Vettori's Damsel in Distress (Harlequin Romance Large Print)

by Liz Fielding

  He stood on the steps of the Ministry, breathing in the icy air as he pulled on his gloves, wrapped Angelica’s scarf around his neck.

  He’d spent four days chasing his tail in Rome, waiting for people to see him and getting nowhere. No surprise there. He’d known how it would be and yet he’d come anyway.

  Wasting his time.

  Running away from what had to be done. Running away from his feelings for Angelica Amery.

  * * *

  On Thursday evening, Geli settled down with her headphones on, working on her Italian while she added a few more inches to the scarf.

  Listen then repeat...

  Buongiorno. Desidera?

  ‘Buongiorno. Desidera?’

  Buongiorna. Mi dà uno shampoo per capelli normali per piacere.

  ‘Buongiorna. Mi dà uno shampoo per capelli normali per piacere.’

  Si, ecco. Abbiamo questo...

  Geli heard another sound over the lesson and lifted one ear of the headphones. Someone was at the door. She checked her watch. They’d be clearing up downstairs and this would be Matteo bringing her some little ‘leftover’ treat.

  She switched off her iPod, stuck her needles in the wool and went to open the door and the smile of welcome froze on her face.

  It was the same every time—no, not the same; this time it was worse. Or did she mean better? The heart kick, putty knees and a whole load of X-rated symptoms were getting a lot of practice.

  ‘Dante... You’re back,’ she said stupidly.

  ‘Despite the best efforts of the airline and the weather to keep me in Rome for another night,’ he said. ‘I waylaid Matteo on his way up here with this,’ he went on, indicating the small tray he was holding. Not coming in, despite the fact that she’d stood back to give him room. ‘Is there something I should know?’

  ‘Know?’ For a moment she didn’t understand what he meant. Then the penny dropped. Did he think that she and Matteo...? Shocked that he could believe her so fickle—and just a bit thrilled—make that a whole lot thrilled—that he actually cared—she managed a puzzled frown. ‘Didn’t you ask him to come up and check that I was okay every night before he went home? Bring me up a little treat? What is it?’ she asked, reaching for the cover. ‘Chef was making cheesecake—’

  ‘No,’ he said, moving it out of her reach.

  She looked up. ‘It’s not cheesecake?’

  ‘It’s chocolate truffle tart. And no, I did not ask him to come up here bothering you.’

  He did! He thought that she was encouraging Matteo and he was not amused. Considering that he’d made it plain more than once that he wasn’t interested—okay, they both knew that he was interested, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t do anything about it—his attitude was a bit rich, but it still gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling that wasn’t helping the knee problem one bit.

  ‘He wasn’t bothering me,’ she said, leaving him standing on the doorstep. ‘On the contrary,’ she called back as she headed for the kitchen, leaving him to follow in his own good time. ‘I’m assuming there’s enough of that tart for two?’

  She took a couple of cake forks from the cutlery drawer then, as she heard the tray hit the kitchen table, she stretched up to take two plates from the rack. Before she could reach them, Dante caught her wrist and turned her to face him.

  ‘Was it Matteo pulling the wool?’

  She didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about, but met his gaze head-on. ‘You didn’t have to fly back from Rome to ask me that,’ she pointed out, quite rationally, she thought, considering that she was backed against the work surface, that the front of his overcoat was pressed very firmly against her sweater. That his breath was warm against her cheek. That his hand had slid from her wrist and his fingers and hers were somehow entangled... ‘You could have just sent a text.’

  His fingers tightened over hers. ‘What would you have replied?’ he demanded, his eyes darkened with an intensity that might have scared her if it hadn’t been making her heart sing. He cared...

  ‘I’d have replied that Matteo brings me cake every evening as an excuse to play with the kittens.’

  ‘The kittens?’ he repeated, confused. ‘Why would anyone even notice the kittens when you’re here?’

  She leaned into him to hide a smile too wide to fit through a barn door.

  ‘He’s besotted with them.’

  ‘The man’s a fool.’

  ‘No... He’s going to take one, maybe even two of them, when they’re old enough to leave their mother.’

  ‘Not the black one.’ His face softened as he looked down at her. And this time there was no doubt about his meaning. ‘Not Mole.’

  ‘Molly. She’s a girl.’ Her legs were trembling. ‘I told you, Dante. She’s all yours.’ And then, because she had to say something to break the tension, ‘Do you like chocolate tart?’

  ‘I like this.’ He took the forks from her, placed them on the work surface behind her, took her face between his hands, brushed his lips over hers. ‘I’ve been thinking about this.’

  ‘This’ was a kiss, angled perfectly to capture her mouth. Tender, thoughtful, tasting lips, tongue, nothing hurried or snatched, he bombarded her senses with a flood of heat until, like the city bells on Sunday morning, they were clamouring for attention. Screaming, Nooooo...as he drew back a little to look at her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you, Angelica Amery, and all the good things I’m going to do with you.’

  Okay, enough with the talking—

  She reached for the buttons of his overcoat but he put his hand over hers, stopping her, and she looked up. ‘You have too many clothes on.’

  ‘Not for where we’re going.’

  What? ‘I don’t—’

  ‘This is date night,’ he said. ‘I’ve called for you at your door and I’m going to take you stargazing. We’ll also eat, talk and, at some point during the evening, I’ll undoubtedly hold your hand.’

  ‘Just my hand?’

  ‘It’s our first date. Your rules.’

  ‘No. I was just—’

  He touched his finger to her lips to stop her saying that she was just... Actually, she didn’t know what she was ‘just’ doing. Mouthing off that all men saw when they looked at her was an opportunity for sex? A bit hypocritical when the whole idea of old-fashioned commitment terrified the wits out of her.

  His hand moved to her cheek. ‘It’s not just about sex, Angel.’

  She swallowed. ‘It’s not?’

  He could read her mind now? She’d thought she had a problem when she’d discovered that her apartment didn’t exist, that her money was gone, but this was trouble on a whole new level.

  This wasn’t about mere stuff. This was about taking the biggest risk imaginable.

  ‘No.’ His hand cradled her cheek, his touch warming her to her toes as he looked straight into her eyes. ‘I’ve learned that the hard way. There has to be more if a partnership is going to clear the hurdles that life throws in your way. Survive the knocks.’

  ‘That’s a heck of a lot to put on a first date, Dante.’

  ‘I know, but if you don’t start out with the highest expectations it’s always going to be a compromise. Are you okay with that?’

  Was she? He’d been totally honest with her from the beginning and she’d tried to be the same. She hadn’t been coy, hadn’t tried to hide the way she felt whenever she was within touching distance of him. But this was exposing the soft nerve tissue, the stuff that hurt when you poked it.

  ‘You want the truth?’

  ‘Parla come magni, cara. Speak as you eat. I have always told you the truth,’ he reminded her.

  ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Even when it hurt.’

  ‘Even when it hurt,’ he agreed, easing back a fraction, as if preparing for bad news, and the bad news was that she wanted to grab him, hold him close.

  ‘The truth is that it scares the pants off me. The metaphorical pants,’ she added quickly, trying to keep this light.r />
  He didn’t smile. ‘Do you want to tell me why?’

  ‘I’ve spent my entire life losing people. My father, half of everything I am, was gone before the stick turned blue—unknown, unknowable. No name, no picture, just an empty space.’

  ‘Your mother didn’t tell you anything about him?’

  She shook her head. ‘And when she was there it didn’t matter. She filled our lives, Dante, and I never thought about it, about him, but when she died—’

  He put his arms around her, drew her close. ‘You realised you would never know. That you’d lost not just one but both your parents.’

  ‘Then along came Martin Crayshaw—obviously not his real name—and for a while he was everything a storybook father should be until, having stripped us clean, stolen our lives, he disappeared without so much as goodbye.’

  ‘Did the police ever catch up with him?’

  ‘My grandmother was in a state of nervous collapse and Elle, my oldest sister, was only just eighteen. She was afraid that if the authorities discovered what had happened Sorrel and I would be taken into care.’

  ‘She didn’t report it?’ She shook her head. ‘How is your grandmother now? You are very close, I think.’

  ‘Better. Much better. Great-Uncle Basil’s arrival has given her something I never could. He takes wonderful care of her now. They are the dearest of friends.’

  ‘And your sisters fell in love, got married, have families of their own.’

  ‘I’m happy for them. They married wonderful men and I love my nieces and nephews to bits, but it’s as if I’ve been left behind.’

  ‘No, Angel. They haven’t left you behind; they’ve simply moved on to the next stage in their lives.’ His lips brushed her hair. ‘Relationships change. When my mother made a new life for herself, started a new family, I was so angry...’

  ‘Angry?’ she repeated, surprised. ‘I can’t imagine that.’

  ‘One of the things I put on that list you said I should make was to call her.’

  She leaned back a little so that she could see his face. ‘Did you?’

  ‘We had a long talk. Cleared away a lot of the dead wood. I’ve been doing a lot of that.’

  ‘So that there’s room for fresh new growth.’

  ‘I knew you’d understand.’ He caught her hair between his fingers and pushed it back so that she couldn’t hide behind it. ‘I told her all about you and your lists. About that moment when I first saw you, the front of your coat plastered with snow and looking exactly like the princess in a fairy tale book she used to read to me when I was little. About Rattino’s unscheduled appearance. That made her laugh. She wished she’d been there to see it.’

  ‘Hmm, I suspect it’s one of those experiences that improves with the rose-tinted spectacles of time.’

  ‘The sort of thing you tell your grandchildren when they ask how you met.’

  Grandchildren? This was their first date...

  ‘And I told her that you were knitting me a scarf to replace the one she sent me at Christmas because it was ruined when we rescued Ratty’s mother.’

  ‘Your mother gave you that scarf?’

  ‘Yes...’ She saw the moment when he realised what she’d actually thought. ‘Did you imagine that I would wear something that Valentina had given me?’

  ‘I... It was a beautiful scarf,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Now I feel really bad. Maybe I could have rescued it if I’d tried harder, but I have to confess that I really enjoyed putting it in the rubbish.’

  He roared with laughter. ‘My mother said that you sounded like a keeper.’

  ‘She doesn’t know me, Dante. You barely know me.’

  ‘It’s been a steep learning curve,’ he admitted, ‘but so far I like everything I’ve seen.’

  ‘Ditto,’ she said, pleased, awkward. ‘I’m glad you talked to her.’

  ‘I have you to thank for that,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you something—the hardest part was picking up the phone.’

  ‘Are you saying that I need to pick up the metaphorical phone?’

  ‘It’s just a date, Angel.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, it’s not,’ she said. They both knew it was a lot more than that. ‘We’re both trailing baggage. We should both probably start with something less intense.’

  ‘I’m doing my best here.’

  ‘It’s not working but, given the choice between staying here and knitting a scarf or having you hold my hand while we look at the stars—’

  ‘The stars have it?’

  She shook her head. ‘You had me at holding hands. The stars are a bonus.’

  ‘In that case, I think we’d better get out of here before my good intentions hit the skids. You need to go and wrap up in something warm. I’ll go and put Matteo out of his misery and tell him that he’s got overtime babysitting the kittens.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Love is an ice cream sundae with all the marvellous toppings. Sex is the cherry on top.’

  —from Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream

  THEY WERE BOTH unusually quiet as Dante drove out of the city. He was, presumably, concentrating on the traffic—driving in Italy was not to be taken lightly—while she was absorbed in the change in their relationship. Wondering what had happened in Rome...

  Then Geli, sneaking a glance at his profile, lit only by the glow from the dashboard, discovered that Dante was doing the same and practically melted in her seat.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He returned his full attention to the road. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No. The only thing that matters is that I’m going there with you.’

  And in the darkness he reached across and took her hand, holding it lightly until he slowed to turn off the highway and they began to climb into the mountains.

  After a while, the lights of a village appeared above them but, before they reached it, he turned off and pulled onto an area that had been levelled as a viewing point.

  ‘Wait...’ Dante came round, opened the door and helped her from the car, keeping her arm in his as they walked to the barrier and looked out over the valley.

  There was no moon, but the Milky Way, so thick that it was hard to make out individual stars, silvered the flat dark surface of a lake far below them.

  ‘What lake is that?’ she asked. ‘I know Como is the nearest but there don’t seem to be enough lights.’

  ‘No, that’s Largo D’Idro.’ He glanced at her. ‘It’s the highest of the lakes but very small. There are no tourist boats doing the rounds of celebrity villas because there are no celebrities. It’s popular for water sports.’

  ‘But not in this weather. There’s snow right down to the shore. I thought the lakes had a famously mild climate?’

  ‘Nowhere is mild in February,’ he assured her, ‘and the lakes have been known to freeze over in severe winters.’

  ‘They don’t tell you that in the tourist brochures.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because we like to keep it to ourselves. There’s something rather magical about sitting in a steaming hot tub when the air temperature is below freezing.’

  She gave him a thoughtful look. ‘Is that what you have in mind?’

  ‘On our first proper date?’ He took her hand and held it. ‘You will be escorted to your front door and maybe, if I’m lucky, you’ll have enjoyed yourself enough to risk a second one.’

  Geli thought that she was more than ready for an improper date; that hot tub sounded like a lot of fun. But she had complained that men never asked women out on dates any more and, while she wasn’t totally convinced that he was going to kiss her on the cheek and say goodnight at the door, she would go along with it.

  ‘In that case, if we’re going to act like kids, it’s time to make snow angels.’ She looked around, caught his hand and, tugging him after her, headed towards a gently sloping area of untouched snow. ‘The stars will look even better if we’re lying down.’

>   She flung herself down into the snow, laughing as she swept her arms and legs wide to make an angel while Dante looked on.

  ‘If you don’t get down here and join in I’m going to feel stupid,’ she warned. ‘You are also blocking out the stars.’

  ‘I just love watching you.’

  Geli stilled.

  ‘What happened to you in Rome, Dante?’

  ‘Nothing happened. Everything happened. For months my head has been filled with the past, the mess we all made of it. While I was in Rome all I thought about was you. How much I enjoyed getting your emails and texts. How much I wished you were there with me.’

  ‘And yet you’re standing up there and I’m down here.’ She held out her hand. ‘I promise you, this is a lot more fun if you join in.’

  He took it and then lay beside her in the snow. About to tell him that the magic only happened when you made your angel, she pressed her lips together. He had missed her. Now they were lying together in the snow, looking up at the stars and Dante Vettori was holding her hand. That was all the magic she could handle right now.

  ‘Do you know the constellations?’ she asked.

  ‘Some of them...’

  They lay there in the snow pointing out the stars they recognised until the cold drove them in search of warmth, food and they drove up to the ski resort where, in a restaurant lively with an après ski crowd, they shared an antipasti of grilled vegetables and a risotto alla pescatora, rich with prawns, squid and clams.

  As they finished their meal with ice cream and espresso, Geli said, ‘No meat and nothing to drink. I’m a tough date.’

  ‘I don’t drink and drive, I didn’t have to have the grilled vegetables and I would have chosen the risotto even if I’d been on my own. Are you free tomorrow?’

  ‘The dating rules say that I shouldn’t be that easy,’ she said. ‘I’m going to sound desperately sad and needy if I say yes.’

  ‘I’m doing the asking so that makes two of us, but this isn’t something we can do next week. I have an invitation from one of the big fashion houses to their pre Fashion Week party. It’s tomorrow,’ he said, ‘or you’re going to have to wait until the autumn and hope I’m still on their party list.’