A moment later, though, her expression was open again, her usual air of composure back in place. ‘Long day?’ she asked sympathetically, starting to skim down the menu.
‘Long enough,’ Cesare replied.
For the first time with Carla he was conscious of a sense of deceit—it was discomfiting.
He turned the subject away. ‘How have you been? Did you visit your mother?’
She nodded with an assenting murmur, but said no more. Cesare did not usually ask after her family—and she never asked after his family affairs. It was an invisible line she did not cross.
The sommelier was approaching, and Cesare turned his attention to him. There was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.
Or not hunger for food.
I don’t want to do this—I don’t want to do it but I have no option. It has to be done, and it has to be done now—tonight.
But not right now. Not over dinner. What he had to say required privacy.
And, besides, I want one more night with her—one last night.
He broke off such thoughts as the sommelier returned, filling their glasses. When he had gone Cesare lifted his glass. That hollow feeling came again.
‘To you, Carla,’ he said.
His eyes were dark, his expression serious. For a long moment he held her gaze. He saw her face whiten suddenly, her eyes distend. Then, like an opaque lens, he saw her expression become veiled.
Slowly, she inclined her head. ‘To you, Cesare,’ she replied. Her voice was steady, despite the whitening of her face.
She drank, taking a large
r mouthful than she had intended. But right now she needed its fortifying strength. The tension from having waited for him so desperately, overwhelmed by the devastating realisation of what she felt for him, had made her feel faint. Emotion was knifing in her. She felt as if she were seeing him for the very first time.
And I am—I’m seeing him with eyes that see what I have refused to admit until now—what I have guarded myself from for six long months, and what has now overcome me. The truth of what I feel for him.
Weakness flooded through her, dissolving her. Shakily, she lowered her glass to the table, hearing in her head the echo of his simple, devastating tribute.
‘To you, Carla...’
That was all he’d said—and yet within her now she could feel emotion soaring upwards like an eagle taking flight from a mountaintop. There had been such intent in his gaze...such as she had never seen before.
Can it mean—? Oh, can it mean...?
For a second, the briefest second, she felt an emotion flare within her that she must not feel—dared not feel. She crushed it down. It was too dangerous. Too desperate.
Instead, she watched him set down his glass, saw the candlelight catch the gold of the crested signet ring on his little finger. He never removed it—never. It was there when he made love to her, when they showered, when they swam. It was as if it was melded into his skin. Given to him on his father’s death, passed down generation to generation, one day it would be passed to his son, the next Conte.
She looked away, back at his face, unwilling to think such thoughts. Wanting only to drink him in as a thirsty man in a desert would drink in fresh water, feeling her heart beating heavily within her breast. The heart that had so recently, so devastatingly, revealed its truth to her. The truth that she must not show...
‘So, how are things in the Viscari family?’
His casual question made Carla start. She dragged back her hectic thoughts. Collected herself. It was unusual that he was even asking, but she made her reply as casual as she could.
‘Vito’s heading back to Rome. He’s been away for weeks, inspecting all the European hotels.’ To her ears, her voice seemed staccato, but Cesare seemed to notice nothing about it. She was glad—grateful.
‘Do you get on, the two of you?’ Cesare’s enquiry was still polite as he demolished the piece of bread roll he’d buttered.
He was not particularly interested, but it was a safe topic of conversation. And right now he needed safe topics.
She blinked, taken aback by his enquiry. Focussed on how to answer it. With a fragment of her mind she registered that Cesare, too, seemed on edge.