She was yawning over the coffee Michelina had left them, when Giovanni stood up with an air of determination.
‘You need to go to sleep now,’ he instructed softly. ‘Come with me.’
Outside her door, she wanted him to touch her—not in a sexual way, but in a comforting kind of way, to enfold her in his strong embrace and take some of the aching away, but he kept his distance.
Their physical closeness seemed like a distant dream as he quietly shut the bedroom door behind him, and she heard him moving off down the corridor.
But the sun was shining the next day and he drove her through the mountains to a resort along the Tyrrhenian coast called Cefalú, which he promised her was spectacular, and from the moment she saw the fishing village, squeezed between a long, curving sweep of sand and a massive peak known as the Rocca, Kate fell in love with it.
Giovanni slowed the car down, and pointed to the Rocca. ‘What does that resemble?’
It was like one of those games you played with ink-spots, trying to make sense out of a random shape. Except that this shape seemed very clear to Kate.
‘It looks like a head?’ she guessed.
He laughed in delight. ‘Clever girl! That’s exactly what the ancient Greeks who came here thought, too. And kephalos is the Greek word for “head”—hence Cefalú.’
Kate sat back in her seat, pleased at her perception and even more pleased by his smiling praise. At times like this, it was easy to forget her reason for being here—and easy to imagine that they were just like any other couple, enjoying the sights and relaxing in each other’s company.
But they weren’t, she reminded herself. They weren’t.
She turned her head quickly to look out of the window. Too often in the past had she wished for the impossible and now it was time to change the game-plan.
Side by side, they walked down to the Norman cathedral and Giovanni gave her his linen jacket to wear.
‘Women must cover their arms in this holy place,’ he told her gravely as they stepped inside its cool, dim interior.
She felt as though she was being swept up into Sicily’s stormy past as they walked around the majestic building in silence, and she studied her guidebook avidly. She insisted on lighting a candle, but her lips began to tremble as she did so, and her face was very pale when they re-entered the warm spring sunshine.
His eyes were assessing as he looked at her, but now was not the time nor the place for analysis. ‘Lunch, I think,’ he said firmly.
They found a restaurant whose sheltere
d terrace overlooked the fishermen’s beach, and Giovanni ordered swordfish for them both. And, when the waiter had left them with their water and basket of bread, he turned his gaze intently on her.
‘Kate, we have to talk about it,’ he said gently.
She wilfully misunderstood him, because surely it was too painful to contemplate the truth. ‘The cathedral?’
‘The baby.’
She shook her head, and her red hair flailed wildly around her shoulders. ‘Who says we do? It was nothing, was it? An accident which happened, which mercifully—’
‘No!’ His negation was low, but savage—and his face burned with the intensity of conflicting emotions. ‘Don’t say that!’ he grated. ‘Don’t you ever say that!’
‘But it’s the truth, isn’t it? And for you it must have been…’ she bit the words out painfully ‘…a relief.’
He shook his head and his words were quiet, almost bleak. ‘How could something so negative ever be described in a positive way?’
She swallowed. ‘Because we didn’t plan it!’
‘Out of all babies born, how many do you think are planned, Kate?’
Did she imagine the sadness in his voice, or did she simply want to hear it there, to wish that he had wanted that baby just as much as she had? ‘That’s different, and you know it!’ she responded fiercely. ‘You didn’t want a baby, Giovanni—so don’t for heaven’s sake now start saying that you did!’
He pondered her accusation in silence for a moment, knowing that she spoke the truth. ‘And for you, Kate? Was it a relief for you, too?’
His gaze was so intense—as blue as the sea beneath them, and she could not insult him, or herself, by pretending that it had been nothing.