‘I suppose dogs have different personalities, like people. Wicksy got lucky, but it hasn’t worked out so well with Jacko. How does he come to terms with his loss if nobody can explain it to him?’
Celia turned her head towards him, frowning at something she’d heard in his voice.
‘What did you mean by that?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘Nothing special.’
‘Yes, you did. Tell me. Francesco, please, it’s important. Tell me what you meant.’
‘I’m not sure that I know. Just that it’s something I seem to sense in my bones: being safe, and then not being safe and not understanding-’
‘Tell me,’ she said again, urgently.
‘I can’t. I don’t know the words.’
Even as he spoke he felt the mood drain away from him, leaving him empty inside.
‘I only meant-about Jacko,’ he said heavily.
‘Yes, of course.’ Celia dropped to her knees and fondled Jacko, kissing and caressing his ears. ‘Poor old boy,’ she crooned. ‘It’s hard for you, isn’t it?’
The animal responded by gazing up at her from gentle, yearning eyes. Francesco watched her hands moving over him, offering comfort, and suddenly he was back in another time.
The details were vague, but he recalled that he’d missed a contract he’d badly wanted and come home in a foul mood. She’d come up behind him as he’d sat glowering into a whisky, slipped her arms about him from behind, and dropped a kiss on top of his head.
‘Don’t let it get you down,’ she’d murmured. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’
‘Right now it feels like it,’ he’d growled.
‘Nonsense. Other things matter far more.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like this,’ she’d said, proceeding to demonstrate.
In a few minutes they’d been in bed and the contract had been forgotten.
Now her caresses were wasted on a dog.
‘Is Jacko looking any happier?’ she asked.
‘Yes, he only wanted you to show you love him. You can leave him now. He’s all right.’
To his relief she did so, rising to her feet and turning in his direction. He reached out his hand and took hold of hers gently.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘All evening I couldn’t take my-my eyes off you.’
She smiled and moved closer to him. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘At one time you’d never have said that. You’re learning fast.’
‘You once said I’d never learn.’
‘I underestimated you.’
‘Sure, I’m a quick learner. If you bash me over the head a few times I get the point-even if it’s too late.’
‘Yes,’ she echoed. ‘That can be the worst of all. You look back and think-’
‘If only,’ he murmured.
‘Yes-if only. If only I’d known then what I know now I’d have made better use of it. If only I was wiser and cleverer than I am-’
‘I thought I was the one who wasn’t wise or clever,’ he said wryly.
‘I wasn’t so bright. I could have handled a lot of things better than I did.’
There was a melancholy in her voice that made his heart ache. So much between them. So much anger and misunderstanding, resentment, grief, yet so much warmth, so much joy and love. Where had it gone?
‘Could you have done anything differently?’ he asked. ‘Could I? We are as we are. I think we were made to hurt each other-’
‘And miss each other in the dark,’ she said wistfully.
‘But you’re not afraid of the dark,’ he reminded her.
Celia was standing very close to him, and it was natural to lay his hands on her bare shoulders, so that she turned her head up, almost as if she were looking at him, and spoke softly.
‘No, but there are other things to be afraid of.’
‘Not you,’ he said at once. ‘You were never afraid of anything.’
‘I don’t do so well with people, though, do I?’ she whispered.
‘Some people are beyond help,’ he said heavily.
‘Nobody is beyond help, if only-’
‘Yes?’ he murmured. ‘If only-but it’s a big “if only.”’
‘Francesco-’
She shook her head in a way that was almost helpless. It was so rare for her to be at a loss that it hurt him obscurely. His head seemed to lower itself without his will, until his cheek lay against hers.
He felt her tremble, but she didn’t push him away, and he was emboldened to turn so that his lips brushed her face. She raised her hands and laid them on his shoulders, letting them drift inwards until they touched his neck. He drew back an inch so that he could look down into her face, trying to read her expression.
There was a gentleness in her face that he hadn’t seen since she’d arrived in Naples, but more than that, a sort of wonder, as though she hadn’t believed that this could still happen.
Francesco held his breath while she began to run her fingers over his face, tracing the shape of his jaw, his lean cheeks, the outline of his lips, making it hard for him to keep his rising feelings under control. If he’d dared yield to them he would have seized her up in his arms, kissed her until they were half out of their minds, then carried her to bed. It was what he’d done many times before. But now he forced himself to stay still, waiting to see if she would move so that her lips could meet his, and at last she did.
It was as though time had vanished. The kiss she gave him now was the kiss she had always given him, the one he wanted from her all his life.
He should be strong and resist it, but he had no strength where she was concerned.
Her lips teased his seductively, reminding him of things best forgotten. A man could lose his sanity with a woman like this. But while his mind worked his mouth was caressing hers in return, taking over the kiss, becoming the tender aggressor.
All was well again. They had never been apart, and never would be, because this was the only thing that mattered.
The shrill of the phone startled them. Francesco muttered a curse.
‘I thought you turned it off.’
‘That’s the landline,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I’ll have to answer it.’
She was shaking, but not as much as he was. Through her hands and her whole body she could sense the disturbance that racked him. She didn’t want to answer the phone, but it would just ring until she did.
Francesco pulled away and snatched up the phone, barking, ‘Hallo? No, she can’t come to the phone right now…I don’t care how urgent it is, you’ll have to try later-’
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
‘Sandro. Here!’ He handed her the receiver. ‘Get rid of him.’
His curt command acted like a burst of cold water cascading over her. He was trying to control her again.
‘Sandro? I told you I’d call you back. Can’t it wait?’
‘No, we’re about to lose our best chance of a really big customer,’ came the voice down the phone, naming a man they’d been cultivating for days. ‘He’s about to leave town, but he wants to talk to you before he goes. Please, Celia, we really need this one.’
‘Yes, we do,’ she admitted. ‘All right, I’ll call him at once. I’ve got his number. Good night.’ She hung up.
‘So that’s that?’ Francesco said coldly. ‘He says jump and you do.’
‘I jump when the business needs me,’ she said, equally coldly. ‘Not Sandro.’
‘To hell with business!’
‘There’s a thing I never thought to hear you say.’
‘Couldn’t you have put us first and work second?’
‘I was going to,’ she cried. ‘Can’t you understand that? I was going to put him off, but then you had to charge in like a steamroller, giving your orders, telling me what I could and couldn’t do. Haven’t you learned by now that I
