The Sicilian's Passion (12 page)

‘To Rome?' she repeated, and then she smiled. ‘Do you know, Giovanni?' she said, taking care to keep her voice as casual as his. ‘I've always wanted to visit Rome.'

 

Rome. Paris. Prague. Vienna. New York. She joined him in one luxurious hotel after another—and in between times
Kate threw herself into her work in an attempt to consume her thoughts with something other than her dark Sicilian lover. But it wasn't easy.

Christmas came and went, but she didn't see him. He spent it with his parents in Palermo, while Kate and Lucy went to their own family home.

Giovanni sent her a package which she dared not put beneath her parents' Christmas tree, imagining more of the exquisite lacy undergarments he had made a habit of buying for her—and she could just imagine what her father would say about
that
.

But he surprised her with a Sicilian-English dictionary with a mocking foreword written in his distinctive hand: ‘Learn something new each day,
cara
—and then teach me what you have learned.'

She devoured it during the holiday—oblivious to the sounds of carols or the lure of mince-pies and turkey—memorising as many words as she thought might be appropriate to relate when next she saw him…and resolutely casting aside the word ‘love'.

‘You're still crazy about him, aren't you?' asked Lucy one morning in late January, when she and Kate had been going through her expenses.

Kate had flown in from New York the evening before, still glowing from Giovanni's lovemaking, a box of matching yellow lace underwear hidden away inside her suitcase.

‘Not more?' she had asked him, her mouth curving into a slow smile as she had taken another outrageous wisp of nothing from the box. ‘You've bought me enough already, surely?'

He had shaken his head as she began to pull the camiknickers up her long, long legs, knowing that very soon he would be pulling them off her again. ‘Never enough,
cara
,' he told her huskily. ‘You should have something different for every day of the year.'

And Kate found herself working out how many weekends she would have with him to enable him to be able to provide
that
.

She had taken a Thursday and Friday off work and had flown into Kennedy Airport on Thursday evening, to find Giovanni looking tense and strained, and she had teased him about it.

‘You don't want me here?'

‘I couldn't wait for you to arrive,' he admitted huskily and took her into his arms and kissed her with an urgency which thrilled her.

‘Then why the long face?' she asked in the cab on the way to their hotel.

‘Oh, some—' He said some vehement word in Sicilian. ‘Some mix-up over a big consignment which was meant to arrive from Sicily last week, but didn't.'

She crossed one leg over the other, hearing him draw in an unsteady breath as he was treated to the briefest glimpse of lacy stocking-top beneath a creamy-white thigh. ‘Shame,' she murmured.

And he laughed. What the hell did it matter—what did any of it matter—when he had her here, like this? ‘A terrible shame,' he agreed gravely, as he reached for her in the darkened intimacy of the car.

They spent the next morning in bed and then travelled to Liberty Island, where the queues for the statue seemed to go on forever.

Giovanni's mouth tightened. ‘Let's skip it for today,' he said roughly, thinking that all he wanted was to be alone with her again.

But Kate shook her head. ‘Queuing will do you good,' she said firmly.

‘Oh, really?'

‘Yes. Really! We'll people-watch and then over dinner we can see if we agree or disagree.'

‘On what?' he asked, mystified.

‘Oh, who's brought their wife. Who's brought their mistress—that kind of thing!'

‘Mistress is a very old-fashioned word,' he growled, inexplicably offended by the term.

She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘It's a very old-fashioned occupation, darling—didn't you know?' But inside she was on a high. In these cities—foreign to both of them—she could be exactly what she wanted to be, and, more than anything else, she felt as if they were on equal terms.

That weekend—like all the others which had preceded it—passed all too quickly, and Giovanni seemed reluctant to let her go.

‘I'm sick of departure lounges!' he declared vehemently, sliding his hands around her waist, and locking them possessively in the small of her back.

Well, so was she—but she was determined that his last memory of her would be a sunny smile.

‘I'm not overfond of them, myself,' she whispered. ‘But there you go! Now, Giovanni, that's the third and final call, so will you
please
let me go?'

He had complied, reluctantly, but stood watching her retreating back until long after she had disappeared from view.

 

'Aren't you?' asked Lucy.

‘Mmm?' Lost in a dreamworld dominated by Giovanni and only Giovanni, Kate looked up at her sister absently. ‘Aren't I what?'

‘Crazy about him? Even more than before.'

There was a moment of silence. ‘I guess I am.' How could she not be? ‘He's gorgeous,' she sighed, then shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. ‘Though I guess it's easy for him to be gorgeous—the situation is very beautiful, but very false. We meet in glamorous destinations, we stay in glamorous hotels. We eat delicious meals and make delicious love, and
then I come home again.' She looked at her sister candidly. ‘I guess that's what it's like—being a mistress.'

‘Yes,' said Lucy thoughtfully, ‘I suppose it is. You're intimate in so many ways, and yet not intimate at all. You get the sex and the glamour—but none of the ordinary stuff that makes for companionship.'

Kate tried to make light of it. ‘What, like washing his socks, you mean?'

‘Something like that.' Lucy's green eyes were piercing. ‘And he never says he loves you?'

‘Never.'

‘Nor express any desire for a bit more…permanence?'

‘Never.' Kate saw the expression on her sister's face and sprang to his defence, as though her pride expected her to. ‘He hasn't long come out of a broken relationship, remember? He's hardly going to want to leap straight back into another.'

‘And you're happy for things to continue this way, are you, Kate—the long-term mistress?'

‘Happy enough.' Because what was the alternative? Life without him was a million times worse than these snatched moments of bliss; she had already tried that.

‘And what's he like, during these weekends?' persisted Lucy.

‘Perfect,' answered Kate simply. ‘Absolutely perfect.'

‘Not mean or moody any more?'

‘No.' Kate looked at her sister with an air of defiance. ‘I may be besotted with the man, but I'm not into masochism, you know, Lucy. And what would be the point of spending time with him if he continued to be angry with me?'

That much, at least, had changed.

These days, they had almost as much conversation as sex, and Kate wanted that. She wanted shared experiences which she would be able to store up in her memory. She wanted to learn more about
him
.

And she had.

He had told her about his parents and his younger brother,
and the house he had grown up in, in the hills outside Palermo. The brother was now ensconced in Rome, running that branch of the Calverri empire.

He described the beautiful villa he had bought for himself and Kate had wondered wistfully if she would ever see it. He had spoken about his early life, and the Sicilian culture, and its proud, aloof people, and Kate had nodded in comprehension, remembering the print-out from her computer.

For Giovanni epitomised the Sicilian man. Proud, yes. And aloof—yes, more than a little. He gave so much, but that was all. She knew as much of him as he would allow her to know, and yet at times she felt as though she knew him better than she knew herself.

But maybe that was because physically, at least, they were so perfectly in tune with one another.

He called the following week, when Kate was feeling out-of-sorts, even though she knew that she should be feeling delighted, because he had just suggested coming to London. But she had been feeling off-colour for days now, and was beginning to wonder whether she had eaten something which disagreed with her. Or whether it was a mild form of jet lag.

‘London?' she questioned weakly as little spots danced before her eyes.

‘That's right.' Giovanni frowned at the telephone. He had thought she would be pleased. ‘What's the matter, Kate—have you grown too used to room service?' he teased. ‘I don't have to stay at your place, you know,
cara
. We can always go to a nice hotel, and you can pretend to be a tourist in your own city!'

She took a deep breath and sank down onto the sofa, wondering why her legs felt as though they were made of cotton wool. ‘No, that's fine—I'd love you to stay here. When are you arriving?'

He paused, his heart beating hard with excitement. He had things he needed to tell her. ‘Tomorrow,' he told her.

A wave of nausea washed over her. ‘Tomorrow?' she repeated feebly.

‘This is not the rapturous response I expected,' he murmured drily. ‘Don't tell me you're becoming bored with me,
cara
?'

Never! Not as long as there were planets edging around the skies! But Giovanni expected playful teasing, she knew that. Just as she knew how much the truth would send him spinning out of her orbit.

‘I'll tell you when I see you,' she teased back.

‘I can't wait.'

And normally, neither could she. Normally she would be counting the hours and then the minutes until he would be back in her arms again.

Only this time she did so for a different reason entirely.

 

Kate shivered as she heard his peremptory ring on the doorbell, and walked to answer it from the kitchen, where she had been making supper—even though eating was the very last thing she felt like doing.

She opened the door to him, as always unprepared for the glorious shock to her senses which his presence always seemed to invoke. But this time the sensation was all too fleeting. This time…

She bit her lip. ‘Hello, Giovanni,' she said slowly. ‘Come in.'

He frowned as he dropped his bags on the floor of the hall and shut the front door behind him.

‘No kiss?' he accused softly.

‘Let's go into the sitting room,' she said nervously. ‘It's warmer in there.'

His eyes were watchful as he followed her. There was something different about her tonight. What was it? She seemed tense. Not herself at all. And pale, he thought—much paler than usual.

‘Come to Giovanni, Kate,' he instructed softly.

How could she resist him? she wondered helplessly. How could she
ever
resist him? She went into the circle of his arms, raising her head so that he could kiss her.

Her body melted into his, and he felt the first heavy pulse of desire. ‘That's better,' he purred when he eventually lifted his head. ‘You seemed a little tense back there,
cara
.' He drifted the palm of his hand around the curve of her chin, a question in his eyes. ‘What's the matter, Kate? Hmm? Busy week at work?'

Kate hoped that her bright smile did not look like a ghastly grimace. ‘Er, yes. It
was
pretty hectic.'

‘So now you relax. With me.'

Oh, God—she couldn't let him make love to her. Not now! Not yet! ‘I've been preparing supper,' she told him wildly.

Supper? His obdurate expression hid his surprise. Usually food was remembered halfway through the evening as something of an afterthought. He surveyed her again, even though he went through the action of sniffing the air, in a parody of a hungry man returning home. ‘I can tell,' he said indulgently. ‘Smells good.' And then he frowned. More than smelling good, it smelt
familiar
. He frowned again. ‘What is it,
cara
?'

She forced herself to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. After all, hadn't she spent hours preparing for what was supposed to be the surprise to end all surprises? Until…

‘Can't you tell?' she asked him, her heart beating very fast with fear and foreboding.

He strode straight through into the kitchen, where it quickly became clear what she had done—the ingredients gave it away. He saw a pile of pasta and he peered at what lay within the simmering pot. Fresh sardines. And wild fennel. Currants and pine nuts and saffron. A slow smile dissolved his frown.

And very nearly dissolved her, too.

‘
Pasta con le sarde
,' he murmured. ‘Sicily's most typical dish. Oh, Kate,
cara mia
Kate—do you do this because
you know that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach?'

Fear gripped her. If only he hadn't said that! As if she was trying to manipulate some kind of permanence with him. It was just a teasing, throwaway comment, but in view of the bombshell she was shortly to drop…

‘Shall we eat?' she questioned hoarsely.

He told himself that she was nervous because she had obviously gone to a lot of trouble preparing this dish. He told himself that the timing was important—it could not be left to sit and spoil; its beauty was in its freshness and crispness.

But somewhere deep inside him there remained the disquiet that something was not quite as it should be.

She had laid the table carefully, as if her life depended on it. With napkins and candles and fresh flowers.

‘This looks very welcoming,' he observed as she struck a match and lit the candles. ‘The perfect supper.'

The last supper, she thought, with a sudden shiver of apprehension. ‘Sit down, Giovanni,' she said huskily as she hovered in the kitchen doorway.