'A wedding outfit?'
The dark eyebrows lifted. 'I take it that you didn’t
bring your bridal gown with you when you ran
away?'
Jodie looked away from him. 'No, I didn’t,' she
agreed quietly. Her wedding dress was still hanging
up in the shop where she had bought it, paid for but
never collected.
Lorenzo watched her impassively. 'There are any
number of designer shops in Florence. You are bound
to find something in one of them.'
Designer shops? Finding something would be the
easy bit, Jodie reflected; paying for it at designer shop
prices with her limited budget would be the hard part.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
'What if…? What if I’ve changed my mind?'
'I shan’t let you.'
'But you can’t stop me.'
The way he was looking at her brought it home to
her that she was trapped here in this ancient stronghold,
where no doubt his ancestors had once held their
prisoners captive in the depths of its dank dungeons.
'What is it exactly that you are so afraid of?' he
asked.
'I’m not afraid of anything — or anyone,' Jodie lied.
'So there is no reason why we should not be married,
then, is there? It is an arrangement from which
we both stand to gain something of importance to us.
When is this ex-fiance. of yours to marry?'
'The middle of next month.'
'Bene. We will be married ourselves by then, so
you will have the pleasure of introducing me to him
as your husband. Now, it is late, and tomorrow there
is much to be done.'
'Why Don’t you want to marry Caterina?'
Immediately his face hardened. 'That is no concern
of yours,' he told her dauntingly. 'I shall leave you
now to sleep. With any luck the cramp will not return.'
In other words, mind your own business, Jodie reflected
ruefully as she watched him leave.
CHAPTER SIX
THE sound of her bedroom door opening and the rattle
of crockery brought Jodie out of a complicated dream
in which she had been forced to watch as John walked
down the aisle towards his waiting bride. But when
he reached her it wasn’t John who was marrying
someone else but Lorenzo. Bizarrely, instead of feeling
relieved, she had actually felt searingly jealous.
'Buongiorno,' Maria greeted her cheerfully as she
put down the tray she was carrying and then walked
over to the windows to draw back the heavy curtains.
Sunshine immediately flooded the room, followed by
deliciously soft warm air as Maria opened the windows
to reveal a small balcony.
The smell of fresh coffee and the sight of rolls and
fruit made Jodie salivate with hunger.
'Grazie, Maria.' She thanked the elderly maid with
a warm smile, pushing back the bedclothes as Maria
turned to leave the room.
She hadn’t realised her room had a balcony, and
when she hurried over to investigate it she discovered
that it looked out onto an enclosed courtyard garden
that was almost Moorish in style. Fretted archways
were swathed with tumbling masses of pink roses, and
from her vantage point above them she could look
down into the heart of the garden to a fish pond,
where an ornate fountain sent sprays of water jetting
upwards before they fell back to dimple the surface
of the pond, disturbing the fat goldfish basking in the
morning sunshine.
Returning to the bedroom, Jodie poured herself a
cup of coffee and then headed back to the balcony.
It was wide enough to hold a small wrought-iron table
and two chairs, and she was just about to sit down on
one of them when her bedroom door opened a second
time. Thinking that Maria had come back, she looked
up with a smile that faded as she saw that it was not
Maria who had come in but Lorenzo.
'Bene, you are awake. Alfredo has telephoned to
say that he is on his way and will be here within the
hour. I trust you slept well, with no return of your
cramp?'
'No — I mean, yes — I did sleep well, and, no, the
cramp didn’t come back.' It hadn’t come back, but
the faint tingle in her flesh where he had massaged it
had kept her awake for a long time after he had gone.
Unlike her, Lorenzo was fully dressed, making her
feel acutely conscious of the brevity of her nightshirt.
Not that he was looking at her. Instead he was frowning
as he stared at something on the floor beside her
bed, next to the case she had been too tired to unpack
last night.
Striding over to it, he leaned down and retrieved
the basque she had forgotten to put back in the case,
