Swept Away!: Accidentally Expecting! / Salzano's Captive Bride / Hawaiian Sunset, Dream Proposal
him to face it alone. The fact that he’d chosen it that way would make it no less a betrayal.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘No, no, no!’
Suddenly she knew she couldn’t keep her promise to Hope. She’d been mad to say yes, and there was still time to put it right. She would hurry back now…
‘There you are,’ came Dante’s voice. ‘Why are you hiding?’
She turned to see him walking towards her. He had the rumpled look of a man who’d recently been asleep.
‘I came out for some air,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely out here at night.’
‘It is beautiful, isn’t it?’
He didn’t put his arms about her, but leaned against the tree, regarding her quizzically.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, fine,’ she said hastily. ‘What about you? How’s your head?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my head. Why do you ask?’
‘When you went to bed early, Hope thought—’
‘Hope’s a fusspot. My head is fine.’
Was his voice just a little bit too firm? She shouldn’t have raised the subject. It was a careless mistake, and she must be more careful.
‘You can’t blame her for fussing,’ she said lightly. ‘You of all men, going to bed early! What kind of earthquake produced that?’
‘I’m probably still suffering a touch of smoke inhalation. Even I’m not superman.’
‘Now, there’s an admission!’ she said in as close to a teasing voice as she could manage.
She longed to take his face between her hands, kiss him tenderly and beg him to look after himself. But anything like that was forbidden. If she stayed she would have to guard every word, watch and protect him in secret, always deceive him. The sooner she was out of here, the better.
‘Dante,’ she said helplessly. ‘There’s something I must—’
‘Oh yes, you were trying to tell me something this afternoon, weren’t you? And I never gave you the chance. Too full of myself as always. Tell me now.’
It would have to be faced soon, but before she could speak blessed rescue came in the form of a commotion. Ruggiero’s toddler son, Matti, came flying through the trees as fast as his short legs would carry him. From behind came Ruggiero’s voice, calling to him to come back, which he ignored.
‘I used to escape at bedtime just like that,’ Dante said, grinning. ‘Some rotten, spoilsport grown-up always grabbed me.’
He seized Matti and hoisted the toddler up in his arms, laughing into his face.
‘Gotcha! No, don’t kick me. I know how you feel, but it’s bedtime.’
‘It was bedtime hours ago,’ Ruggiero said breathlessly, reaching them. ‘Polly looked in on him and he made a run for it.’
‘Parents can be a pain in the neck,’ Dante confided to the tot. ‘But sometimes you have to humour them.’
Reluctantly Matti nodded. Dante grinned and handed the child to his father.
‘You really know how to talk to him,’ Ruggiero said. Then, fearing to be thought sentimental, he added, ‘I guess it’s because you’re just a great kid yourself, eh?’
‘Could be,’ Dante agreed.
Ferne, watching from the shadows, thought that there was more to it than a joke. Dante was part-child, part-clown, part-schemer, and part something else that she was just beginning to discover. Whatever it might turn out to be, he was a man who needed her protection. Somewhere in the last few moments the decision had been made.
‘Now we’re alone again,’ he said, ‘what were you going to say?’
Ferne took a deep breath and faced him with a smile.
‘Just that I really enjoyed working with you. When do we leave?’
Be careful what you say in jest: it may return to haunt you.
That thought pursued Ferne over the next few days.
She’d teased Dante about being a perfect gentleman at all times, and he’d responded with an encouraging dismay. But as time passed she began to realise that he’d taken her seriously and was being, as he’d promised, ‘just friendly’.
He bought a car, a solid, roomy vehicle designed for serious travel, and quite unlike the frivolous choice she might once have expected him to make. They headed south to Calabria, the rugged, mountainous territory at the toe of the Italian peninsular. One of Dante’s techniques was to seek out places that had been on the market for a long time and offer his services.
‘There are three villas there that my research tells me have been for sale too long,’ he said. ‘Let’s try our luck.’
Their luck was in. The owners were getting desperate and were eager for Dante to add their properties to his books. They spent several days working up a sales pitch for each house, complete with glorious pictures. At the end of it, Ferne was exhausted.
‘I seem to spend my life climbing stairs and walking mile-long corridors,’ she complained. ‘If I’d known it was going to be this tiring, I wouldn’t have come.’
Dante himself didn’t seem at all tired, and was clearly in such blazingly good health that she wondered if she was crazy to be watching out for him. He had a fund of funny stories which he directed at her over dinner, reducing her to tears of laughter, after which he would take her hand to lead her upstairs to their separate rooms, kiss her on the cheek and bid her goodnight.
No man could have behaved more perfectly. No man could have been more restrained and polite. No man could have been more infuriating.
For this she’d turned down the chance of a lifetime?
Mick Gregson hadn’t been pleased.
‘What were you thinking of?’ he’d bawled down the phone. ‘This man carries influence in film land. If he’d liked your work, you could have done anything you wanted.’
But I’m doing what I want, had been her silent thought.
‘Ferne, I can’t go on representing you if you’re going to act like this.’
‘That’s your decision, Mick, and of course I respect it.’
They had parted bad friends.
Now she was on the road with a man who’d promised ‘just friendly’, and who seemed infuriatingly determined to keep his word.
There was no justice.
But one thing had changed—now she understood the true reason for Dante’s restraint. He wouldn’t make advances to her because his personal code of honour forbade him to ask for love when he might die without warning.
Here was the explanation for the way he slipped quickly in and out of relationships, never getting too close to any woman. It was his way of being considerate.
And he was right, she assured herself. If she wanted more from him, that was her problem.
‘Where do we go next?’ she asked as they turned north again, leaving Calabria behind.
‘A place near Rome that I’ve promised to take a look at. There are some two-thousand-year-old ruins, plus a huge villa that the owner insists on calling a palazzo, that’s “only” six centuries old. It may not be easy to shift.’
‘If it’s antique and historical, won’t the atmosphere of romance help to sell it?’
‘An atmosphere of romance is all very well in theory, but people tend to want decent plumbing as