Wedding in Venice

But she settled it back into place, reminding herself that she didn't believe in eternal love. She couldn't afford to believe in it.

They had coffee in the garden overlooking the Grand Canal, with a clear view of the floodlit Rialto Bridge. Justine fixed her eyes on it, concentrating on the beauty so that she didn't have to think too closely about what she had just done.

What had possessed her to suggest the Busoni? Who said that Riccardo would be making the hotel's deliveries anyway? And what did she care whether he did or not?

'He's here,' Guido said, jumping up and heading toward the building, from which a figure was just emerging.

'Riccardo!' Guido yelled.

'Justine,' Dulcie said excitedly, 'isn't that the same man who -?'

'Yes,' Justine murmured. 'It is.'

The light and shadow contrasts of the moonlit garden emphasized everything about him that had made an impact on her. He was just as she remembered, but more so.

'Justine,' Guido said eagerly, 'do you remember this guy from the journey yesterday?'

'Oh, we've met since then,' she said, extending her hand to Riccardo. 'I fell into his barge this morning, and I can promise you, his cabbages are the best.'

'I'm saving money on staff by doing some of the donkey work myself,' Riccardo said.

He was talking to Guido but his eyes were on Justine, and his hand held on to hers longer than necessary.

'I would have told you the truth this morning,' he said, 'but you ran away without giving me the chance.'

'Plus you enjoyed having a joke at my expense.'

'Well – yes,' he admitted.

'To think I was worried about getting you in trouble with your boss!'

'I did tell you that I could handle anything he threw at me,' he reminded her.

'Hmm, so you did!'

He grinned.

'You don't trust me?'

'Where would you get an idea like that?' she asked ironically.

'From your voice, your eyes, your face. It's an interesting question for the two of us to explore. Unfortunately, it must wait until my work is finished.'

It was reasonable for him to put work first, but his lordly assumption that she would wait like a doll on a shelf riled her.

'That's sounds fascinating,' she said, 'but it's been a long day. I'm sure everyone will forgive me if I go to bed.'

Riccardo's eyes gleamed, acknowledging a round to her.

'You are wrong,' he murmured. 'I will not forgive you. But I can bide my time.'

Chapter Six

Justine slipped away alone the next morning. This was a working trip, and as well as photographing the wedding, she wanted to explore Venice.

She called Dulcie to say she wouldn't be home for lunch.

'I'm in St. Mark's Square. I'll get something to eat here.'

'You should go to Florian's,' Dulcie told her. 'It's a genuine eighteenth-century cafe, and Casanova used to go there because it was the only one in Venice where women were allowed.'

Justine found Florian's and sat in the window drinking a sinfully delicious concoction of coffee, chocolate and cream, and listening to the four-piece orchestra playing just outside. The surroundings were still as they must have been two hundred years ago.

If she closed her eyes she could see Casanova, a tall, elegant man in powdered wig and knee breeches. In her vivid imagination, he paused a moment, smiling before he spoke.

'Can we talk for more than two minutes this time?'

His voice was familiar. Justine opened her eyes to find 'Casanova' pulling up a chair beside her – in the form of Riccardo.

No wig or knee breeches. Just black jeans and a black shirt that showed tanned, muscular arms. In these sedate surroundings, his look of having just stepped off the brig of a pirate ship made him riotously out of place.

He hailed a waiter and ordered something for himself and a repeat of her order.

'You shouldn't have done that,' she said urgently. 'I swore I'd only allow myself one.'

'I think you can afford the calories,' he said with an admiring look at her tiny waist and long legs.

She was used to that kind of look, but this was different, as though he had taken in everything about her in one instant. She hoped she didn't look self-conscious.

'I'm sorry about my little deception,' he said.

She gave a rueful smile.

'You don't expect to find a hotel owner collecting his own vegetables. And you were so convincing as a bargee. You swung me up onto the bank as if I weighed nothing.'

He laughed and flexed his biceps theatrically. 'No problem. I developed these tossing sacks of potatoes around.'

She joined in his laughter, but regarded him wryly.

'I see. Women, potatoes – it's all one, huh?'

His eyes gleamed with pure mischief. 'Oh, no! Not at all. Between a sack of potatoes and a woman – well, one is a lot more fun than the other.'

She felt a sudden flicker of self-consciousness, and was annoyed at herself. For Pete's sake, she was a woman of the world, not a blushing violet! She'd known where this might lead as soon as their eyes met on the lagoon the first day.

But the word 'fun,' signposting the way ahead, had almost caught her unaware.

Yes, he would be fun, she thought, considering him. The whipcord strength of that easy, loose-limbed body, the sensual light in his eyes, his air of devilment.

Fun. But also a great deal more.

'It's early days for the hotel,' he said, apparently not seeing her turmoil, or choosing not to see it. 'I turn my hand to most things. Tomorrow night I shall be serving food at the Calvani party.'

He watched as she sipped the sweet drink he had ordered for her.

'You never really answered my question yesterday,' he said. 'How long do you mean to stay in Venice?'

'You practically answered it yourself.'

'Yes, I told you that you should stay forever. I'm afraid I tend to arrange people's lives for them, like a dictator. But only the ones I like.'

'I don't know how long I'll be here,' she said, not answering this directly.

'Is there nobody waiting for you at home who will object if you stay away too long?'

'No,' she said wryly. 'There is nobody who will object if I stay away too long.'

'There ought to be. Please excuse me – I told you I was a dictator. To me it is so clear that you are a woman who should not live alone -'

'But perhaps it's my choice, and then you really are being a dictator.'

'Is it your choice?'

'I'm divorced,' she said abruptly.

'Your wish or his?'

'He slept with someone else. I threw him out. End of story.'

'Had he been faithless before?'

'If he had, I'd have thrown him out before.'