The Italian Next Door...

by Anna Cleary

‘You don’t believe her?’

  ‘I think she was being—polite. I wouldn’t dare to judge anyone’s work sight unseen.’ She smiled at him and linked hands.

  ‘Still, she seems—very knowledgeable,’ he persisted. ‘She seemed to know a lot about your needs as an artist.’

  Pia shrugged. ‘But are all artists the same? I know I’m not the same as Lauren, regardless of what Lola says. In no way the same. We don’t want the same things.’

  He stopped and faced her. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Well, Valentino.’ She smiled. ‘You.’

  She reached and put her arms around his neck. He gazed quizzically at her for a moment, searching her eyes, then he pulled her hard against him and kissed her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DARKNESS fell on Capri. The day trippers had gone home, and Pia wished she and Valentino had gone with them. She felt a terrible yearning ache for Positano, but, after her insistence on coming, she should at least have the decency to stay the night.

  There was a lull before dinner when people were resting in their rooms, no doubt changing into exotic designer gowns. Valentino said he was going for a prowl around the gardens. ‘Keep the door locked,’ he instructed.

  Pia luxuriated in the decadent sunken bath for an hour or so, though she didn’t open the blind that hung over it. Admitting her small problem with heights was beginning to feel like half the solution.

  As usual, she spent most of the time puzzling about Valentino. He was clearly avoiding all mention of the future, so she could only assume he was being careful of her feelings. It would happen suddenly, she guessed, with no warning. He’d be with her one day, then announce his departure and be gone in an hour the next. At least she hoped he’d say goodbye.

  Would they write to each other across the world for a while? She wasn’t such a romantic as to nourish any illusions about the longevity of that. Relationships rarely survived such a distance.

  Even if they stayed together by some miraculous change in Valentino and the world order, if he needed to travel all the time how would it work? She wasn’t the travelling kind like Lauren. In fact, she was beginning to suspect she was the type who needed to put down roots. Choose a spot, stay in it, and learn all the wondrous treasures it contained, like Enzio and his beloved Positano. Although, if it was the only choice offered, wouldn’t she follow her lover to the ends of the earth?

  She would. Of course, she would. She allowed herself to dream of it for a little while, then mentally slapped herself. Such dreams brought on heartache, and this wasn’t the place to dream anyway. There could be a rattlesnake in her bed and she needed to keep her wits about her.

  Dinner was slated for eight. Valentino returned from his reconaissance mission and while he showered Pia dried her hair, smudged on a dramatic quantity of eyeshadow and mascara, and darkened her eyebrows.

  It was her first opportunity to wear heels since the night of the fireworks, and she slid into them with girlish pleasure. The tan she’d developed in recent days helped.

  Her new dress had fine straps and was ruched at the breasts, falling to a hanky hem that floated about her knees. It was in sea shades of sky, turquoise and aqua, her best colours, with a silvery sparkle here and there. She had no priceless bling, just a fine white-gold chain, but she wasn’t displeased with the overall effect.

  Valentino emerged from the bathroom in the towelling robe, freshly shaven and smelling deliciously masculine. When he caught sight of her he paused, his eyes riveting to her with a hot wolfish gleam that was supremely satisfying.

  How she loved to be appreciated. No other man had ever looked at her like that.

  ‘You’re bella,’ he said thickly, surging across the room to manhandle her in the most pleasant and exhilarating way. ‘I could eat you alive. Why don’t we stay in our room? We can order room service.’

  After she’d fought him off so she could retouch her hair, she watched in the mirror with half an eye while he donned his black evening suit. He looked so lean and straight and honourable and stunning he wrung her heart.

  Oh, Goddess and all the Muses. Don’t let him leave me yet. Just a little longer.

  * * *

  At the appointed hour, with Valentino beside her, Pia followed the music down a flight of stairs and joined the assembled guests in a beautiful room with arched windows overlooking the harbour. A long rectory type table was set brilliantly with flowers, crystal and silver on starched white linen.

  ‘Bellini, signore? Signorina?’

  A waiter presented each of them with a flute of prosecco flavoured with a little peach juice.

  ‘Grazie.’

  It was delicious, neither too sweet nor too tart.

  When it was time to be seated, Giancarlo took the head of the table, Lola the foot. Their hostess sparkled.

  The diners attacked their food with gusto. Course after course of heavenly Neapolitan cuisine was washed down sophisticated gullets by rivers of the most divine wine, and the hum of conversation rose to a roar. Pia tried valiantly to keep her end up with the people in their section, but she found them heavy going. Even Valentino seemed much more concerned with listening to other people’s conversations than hers.

  After the fifth or sixth course he excused himself and explained to Pia he was returning to the room to make a call. Various people were coming and going, changing places to talk to friends, standing on the terrace to smoke, so the length of Valentino’s absence wasn’t remarkable, but Pia noticed.

  She tried texting him surreptitiously, but there was no reply.

  She waited ages, beaming and nodding at strangers until her cheeks ached. When would they bring on the dancing girls? When Valentino didn’t appear in time for platters of the most superb selection of cheese and fruit, she excused herself and sashayed up the stairs and through the labyrinth of corridors to the room.

  He wasn’t there.

  So where the hell was he?

  Beginning to feel aggrieved, Pia took the stairs down to the next level, then realised she must have come down a different set of stairs. The villa was hardly a hotel, but with eighteen en-suite bedrooms, the possibilities of being lost weren’t small.

  After a frustrating number of twists and turns, the corridors narrowed and she started to feel disoriented.

  She could hear kitchen sounds, and realised she must have wandered into the bowels of the villa. She was about to turn and go back when she spotted, along to her right, what appeared to be the business section.

  It seemed a likely place for Valentino. Hurrying, she walked past a study, which appeared to be in darkness apart from a slice of light reflected from the corridor. Across the way was a suite of offices. A handy bathroom caught her gaze, and she took the opportunity to avail herself of the facilities.

  She was just emerging when something flashed in the corner of her eye and she spun about. She froze.

  A huge man was standing with his back to her, typing into the computer in the dark study. He was all in black, from head to toe. She wouldn’t necessarily have been so concerned about him if he hadn’t been wearing a ski mask.

  Fear crushed her lungs in a vice. She stood motionless, unable to breathe. The fear inhabited her entire being, rendered her legs useless and shut down her brain, until from out of nowhere a wild wave of seething hot anger roared through her like adrenaline.

  Galvanised, she tiptoed towards him, intending to slam the study door and lock him in. But as she advanced something must have alerted him, because he started to turn around. Quick as blinking, she dashed forward, snatched up a small bust of Tiberius from a plinth in the hall, and whacked him over the head with it.

  He must have sensed the blow coming, because he held up his arm and deflected it a little. Even so, he went down like a log.

  Darting back, she slammed the door shut. There was no key, so she just stood there holding the door handle with both hands, panting and triumphant, congratulating herself on her victory, gloating on a cloud of exuberant li
beration.

  She, Pia Renfern—Pia Renfern!—had downed a man in a ski mask.

  After a minute she noticed no sound issuing from the study, and it occurred to her to wonder how hard she’d hit him. The Emperor Tiberius had a pretty hard head and had caused the demise of more than one miscreant in his time.

  That reflection filled her with horror. What if she’d killed him?

  She put her ear to the door, but couldn’t hear a sound except her own thundering heart. After a tense moment, she relaxed her grip on the handle and stood back. When nothing happened she turned the door knob carefully, waited, then pushed the door a little ajar. There was no sound or movement.

  She pushed the door wide, then jumped back.

  The body had disappeared.

  She let out a partial scream and nearly died when she was grabbed from behind and a firm hand covered her mouth.

  ‘Shh. Don’t make a sound. It’s me. It’s only me, tesoro. Valentino.’

  Her knees went to water.

  He closed the study door and locked it from the inside, then switched on a desk lamp and supported her limp progress to an elegant chaise longue along one wall. He was obliged

  to push aside a pile of newspapers and package wrapping to make room for her.

  She started to wail. ‘What are you up to? Take that thing off your head. You scared the living daylights out of me. You frightened me so much…’

  He dragged off his balaclava. ‘Sacramento, that thing’s hot.’ He dropped it on the desk, then dropped down beside her and put his arm around her. ‘I know, I know. You weren’t supposed to see me in it. I’m desolated to have scared you, tesoro, truly I am. But why didn’t you stay in the dining room? I told you where I was going.’

  ‘But you didn’t go there, did you?’ she screeched. ‘You came here.’ She knew she was stating the obvious, but why couldn’t the man make sense?

  ‘Shh, keep your voice down.’ He frowned and groaned. ‘Oh, Sacramento, why did you have to hit me so hard? Were you trying to kill me? I have a bump on my head as big as a soccer ball. Just as well I was wearing that mask or I’d be—kaput.’

  ‘You deserved it, scaring me like that.’ She reached up to smooth down his hair but he winced at her light touch. She pulled her hand back.

  ‘Shh,’ he murmured. ‘I told you. Keep your voice down. Giancarlo might come back at any minute. Or any of the staff.’

  ‘What are you even doing here? I can’t believe this. I thought you were a burglar. I know you loathe these people but you promised you’d behave. Pia, you said, I’ll never embarrass you. You know you said that.’

  ‘Pia. Pia, tesoro, shh, shh, calm down now. It’s all right.’

  ‘Is it? Is it, Valentino?’

  She might have clipped her consonants a little. And the glare she gave him was chilly. But her provocation was strong, even if he did keep touching a spot on his head as if it was causing him pain.

  ‘Look,’ she snapped, ‘I’ve been waiting for you for hours at that deadly dinner party. Would you care to explain what you’re doing breaking into someone’s private study dressed as a burglar? Otherwise I might be forced against my will and my—my personal inclinations to call the police.’

  A piercing gleam lit his eyes. ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘I think I would. Yes. I’d certainly consider it.’

  He smiled to himself. ‘My kind of woman.’

  She gave him a shove that didn’t even make a dent. ‘This is no joke, Valentino. I’m deadly serious.’

  ‘I know. And I’m sorry. I’ll explain later.’ He kissed her cheek, then rose swiftly and went back to the computer.

  She knew he was too caught up in his nefarious downloading to pay any attention, but she was so wound up, she couldn’t stop talking, twisting her hands, babbling on like the Brisbane River in flood.

  ‘I don’t think you can have any idea what it means to me to see a man in a ski mask.’

  He glanced up at her, his gaze sharpening. ‘Cosa?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this. I probably need my head tested. You…of all people… A carabiniere who’s been in the navy chasing pirates and smugglers. Anyway, it sounds minuscule when compared to what you went through with your ex-wife. I honestly don’t know how anyone could survive something like that. You must be made of pure steel. You’ll probably think I’m as weak as water if I—I tell you…’

  Her chin started to wobble. Dismay and concern registered on his lean face as emotion took hold and her tears started to fall like rain. He abandoned the computer and surged across to hold her, making little soothing noises in Italian as he had the morning she’d nearly drowned.

  He gave her a handful of tissues from Giancarlo’s desk and she blew her nose and managed to drag herself together.

  Even for him his eyes were curiously bright. ‘Tell me. When you’re ready. I want to know everything.’

  ‘You see, a few months ago something happened to me that was really—quite scary.’ She attempted a smile. ‘I walked into the bank one morning, just an ordinary, everyday morning like any other, and these two guys came in behind me. One grabbed me and stuck a gun to my head and threatened to blow my brains out if they didn’t hand over money, while the other one ran around terrorising the staff.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Oh, no, tesoro.’ But he didn’t make light of it, he continued to gaze down at her, his face grim, his intent dark eyes aglitter. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, unbeknown to us all, as soon as they walked in one of the tellers had bravely…so, so bravely…stood on the alarm button, and in no time the police came roaring up from all directions, sirens blazing. They—the robbers—lost their nerve. The guy holding me threw me on the floor, then they both ran out the back and tried to squeeze themselves through the washroom window. Police were swarming all over the place by then and caught them without much trouble. Everyone shouting…screaming…’

  She shuddered, remembering, and he held her tightly against his chest and kissed her hair and stroked her. She could hear his big strong heart beating. Surfacing again after a while, she gave him a watery smile. ‘You know, when that first police siren sounded, there was a moment when I believed the guy would do it. I actually felt him tense to pull the trigger. I don’t know what changed his mind, we’ll never know that, but thank God something did.’ She dashed some tears away with the back of her hand. ‘Anyway, I think that was when it happened.’

  He gazed at her, frowning, ‘Cosa? What else happened?’

  ‘Oh, well…’

  Could she admit her weakness to him? He looked so intensely concerned, his acute dark gaze so grim, yet tender and encouraging. He’d told her all his stuff. For goodness’ sake, maybe he of all people could understand hers.

  Her throat swelled and predictably the monsoon started again, like the certified waterworks she was. ‘Don’t laugh, but I—sort of lost my nerve. After that day I was scared of everything, even going outside the apartment. For a while I was a—a mess.’ She attempted another watery grin. ‘You’d never believe it to look at me now, would you?’

  ‘Never.’ He drew her to him and kissed her face and hair. ‘I can hardly believe you were ever a mess. Not you. Not a free spirit who flies around the world all by herself.’ There was the slightest tremor in his deep, warm voice. He kissed her long and tenderly until she had to come up for air, and somehow they were lying down, crammed together on Giancarlo’s chaise longue amongst all the newspapers and rubbish.

  ‘I’m so glad it was you I told,’ she confided. She could feel the raw energy throbbing in his lean, lithe body like the power source of the cosmos.

  ‘And I’m glad you did, amore mia. You’ll never know how glad, what it means to me.’

  ‘Really?’ There was a certain promising thickness and warmth in his voice that she recognised. However, something was sticking into her hip, and she had to change position to remove it before she could fully reciprocate his affections. ‘Hang on.’

 
She shifted the offending article, noticing it was a crumpled parcel. Its brown-paper wrapping had come unstuck and the bubble wrap and layers of cloth inside were all awry.

  Noticing the inner layer was a canvas, she unrolled it a little in order to rewrap it. Her eye fell on a narrow swathe of painted water. She opened it further. Lotuses floated on a French pond. She stared incredulously.

  ‘Oh, look. Look at this.’

  ‘Che cosa?’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she screeched. ‘I can’t believe this. This looks quite amazingly like that Monet that was stolen from the museum in Cairo.’

  He sat up, his sensational brows bristling, his brilliant dark eyes agleam with curiosity. ‘Give me that.’

  He practically snatched the priceless thing from her. After a long hard look, he shoved it back to where it had been. The next thing he was on his feet, shutting down Giancarlo’s computer. Whipping out his mobile, he dialled, held the phone to his ear, murmured a couple of words, then slipped it into a pocket and grabbed her arm.

  ‘Andiamo,’ he said briskly. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘What?’

  He let out an exasperated breath. ‘Pia, the carabiniere are about to arrive here and I don’t want to stay. Do you want us to be in the newspapers?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to them.’

  ‘But…but what about my things? My gear, my…my painting bag?’

  ‘You can get them all tomorrow. Come on. Pronto now.’

  ‘Tomorrow? How? You don’t think I’m coming back here, do you?’ She said this as he was hustling her onto a window ledge, leaping out himself, then holding out his arms to her.

  ‘Jump, Pia. Pronto.’

  She stared down. They were at the side of the house, not the cliff side, thank the Lord, in fact only a few feet from the ground, eight or ten perhaps as the crow flew, but it was an abyss.

  ‘Pia,’ he said firmly. ‘Jump.’

  Heaven knows how, but she did it. Straight into his arms, and for the second time that night flattened him to the ground.

  ‘Woof,’ he sort of said as the wind was knocked out of him. After a few seconds she scrambled off him, and he heaved himself up, panting. Then he made her run. An alarm started to blast from somewhere inside the house, and there was a worse sound.