On the last night there was the unavoidable supper with the Angolinis, suffering under the broad hints of Mamma and Poppa and the impatient touchiness of Giorgio.
‘I’m sorry,’ Helen said in the cab on the way home. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
‘Don’t worry. Families are a fact of life. But the least you can do is buy me a drink.’
‘Anything,’ she said. ‘I think you’re a positive saint.’
Elroys had its own nightclub, and a reputation for its music. Tonight there was a traditional jazz band, and they arrived to find the place loud and merry. They found a table in a corner, but it was too noisy to talk, so they took the floor and danced energetically for half an hour.
‘I needed that,’ Lorenzo said when they sat down. He fanned himself, breathing hard, and she did the same. The blood was still pounding through her veins in a wild, stomping rhythm, and she felt good.
The lights were low, and in the pink and blue shadows she could just make out his face, and the gleam in his eyes. She looked at him, storing up memories for the weeks alone. The last three days had tired her in every way. Three days of denying what they’d discovered at the airport, of pretending it wasn’t true, of looking to the future with sad eyes.
He was regarding her wistfully and she knew his thoughts were the same, although she tried not to know it.
‘I’m leaving early tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll be gone before you reach work.’
‘I know. So we’ll say goodbye now.’
‘Yes…’ A surge of longing had taken possession of her, making her heart ache. When he seized her hand and pressed it urgently against his lips she felt her control slipping. It was easy in the darkness to lean close to him so that when he raised his head his lips brushed hers, almost by accident.
‘Elena…’ he whispered, using the name he never used.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered urgently.
‘But you know…’
‘Yes, I do. But there are some things it’s best not to know. If we forget that-we could lose everything.’
‘Or gain everything?’ he asked softly.
She shook her head, and he sighed.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I just thought I’d ask my friend’s advice.’
‘Your friend,’ she managed to say, ‘doesn’t want anything to spoil your friendship, the most precious she’s ever known.’
If only he hadn’t kissed her that first night. She felt she might just about cope without the memory of his lips scorching hers in a way no other man’s had ever done. But her body had reacted instinctively, yearning towards him, wanting more, wanting
‘I think it’s time to say goodbye,’ she said in a strained voice. ‘You have to be up early. I don’t want you to miss your plane because of me.’ She barely knew what she was saying.
‘I guess you’re right,’ he said reluctantly. He knew why she was running away.
They took the elevator up from the club to the hotel entrance. There was nobody else in it, and as soon as the doors closed he took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips.
‘I can’t do that in the lobby,’ he said. ‘And I’ve wanted to kiss you so badly. We don’t have to say goodbye-not just this minute-’
She tried to answer but he was occupying her lips again with a kiss that tantalised her with thoughts of what might be. They were friends, she thought wildly, just friends. But desire was flowing through her, making a mockery of friendship. She wanted him to touch her everywhere, and to touch him everywhere. The craving for that was so urgent that she could almost feel his hands caressing her intimately, seeking her response. The sensation almost broke her control, and she clung to him, praying for common sense.
But common sense retreated in the face of her need to be naked with him, and to let him see her own nakedness. She knew she was beautiful, and what use was beauty unless the man you wanted could see it, and revel in it? In another moment…
They stopped. The doors opened. People were waiting to get in. They pulled apart hastily and hurried out. The moment was gone.
In the brilliant light of the reception area they parted.
‘Goodbye, Signor Martelli,’ she said, politely offering him her hand.
‘Goodbye, Miss Angolini. I’ve really appreciated your help.’
‘Please contact me if you need anything.’
‘I’ll be sure to do so.’
He was gone. She’d looked forward to this trip so much, but after a few packed days he was leaving for weeks, with perhaps the hope of another few days at the end of it. Then he would be gone again. For good.
She’d done the right thing. There was no doubt of it. When Lorenzo returned to Sicily there was no way she could go with him. Even if he’d asked her. Which he hadn’t.
So she could congratulate herself on the wisdom that had saved her from making a dreadful mistake.
But why was it, she wondered forlornly, that the right thing felt so terribly, terribly wrong?
CHAPTER SIX
THERE was a queue at the desk of the New Orleans Elroy. Helen, shifting from one foot to the other, fanned herself against the heat and looked around the reception area, wondering if she’d been wise to arrive without warning.
She’d endured six weeks without Lorenzo, her loneliness broken only by his lively emails and a call when he could tear himself away from business. Again she was seeing the hard-working man who lived beneath the merry surface. She admired him for that, except when he had to hang up on her because a customer was trying to get through.
As he crossed the country she thought of him in city after city. When he reached Los Angeles she pictured him on the beach, his broad shoulders and handsome face drawing admiring female glances. There must have been plenty of those wherever he went, and the fact that he never mentioned women was somehow ominous. The truth was clear. He was enjoying a frenzied orgy of decadence, and the sooner she found out the sooner she could recover her sense of proportion about him.
That was how she was explaining things to herself these days.
Now here she was in New Orleans. The idea had been taking up space in her mind for some days, and yesterday she had abruptly told Erik she needed some leave, and caught the first flight out. And as the queue shuffled forward she desperately wished she hadn’t.
Then she saw Lorenzo.
The reality was so much like her imaginings that she briefly thought she was still dreaming. He was emerging from the interior of the hotel, his skin more tanned than ever, his look of vivid masculinity sharply emphasised.
With him was a young girl, of about eighteen. She was blazingly beautiful in a brash, flaunting manner. Her lush red hair hung to her waist, her hips wiggled, her young breasts were high and perky. Helen, who had slept on the plane in sensible travelling clothes, felt crumpled, rumpled and a hundred years old.
They looked as though they had come from the hotel pool. Lorenzo wore trunks and a short-sleeved shirt, open to the waist. The girl was dressed-sort of-in a wraparound garment transparent enough to reveal the mini bikini beneath. And she was clinging onto to Lorenzo’s arm as though planning to claim it as a souvenir.
Helen looked around wildly for somewhere to hide. He mustn’t know that she’d turned up and discovered the truth like this. She couldn’t bear him to know that she’d been such a fool. But he was so close now that any movement would attract his attention.
A middle-aged couple, immediately behind Lorenzo, were talking to him.
‘Hey, Lorenzo,’ yelled the man, ‘we old folk are going to put our feet up. Why don’t you and Calypso take that
