He’d put his head close to hers so that his breath whispered against her face. His eyes glinted. He wasn’t reconciled to her, but her nearness affected him, as his did her. The others at the table had drawn away, smiling at these two lost in their own world.
Guido took her hand in his and looked down at it, while she felt him tremble and sensed the indecision that wracked him. Her heart ached. In a few hours she would have lost him forever unless she could find a way past the barrier he’d put up against her. And something told her that she was no nearer to her goal. He was having a moment of weakness, but he was a stronger and more stubborn man than she would ever have believed.
More of a challenge, she thought, as the gambler’s instinct flared in her. But when he was gone from her life, the desolation would be the greater. She wouldn’t think of that now. There was everything to play for.
Gathering all her courage she leaned forward and laid her mouth on his, feeling his shock, and his fleeting determination to resist her. Another moment and she knew that the gamble had paid off. His mind was telling him to draw back, but he couldn’t do it. She’d taken him by surprise and won the first trick.
‘Stop this,’ he murmured against her lips.
‘You stop it,’ she told him. ‘Tell me you don’t love me.’
‘I don’t-’
‘Liar,’ she said silencing him.
After a long, intense moment she drew back a little, but not far because his hand was behind her head. His eyes, close to hers, were burning with resentment at how easily she could play on him, but still he held her face close to his. Far off she could hear applause as the family enjoyed what was happening. But the two at the end of the table weren’t lovers as everyone thought. There was a deadly duel going on, with no quarter asked or given.
‘Don’t do this, Dulcie.’
‘I will. I don’t think you’ll push me away in front of everyone.’
‘Don’t gamble on that.’
‘You forget I come from gambling stock. I know more about odds than you do.’
‘The odds are all in my favour. You can’t win.’
‘If you love me one tenth as much as you said you did, I can’t lose.’
‘I don’t love you.’
‘I say you do,’ she countered.
‘Is this how it has to be with you? Complete surrender? But you’ve already had that once. Remember that morning I came to the Vittorio and said you were my life, begged you to forgive me for concealing my identity? And all the time you knew the truth, yet you let me burble on.’
‘Because I loved what you were saying,’ she said passionately. ‘Because I loved
‘Sure, it meant you’d done your job well. What satisfaction it must have given you to have me at your feet! Be satisfied with that, without trying to get me there again. Leave your victim a little dignity.’
‘The hell with dignity. Look how I’m risking mine. What am I supposed to do after tomorrow night, Guido? Walk off into the sunset and spend my life in memories of a man too stupid and stubborn to see when a woman’s in love with him? I told you once before, I’m not like that.’
‘What are you like? How am I ever supposed to know?’
‘Why don’t you find out?’
‘And be made a fool of again?’
The words were barely out when his lips were on hers. He wanted to quarrel with her and he wanted to make love to her, and he didn’t know which one he wanted more. Then she would show him, she thought, moving in a little closer, and sensing her victory.
For a moment she thought he would fight her, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He was shaking as he slipped an arm about her shoulders, drawing her close, increasing the pressure of his mouth on hers, kissing the breath out of her. He was furious and bitter and it was all there in the way his lips moved over hers. Yet she sensed that he wasn’t only angry with her, but also with himself for being unable to resist her.
Cries of appreciation went up around them but neither heard. Dulcie’s heart was beating strongly, with love tinged with victory. He was still hers whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Her phone rang.
She said a very unladylike word.
Guido drew back as if shot, breathing hard and looking at her with burning eyes. Dulcie switched the phone off without answering but it was too late, the moment was gone.
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Guido said. ‘Your employer will be angry.’
‘To blazes with my employer. After tomorrow I’ll enjoy never seeing him again.’
‘Don’t be hard on him. He did me a favour.’
Dulcie was shaking with suppressed passion and frustration at how everything had been snatched away at the last moment. Tears filled her eyes but she forced them back, determined to show no sign of weakness in front of him.
‘I’d better be going,’ she said.
She went round the family, saying her goodbyes and promising Fede that she would tell Jenny how much he loved her. Maria escorted her to the door, and there, to her surprise, she found Guido.
‘I’ll come part of the way with you,’ he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE half expected Guido to make an excuse to leave her as soon as they were out of the door, but he walked along with her for a while. He’d recovered himself now, and was on his guard.
‘That was a terrible thing to say,’ Dulcie said at last. ‘That Roscoe did you a favour.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’
‘Much I care about that!’ she cried. ‘That’s not what this is about! We could still have it all.’
‘If only that was possible!’ he said at last. ‘You know how much you tempt me. But it’s no use.’
‘Why are you so determined to hold out against me?’ she asked passionately.
‘Yes, I’m making a fuss about nothing, aren’t I? Why should a man care if he meets his ideal and she turns out to be deceiving him for money?’
‘Ideal?’ she whispered, not certain that she’d heard right.
‘It’s a laugh, isn’t it? I thought I was so street smart. Alive to every trick. Boy, was I kidding myself!’
‘And that’s why you hate me?’
‘I don’t hate you. Hating is a waste of time. It’s just that you don’t look the same any more, and I wish you did. The trouble with Fool’s Paradise is that it’s so beautiful, especially after you’ve been shut out. You long to find a way back in, to convince yourself that you don’t know what you
‘To me too,’ she said wistfully. ‘Is there really no way back?’
‘Do you think I wouldn’t have found it by now?’
‘It could all have been so different, if we’d met another way.’
‘The truth is,’ he said wryly, ‘that you have the soul of a Venetian. Tricky as they come. All the time we’ve known each other you’ve been wearing a mask.’
‘Not all the time,’ she urged. ‘Only at the beginning.’
‘All the time,’ he repeated. ‘When you seemed to be removing the mask you were merely changing to another. Why, you have a whole armoury of them. And who should understand that better than me?’
‘I’m not the only one. You could have told me who you were from the beginning.’
‘And I should have done, but I was looking at you, falling in love with you on the spot. What did names matter? I thought you were the most dazzling girl I’d ever seen and nothing else registered. Then it was too late. Besides, I
