‘Surprisingly well, really,’ Carla answered, sounding, with an effort, more composed now. She made herself go on. ‘Considering how my mother and his are usually daggers drawn. She and my mother never hit it off...’ She gave a sigh.
‘That’s often the way between sisters-in-law,’ Cesare observed drily. Their first course arrived, and he began to eat. ‘Vito Viscari has had a lot to knuckle down to, given the successive deaths of both his uncle and his father. It can be tough. I vividly remember—’
He stopped. Talking to Carla about how he’d had to discover—rapidly—just how to fill his father’s shoes after his fatal seizure was not wise.
But Carla did not seem to notice his abrupt cessation. She forked her seafood and nodded.
It was getting easier for her to sound normal, to get her hectic heart rate back under control.
‘Because of his ridiculously gorgeous film star looks, people tend to think Vito lightweight—but he isn’t at all. I have considerable respect for him,’ she said.
Cesare’s eyes rested on her a moment. ‘And he for you, I hope. After all, you had to contend with arriving in a new country, learning the language, adapting to a new way of life.’
‘Vito was very kind to me,’ she answered, her voice warming. ‘Helped me settle in. Improved my Italian, took me about with him to meet his friends. Warned me off several of them!’ she finished with a laugh.
The laugh had sounded quite natural to her ears, and she was again grateful.
Cesare smiled. But he knew it was something of a forced smile. There had been a fond note in her voice, and he had not liked to hear that. Nor did he like to examine why he had not liked to hear it.
‘Would he have warned you off me?’ he heard himself asking.
He’d kept his voice light, deliberately so, masking that slight jab that had come when he’d heard her praising her step-cousin so affectionately—yet he was aware that he had asked the question. Why he had asked it.
For all his light tone, he saw her face still. The expression in her eyes changed.
‘He would not have needed to, Cesare,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve always known the score with you. Credit me with that much, at least.’
His eyes shifted away, his jaw tightening. Then, abruptly, his gaze came back to her. She was looking at him, again with that veiled expression in her eyes. Impulsively he reached for her free hand, raised it once more to his lips. This was the last night of his life that he would spend with her—he would not stint on his appreciation of her. Of what she had been to him.
What she can be no longer.
He felt again that jab of regret that it should be so. More than a jab. Yet again the words sounded in his head.
Not yet.
But there was no point thinking that—none. He must part with her, and that was all that was possible now. That—and this one last, final night with her.
‘I credit you with a great deal, Carla.’
There was emotion in his voice. She could hear it. And inside she felt again that sudden flare of emotion that she had felt when he’d raised his glass to her, let his gaze rest on her with such intent.
She returned his gaze now, as he let go of her hand and it fell to the table. Her breath seemed dry in her lungs.
Why had he said that? Why was he acting the way he was tonight? There was something about the way he was being that she had never seen in him before.
What does it mean?
She swallowed, feeling her cheeks flush suddenly. Dipped her head to resume her meal. Yet through her consciousness her mind was racing. That same swooping sensation was within her. Cesare was different tonight. She could see, could tell—knew with every instinct that something was changing between them. Something profound that would alter everything...
Can it be—can it really be? After all, if I was in denial for so long, if I told myself over and over again I could not possibly feel love for him...could it be that maybe, just maybe, for him it’s the same?
The thoughts were barely there, barely allowed, barely shaped into words—for she dared not let them be. Dared not give in to the swooping, soaring inside her as their meal progressed, as emotions swirled and formed and dissolved within her.
How could she dare? How could she dare give in to the one emotion above all that she yearned to give in to?
How could she give in to hope?
Hope that he might just feel for me what I now know I feel for him... That—despite everything—he’s fallen in love with me too?