It stayed tight right up until the moment when Vito’s Ferrari swept up the drive, shortly before lunchtime on Saturday. Johnny excitedly rushed her downstairs, where Vito was greeting Giuseppe warmly in their native Italian, handing him a bottle of champagne to chill. Her charge was pleading for another ride in the Ferrari.
Vito stooped down, ruffling Johnny’s hair with an easy gesture. ‘Definitely,’ he promised him. ‘But not right now, OK?’
Then he straightened and looked up towards the head of the staircase, where Eloise was poised.
His eyes blazed as they lit on her, and she felt their force. Reeled from it. Her hand tightened on the banister as if to steady herself. For steady she must be. This was not the time to rush down the stairs and into his arms...
In her mind’s eye she was back as she had been the day Vito had first found her in Long Island, her heart thumping, pulse pounding with disbelief that he was really there, in the flesh, after all those anguished months since she’d fled Rome. How she’d stood paralysed and trembling, emotions knifing her from all directions.
How different it is now from then.
‘Eloise...’
Vito’s soft utterance of her name summoned her, and he stood gazing up at her as she started to head down towards him. She’d dressed with care that morning, not wearing one of her usual casual outfits she adopted when on nanny duty. Today—consciously—she wore a warm vermilion sun dress, smocked over her bust, with shoestring straps and a floaty calf-length skirt.
It had passed muster with Laura, who’d checked her out before she’d set off with her husband earlier.
‘Ideal,’ she’d said. ‘And wear your hair down—at least until you go swimming.’
Eloise’s expression had tautened. ‘I can’t swim! Not until—’
‘Exactly,’ Laura had responded, and there had been another meaningful look in her eye. Then she’d nodded. ‘I want it all sorted, Ellie, by the time we get home tomorrow—understood?’ she’d said, clearly in big sister mode. ‘And I expect your engagement ring diamond to be the size of the Ritz, OK? Though maybe that’s the wrong hotel, in the circumstances!’
She’d laughed, and swept off.
Now, as she made her graceful descent to the hall below, Eloise could feel the loosely gathered folds of her dress floating around her bare legs, her long hair falling like a waterfall down her back. Her make-up was subtle, but emphasised the blue of her eyes and the golden tan she’d acquired during the summer, and she knew, with absolute certainty, that the glow in Vito’s dark, lambent eyes was for her and her alone.
And it always will be.
She felt joy lift inside her and a smile part her lips. She saw his eyes warm, and he stepped forward towards her. He took her hand and kissed it, murmuring to her. Behind him Giuseppe hovered shamelessly—ready, as Eloise was well aware, to report back as required to his wife Maria.
The lover come to claim his beloved—and have their happy-ever-after ending...
She felt that little lift of emotion again—and then behind it a downward drag, as if of deep water pulling at her. In her ears rang Laura’s admonition, and she felt a longing inside her...a longing to tell Vito all she yearned to tell him.
But the timing must be right—perfect... Later—when we are alone...
Certainly not right now. Right now it was time to respond to Vito’s arrival, and to listen to Giuseppe saying that he would serve lunch out at the pool house in half an hour. This gave Johnny an opening to demand that Vito come up and see all his cars—namely the extensive collection of toy vehicles that adorned his day nursery.
So the three of them duly went back upstairs, where Johnny and Vito got stuck into some intensive playtime. Eloise sat back, watching Vito sprawled on the carpet with her charge, entering into the childish spirit of racing toy cars—with appropriate vocal soundtrack. She felt a huge upwelling of emotion ballooning inside her.
‘He’s going to be a great family guy.’
Again, she could hear Laura’s words in her head. And she knew them to be true. So, so true. Which meant...
The house phone went and she picked it up, then turned to Vito and Johnny. ‘That’s lunch,’ she said.
They headed down to the pool, set amongst the spacious lawns of the Carldons’ mansion, complete with its own pool house opposite.
Under the shaded terrace Maria and Giuseppe were setting out a lavish al fresco lunch. Maria, beaming from ear to ear, fussed over them as they took their places, chattering away to Vito in too-rapid Italian. Her eyes were only for him as his wickedly attractive smile brought the colour to her plump cheeks.
And to Eloise’s as well—she could feel her stomach clench with raw, quickening desire.
Then Johnny’s needs diverted her, and she had to pay attention to him, helping him to cold roast chicken and salad, letting him pour—carefully—juice from t
he iced jug at his place.
As she did so Maria and Giuseppe departed, and Vito hefted the opened champagne bottle from its ice bucket, gently pouring out generous measures for them both. He set hers before her, and lifted his glass to her.