Suzanne, who, having seen her own parents’ marriage break up, had no intention of making the same mistakes herself.
Surprisingly though, since she came to work for the Minotaur Group three years ago, these problems had largely been avoided. Of course, that might be because she had spent so little time, comparatively speaking, in one place. During the past three years she had worked in several different countries, and at twenty-four was considered one of the company’s most successful executives. Nicolai Stassis, the elderly Greek who had founded the organisation, had none of his countrymen’s contempt for women, and judged his staff on their ability, not their sex. That was why she objected so strongly to Abdul Fezik’s chauvinist attitude, his assumption that because she was female, she needed masculine companionship. Pietro—at that time she had not even known his surname—had seemed the answer to a prayer.
But she ought to have known that nothing was ever that simple. Pietro was not a puppet she could pull about at her own convenience, no more than Abdul Fezik could be deterred by the supposed presence of a rival. Fezik was an arrogant man, working in London for his government and living at the hotel, and Suzanne was aware that hardly anything she did went unnoticed. She sometimes wondered when he found the time to attend to his own affairs, so intent did he seem on hers. She guessed what intrigued him, of course. He was a handsome man, if a little inclined to overweight; he had money and position, almost everything a girl in her position might wish for. He couldn’t accept that she did not find him as attractive as he seemed to find himself.
Her relationship with Pietro, however, was not totally one-sided. As she got to know him better, she began to enjoy his undemanding company, his gentleness, his courtesy, his sense of humour. His interest in art stemmed, he told her, from a love of beautiful things, and although he told her little about his home life, she gathered that he knew quite a lot about his own country’s heritage. He was obviously not a wealthy man—his clothes were always clean and serviceable, but they were worn in places, the elbows of his jackets patched with leather. And yet, he had a certain air about him at times which was strangely out of keeping with his appearance, and Suzanne had to curb her desire to question him about his background. It was nothing to do with her, she had told herself on these occasions. No matter how likeable Pietro was, he aroused little but her affection, and a curious sense of compassion for his diffidence.
When he told her he was going home to Italy for ten days at Easter, Suzanne had not immediately considered what his absence might mean to her. In the few weeks they had known one another he had heard about her parents’ divorce and her father’s subsequent death in a motor accident. Her mother had married again, but it was not a happy liaison either, and Suzanne’s contact with the woman who had borne her was limited to occasional lunches when her mother came up from Bristol for a day’s shopping. Since Suzanne’s work often kept her out of the country for months at a time, she could not blame her mother for their estrangement, and nowadays they seemed to have little to say to one another. Annabel moved in a different world from that of her daughter, and had never desired independence as her daughter did.
Nevertheless, when Pietro suggested that Suzanne should come home with him for the holiday, the idea of a family occasion had had some appeal. Granted his family was not her family, but if his mother was anything like Pietro himself then she would no doubt be a charming lady. And she was free for the weekend at least …
Even so, she had demurred, insisting that she could not accept such an invitation after such a brief acquaintance. Pietro had protested that he could write to his mother and have her invite Suzanne personally, but still she had refused. Apart from anything else, she was not the sort of girl to agree to spend ten days with a young man she knew practically nothing about, however ingenuous he might seem.
But again fate had taken a hand in the person of Abdul Fezik. Three days after Pietro’s invitation, the hotel manager sent for Suzanne. He had a request to make of her, he had said, half reluctantly she had felt, immediately apprehensive. He had been approached, he went on, by one of their guests, Mr Fezik, who intended holding a reception in the hotel during the Bank Holiday weekend. Mr Fezik needed someone to act as his hostess at the reception, and had suggested that perhaps Suzanne might be persuaded to accept.
Once again, Suzanne had been staggered by the man’s audacity. After everything that had gone before he still would not believe that sooner or later she would not succumb to his personality. Before she knew what she was saying, she had informed the manager that regretfully she could not accept Mr Fezik’s invitation, that she had already made arrangements for the weekend, that she was spending Easter in Italy with her boy-friend’s family.
Surprisingly, the manager had seemed slightly relieved. Perhaps, contrary to Suzanne’s beliefs, he had been aware of what was going on. In any event, he accepted her apologies with a smile, and assured her that she had no need to consider altering her arrangements.
Pietro had naturally been delighted when she had told him she had changed her mind about coming to Italy, but affronted when she suggested it might be better if she stayed at an hotel.
‘Castelfalcone is just a village,’ he had protested, in his heavily accented English. ‘There is no hotel—just the pensione. It would not be right for a guest of my family to stay at the pensione.’
And so Suzanne had acquiesced. It was only a few days, after all. She had to return to London the following Tuesday. As they were flying out on Thursday, it was only a matter of four days.
Nevertheless, as the aircraft carrying them to Venice took off from London’s Heathrow Airport, the ambiguity of her position began to make Suzanne uneasy. Pietro had told her that he had written to his mother, but not what he had said, and she couldn’t help wondering whether he had implied a relationship between them that stemmed more from his imagination than reality. What if his mother questioned their association, what could she say? What would Pietro say?
Pietro’s small sports car had been waiting for him at the airport. They had cleared passport control and Customs with the minimum amount of fuss, and emerged into the mild afternoon air, feeling the weight of their heavy clothes. The sky was vaguely overcast, but the light was brilliant, making Suzanne grope for her dark glasses in her bulky handbag.
Watching the other passengers making for the motorboats and buses made Suzanne wish they were staying in Venice. How much simpler it would have been to book in anonymously at some hotel, without the daunting prospect of facing Pietro’s unknown relatives.
They drove north, leaving the canals and campaniles of the city behind. The autostrada was busy with holiday traffic, and Suzanne, who had never driven with Pietro before, was alarmed by his reckless disregard for other motorists. He was obviously one of those men who assumed a different character behind the wheel, and her palms were moist and she was reassessing her opinion of him when they turned off the autostrada on to a narrower, rougher road.
In an effort to divert him and herself, Suzanne allowed herself the privilege of asking questions she had hitherto avoided. ‘Do you and your mother live alone?’ she queried tentatively, speaking in Italian to make it easier for him.
Pietro took a few moments before replying, pretending to concentrate on passing a farm cart drawn by a pair of rather tired-looking oxen, but eventually he said: ‘No. We live in the house of my cousin.’
‘Your cousin?’ Suzanne’s dark eyebrows arched.
Pietro nodded, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. ‘I told you, Suzanne—my father died some years ago.’
‘Well, yes …’ Suzanne considered the situation. ‘And your cousin lives at Castelfalcone.’
‘That is correct.’
Suzanne drew her lower lip between her teeth, wishing he would be a little more forthcoming. ‘Your—er—cousin is married?’ she probed, and Pietro nodded once more.
Suzanne tried to picture the household. She knew Italians held very strongly to the family ideal, but two women running a home was seldom successful. What was Pietro’s mother’s position in the household? Were there children? Was she her nephew’s housekeeper, or nursemaid to his children? Did other members of the Vitale