‘I used to escape at bedtime just like that,’ Dante said, grinning. ‘Some rotten, spoilsport grown-up always grabbed me.’
He seized Matti and hoisted the toddler up in his arms, laughing into his face.
‘Gotcha! No, don’t kick me. I know how you feel, but it’s bedtime.’
‘It was bedtime hours ago,’ Ruggiero said breathlessly, reaching them. ‘Polly looked in on him and he made a run for it.’
‘Parents can be a pain in the neck,’ Dante confided to the tot. ‘But sometimes you have to humour them.’
Reluctantly Matti nodded. Dante grinned and handed the child to his father.
‘You really know how to talk to him,’ Ruggiero said. Then, fearing to be thought sentimental, he added, ‘I guess it’s because you’re just a great kid yourself, eh?’
‘Could be,’ Dante agreed.
Ferne, watching from the shadows, thought that there was more to it than a joke. Dante was part-child, part- clown, part-schemer, and part something else that she was just beginning to discover. Whatever it might turn out to be, he was a man who needed her protection. Somewhere in the last few moments the decision had been made.
‘Now we’re alone again,’ he said, ‘what were you going to say?’
Ferne took a deep breath and faced him with a smile.
‘Just that I really enjoyed working with you. When do we leave?’
That thought pursued Ferne over the next few days.
She’d teased Dante about being a perfect gentleman at all times, and he’d responded with an encouraging dismay. But as time passed she began to realise that he’d taken her seriously and was being, as he’d promised, ‘just friendly’.
He bought a car, a solid, roomy vehicle designed for serious travel, and quite unlike the frivolous choice she might once have expected him to make. They headed south to Calabria, the rugged, mountainous territory at the toe of the Italian peninsular. One of Dante’s techniques was to seek out places that had been on the market for a long time and offer his services.
‘There are three villas there that my research tells me have been for sale too long,’ he said. ‘Let’s try our luck.’
Their luck was in. The owners were getting desperate and were eager for Dante to add their properties to his books. They spent several days working up a sales pitch for each house, complete with glorious pictures. At the end of it, Ferne was exhausted.
‘I seem to spend my life climbing stairs and walking mile-long corridors,’ she complained. ‘If I’d known it was going to be this tiring, I wouldn’t have come.’
Dante himself didn’t seem at all tired, and was clearly in such blazingly good health that she wondered if she was crazy to be watching out for him. He had a fund of funny stories which he directed at her over dinner, reducing her to tears of laughter, after which he would take her hand to lead her upstairs to their separate rooms, kiss her on the cheek and bid her goodnight.
No man could have behaved more perfectly. No man could have been more restrained and polite. No man could have been more infuriating.
For this she’d turned down the chance of a lifetime?
Mick Gregson hadn’t been pleased.
‘What were you thinking of?’ he’d bawled down the phone. ‘This man carries influence in film land. If he’d liked your work, you could have done anything you wanted.’
‘Ferne, I can’t go on representing you if you’re going to act like this.’
‘That’s your decision, Mick, and of course I respect it.’
They had parted bad friends.
Now she was on the road with a man who’d promised ‘just friendly’, and who seemed infuriatingly determined to keep his word.
There was no justice.
But one thing had changed-now she understood the true reason for Dante’s restraint. He wouldn’t make advances to her because his personal code of honour forbade him to ask for love when he might die without warning.
Here was the explanation for the way he slipped quickly in and out of relationships, never getting too close to any woman. It was his way of being considerate.
And he was right, she assured herself. If she wanted more from him, that was her problem.
‘Where do we go next?’ she asked as they turned north again, leaving Calabria behind.
‘A place near Rome that I’ve promised to take a look at. There are some two-thousand-year-old ruins, plus a huge villa that the owner insists on calling a
‘If it’s antique and historical, won’t the atmosphere of romance help to sell it?’
‘An atmosphere of romance is all very well in theory, but people tend to want decent plumbing as well. I know the owner, Gino Tirelli, and he assures me that it’s in a good state of repair-but he might, just possibly, be biased. Luckily I’m not due there until next week, so we can give ourselves a few days by the sea.’
‘That sounds lovely. This heat is really getting to me.’
‘Of course, we could always go sight-seeing in Rome. There are some really interesting historical buildings.’
‘The sea, the sea,’ she begged faintly.
He laughed. ‘The sea it is, then. Let’s go.’
A few hours’ driving brought them to the Lido di Ostia, the beach resort about fifteen miles from Rome. It was a sunny place of level, pale-yellow sands that were adorned not only with umbrellas and loungers but the other trappings of civilization: wine bars and cafes.
Their hotel was close to the sea with a view over the ocean.
‘They’ve got single and double rooms available,’ Dante told her after a talk at the desk. ‘A double room’s cheaper.’ In reply to her raised eyebrows, he said, ‘How long can a man behave perfectly?’
‘I think I can afford a single room.’
‘You don’t give an inch, do you?’
‘You’d better believe it,’ she said, laughing.
Not for the world would she have admitted her relief that his defences were finally crumbling.
The hotel had a shop that sold beach items. She lingered over a bikini that-for a bikini-was relatively modest, and a respectable one-piece. Dante eyed her hopefully as she hovered between them.
‘Why don’t you try it?’ he suggested, indicating the one-piece.
She was slightly surprised that he urged her to try the modest garment rather than the revealing one. Afterwards, she realised that she should have been more suspicious.
In the dressing-room she donned the costume, regarded herself in the mirror and sighed. It was elegant and showed off her figure, but didn’t do her total justice. No one-piece could have done that. But, until she was sure how far along this road she was going to let Dante whirl her, she couldn’t risk being a tease. That wouldn’t be fair to him.
Nor was it fair on her, she realised, trying to calm the pleasure that fizzed through her as she thought of his eyes dwelling on her nearly naked body. It wasn’t the only pleasure she was denying herself right now, and soon she must decide why.
She dressed again and went out, handing the costume to the assistant for wrapping. ‘I’ll take this.’
‘I’ve already paid for it,’ Dante said, whisking it out of her hand and putting it into a bag he was carrying. ‘Now, let’s be off.’
‘I can’t let you pay for my clothes,’ she said as they crossed the road to the beach. ‘It wouldn’t be proper.’
‘If we’re going to have another discussion about propriety, I’d rather do it later over champagne.’
‘Oh, all right.’
The sand was glorious, soft and welcoming. He hired a hut, two loungers and a huge umbrella, then handed her
