‘I love pasta,’ Ben exclaimed.
‘In Italy you can eat pasta every day,’ said Rico.
He lifted his wine glass.
‘To our first day here,’ he said, looking at Ben and his mother. Ben lifted his glass of orange juice. ‘Have we had a good day, everyone?’ he asked around.
‘Yes,’ said Ben.
‘Yes,’ said his mother. ‘It’s been lovely.’
It had too, and Lizzy was grateful. It was strange. She hadn’t expected it to be easy. And yet it had been. They’d done nothing except spend most of the day on the beach, coming back up to the terrace for lunch, and then, after much protesting from Ben, having a brief siesta. When Ben had surfaced they’d gone down to the beach again, returning only in late afternoon for Ben to have a quick swim in the pool, before showering and getting ready for supper.
The only awkward moment had been when Ben, splashing around in the warm shallow sea with his uncle, had called out ‘Mummy, aren’t you going to swim?’
Lizzy had shaken her head, the thought of stripping off to a bathing costume making her cringe. It was bad enough being on a beach with a man whose honed, lean-muscled body, clad only in swimming trunks, made it impossible to let her eyes go anywhere near him.
‘I’ll swim another time,’ she’d evaded, and gone doggedly back to her book.
Other than that it had been an extraordinarily easy day. Now, sitting watching the sun set while they shared in a nursery tea, she realised she was feeling far more relaxed than she’d thought possible. She took a sip of her chilled wine.
‘Is the wine to your liking?’ Ben’s uncle asked.
‘Um—yes, it’s lovely. I—er—I don’t really know anything about wine,’ she answered.
‘You will learn with practice.’ He smiled at her. ‘And another thing you will learn with practice,’ he went on, taking his own mouthful of wine, ‘is to call me by name.’
Lizzy stared. She couldn’t do that. The whole thing about addressing him had been so awkward that she simply hadn’t done it. She couldn’t address him as ‘Highness’, and she couldn’t address him as ‘Prince Enrico’, or even ‘Prince Rico’. And she certainly couldn’t address him as simply Rico.
‘And I must do the same,’ he continued. ‘So—’ He took a breath. ‘Lizzy. There, I’ve said it. Now it’s your turn.’
‘I can’t,’ said Lizzy. Embarrassment flushed through her.
‘Have some more wine—then try,’ he advised.
She took another mouthful, and swallowed hard.
‘Rico,’ she mumbled. She couldn’t quite look at him.
‘Bene,’ he said softly. ‘You see—all things are possible.’ For a
moment he held her eyes approvingly, then, with a change of tone, he spoke again. ‘Ah, supper arrives.’
‘Hurrah,’ said Ben.
The following days were spent very largely as the first one had been. Rico made it so quite deliberately. He was giving her the time she needed—a breathing space.
He needed one too, he knew. They all did. He’d said as much to her the next day.
‘We’ll take this a day at a time, like I said,’ he’d told her. ‘We won’t think about the outside world, we won’t think about anything. We’ll just accept the present and relax. Get used to things—get to know each other.’
It was ironic, he realised—all his life there had been a distance between himself and the world. There had had to be. And that meant, he acknowledged, that there were very few people that he ever truly let down his guard with. Jean-Paul was one, and there were a few others. Sportsmen, mostly, to whom his birth was a complete irrelevance, and all that counted was skill and dedication.
But never women—even in the superficial intimacies of the bed.
He’d bedded a lot in his time. Taken his pick, enjoying them physically. Making sure they enjoyed him, too.
But nothing more. Safety in numbers, he’d told Luca, and it had been true.