wind had rushed through their hair and the sun had shone and she had been filled with a distinct sensation of hope and excitement. Enclosed beneath the soft roof, the atmosphere felt claustrophobic and tense and the roar of his powerful car sounded loud as it broke the early-morning Sunday silence.
They drove for a little way without saying anything, and once out on the narrow, leafy lanes, Willow risked a glance at him. His dark hair curled very slightly over the collar of his shirt and his olive skin glowed. Despite his obvious lack of sleep and being in need of a shave, he looked healthy and glowing—like a man at the very peak of his powers, but his profile was set and unmoving.
She cleared her throat. ‘Are you angry with me?’
Dante stared straight ahead as the hedgerows passed in a blur of green. He’d spent an unendurable night. Not just because his six-foot-plus frame had dwarfed the antique piece of furniture on which he’d been attempting to sleep, but because he’d felt bad. And it hadn’t got any better. He’d been forced to listen to Willow tossing and turning while she slept. To imagine that pale and slender body moving restlessly against the sheet. He’d remembered how she’d felt. How she’d tasted. How she’d begged him to make love to her. He had been filled with a heady sexual hunger which had made him want to explode. He’d wanted her, and yet rejecting her had been his only honourable choice. Because what he’d said had been true. He did hurt women. He’d never found one who was capable of chipping her way through the stony walls he’d erected around his heart, and sometimes he didn’t think he ever would. And in the meantime, Willow Hamilton needed protection from a man like him.
‘I’m angry with myself,’ he said.
‘Because?’
‘Because I should have chosen a less controversial way of getting my bag back. I shouldn’t have agreed to be your plus one.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘But you were very persuasive.’
She didn’t answer immediately. He could see her finger drawing little circles over one of the peacocks which adorned her denim-covered thigh.
‘There must be something in that bag you want very badly.’
‘There is.’
‘But I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what it is?’
The car had slowed down to allow a stray sheep to pick its way laboriously across the road, giving them a slightly dazed glance as it did so. Dante’s instinct was to tell her that her guess was correct, but suddenly he found himself wanting to tell her. Was that because so far he hadn’t discussed it with anyone? Because he and his twin brother were estranged and he wasn’t particularly close to any of his other siblings? That all their dark secrets and their heartache seemed to have pushed them all apart, rather than bringing them closer together...
‘The bag contains a diamond and emerald tiara,’ he said. ‘Worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.’
Her finger stopped moving. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘No, I’m not. My grandfather specifically asked me to get it for him and it took me weeks to track the damned thing down. He calls it one of his Lost Mistresses, for reasons he’s reluctant to explain. He sold it a long time ago and now he wants it back.’
‘Do you know why?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe because he’s dying.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, and he wondered if she’d heard the slight break in his voice.
‘Yeah,’ he said gruffly, his tightened lips intended to show her that the topic was now closed.
They drove for a while in silence and had just hit the outskirts of greater London, when her voice broke into his thoughts.
‘Your name is Italian,’ she commented quietly. ‘But your accent isn’t. Sometimes you sound American, but at other times your accent could almost be Italian, or French. How come?’
Dante thought how women always wanted to do things the wrong way round. Shouldn’t she have made chatty little enquiries about his background before he’d had his hand inside her panties yesterday? And yet wasn’t he grateful that she’d moved from the subject of his family?
‘Because I was born in the States,’ he said. ‘And spent the first eight years of my life there—until I was sent away to boarding school in Europe.’
She nodded and he half expected the usual squeak of indignation. Because women invariably thought they were showcasing their caring side by professing horror at the thought of a little boy being sent away from home so young. But he remembered that the English were different and her aristocratic class in particular had always sent young boys away to school.
‘And did you like it?’ she questioned.
Dante nodded, knowing his reaction had been unusual—the supposition being that any child would hate being removed from the heart of their family. Except in his case there hadn’t been a heart. That had been torn out one dark and drug-fuelled night—shattered and smashed—leaving behind nothing but emptiness, anger and guilt.
‘As it happens, I liked it very much,’ he drawled, deliberately pushing the bitter thoughts away. ‘It was in the Swiss mountains—pure and white and unbelievably beautiful.’ He paused as he remembered how the soft white flakes used to swarm down from the sky, blanketing the world in a pure silence—and how he had eagerly retreated into that cold space where nothing or nobody could touch him. ‘We used to ski every day, which wore us out so much that there wasn’t really time to think. And there were kids from all over the world, so it was kind of anonymous—and I liked that.’
‘You must speak another language.’
‘I speak three others,’ he said. ‘French, Italian and German.’
‘And that’s why you live in Paris?’