cats are selfish, but I’ve seen them respond to need in their owners and in other animals.’
As she looked up at him from under those heavy lashes he found himself wondering who, in the kitten scenario, was rescuing whom. He sensed something deeper than a desire to paint, design, experience Italy behind her ‘escape’, but they were already way too deep into personal territory; he had no wish to hear more.
Maybe she sensed it too because she took another mouthful of the pasta. ‘This is really good.’
‘Wait until you try chef’s Risotto alla Milanese. Arborio rice from the Po Valley, butter, dry white wine, saffron and Parmigiano-Reggiano.’ Food was always a safe topic. ‘I’m sorry you missed it but, with the weather closing in, Lisa sent everyone home.’
‘Now that is really impressive.’
‘Sending staff home early on a bad night?’
She shook her head, then said, ‘Well, yes, but I was referring to your ability to name the ingredients in the risotto recipe.’
He shrugged. ‘Nonnina used to make it for me,’ he said.
‘Nonnina? That’s your grandmother, right?’
‘Actually, she’s Lisa’s grandmother, my great-aunt, but everyone calls her Nonnina,’ he said. ‘Café Rosa was her bar until she finally surrendered to pressure from her son to retire and join him and his family in Australia. She used to let me help in the kitchen when I was a boy.’
She smiled. ‘That’s a sweet picture, but I think you were wise not to step into her shoes and take over the cooking.’
‘Oh? And why is that?’
‘You forgot the chicken stock.’
‘Did I?’ He sensed a subtext, something he was missing. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It does if you’re the chicken.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘you find them wandering, lost or abandoned, and put them in your pocket—no, in the basket of your bicycle. Do you put them in the bath, too?’
She grinned. ‘I wouldn’t advise you to try that with a chicken. They can’t fly, but they do a very energetic flap and a panicky bird in a confined space is going to make a heck of a mess.’
‘You are a fount of wisdom on the animal welfare front. So, what do you do with them?’ he asked. ‘Should the occasion ever arise.’
‘I take injured birds to the local animal sanctuary, to be cared for until they can be released or found a good home.’
‘Not to the vet?’
She tilted her head in an awkward little movement. ‘I found a pheasant once. It had been winged by a shotgun and had taken cover in our hedge. I picked it up and carried it across the village to the vet, expecting him to take care of it. He didn’t even bother to look at it, just wrung its neck, handed it back to me and told me to make sure my mother hung it for a few days before she cooked it.’
‘Perdio! How old were you?’
‘Nine.’ She sketched a shrug. ‘Grandma and I gave the poor thing a very elaborate funeral and buried it in the garden.’
‘I hope your grandmother tore a strip off the vet.’
‘No. She told me that he was an old school farm vet who thought he was giving a useful life lesson to a girl who lived in the country. No sentiment there.’ She stirred the pasta with her fork. ‘At least he was honest. He could have sent me on my way, promising to take care of the bird, and then eaten it himself.’
With his head now filled with the picture of a motherless little girl clutching a dead pheasant, he really wished he hadn’t asked. And then her comment about the chicken stock registered. ‘Are you a vegetarian, Angelica?’
‘I don’t eat meat,’ she said.
‘Is there a difference?’
‘I don’t wear fur, but I wear leather and wool and use it in my clothes. I don’t eat meat, but I eat fish and cheese and eggs and I pour milk over my cereals.’ She circled her fork over the dish she was holding to prove her point. ‘I am fully aware of the hypocrisy.’
‘I think you’re being a little hard on yourself,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you say something earlier? When I ordered the risotto for you?’
‘I was about to when events overtook us and actually this is perfect. One of my favourites,’ she said, making an effort to eat a little more. ‘Is it a problem for you?’
‘Of course not; why would it be? It’s just I’m surprised, that’s all.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Surprised? Why?’
‘You are aware that you dress like a vampire?’
‘Oh that,’ she said, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile. ‘That’s what Sean called me, the first time he set eyes on me. A skinny vampire.’
Sean? Who was Sean? Don’t ask... ‘That must have been some time ago,’ he said.
‘I was sixteen. I’ve put on a bit of weight since then,’ she said, looking down at the soft curves of her breasts and then up at him and caught him doing the same.
For a moment nothing seemed to move and in his head, above the drumming of his heartbeat, he could hear Li
sa asking how long it had been since he’d been laid.
Until tonight he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t cared, but then Angelica Amery had walked into his bar and it was as if she’d hit the start button on the part of him that, for self-protection, he’d switched off months ago. The part that could rage, react, feel. The moment he’d turned, seen her sparkling with snow, he’d known that all he had to do was put out his hand, touch her, and the life would come flooding back. And, like blood returning to a numb limb, the pain would follow.
He’d spent the last months concentrating on work, using it to create an impermeable membrane between his public life—devoting himself to this community, his community—and the vacuum within.
In a vacuum no one could hear you scream...
‘Who’s Sean?’ he asked. She frowned at his abruptness. ‘You said Sean called you a skinny vampire.’
‘Oh, right. He’s my brother-in-law,’ she said. ‘He and Elle have three little girls.’ Her smile was something else, lighting up her face, making him want to smile right back. ‘As for the vampire thing, it’s just a look, Dante. I don’t bite. Well, not often.’ She scooped up another forkful of pasta. ‘Just a little nip here, a little nip there but, unlike the kitten, I make it a rule to never draw blood.’
‘A pity. I suspect that having you kiss it better would be an unforgettable experience.’ Then, before she could speak, ‘I’m sorry, that was—’
‘No. I’m the one who has to apologise.’ The pasta never made it to her mouth. ‘I don’t normally fling myself at total strangers.’ She gave up pretending to eat and put down her fork. ‘What am I saying? I never fling myself at total strangers. It must have been the shock—’
‘Don’t!’ Without thinking, he’d reached out and put his hand over hers to stop her and the pulse in the tip of his thumb began to pick up speed, thrum in his ears. His brain did a desperate drive-by of all the meaningless phrases one used to cover awkward moments. None fitted. ‘Don’t apologise.’ He didn’t want her to apologise for kissing him so he said the only thing in his head—the truth. ‘It’s quite the best thing that’s happened to me in a while.’
And that rushing in his ears had to be the sound of life pouring through the gaping hole she’d punched through his impermeable membrane.