Gio had taken courses in art history as part of his degree, and hadn’t seemed to mind answering her endless questions. He’d regaled her with fascinating stories about the paintings on display, and talked about his love of art and architecture with a knowledge and passion so unlike the reticence she remembered about him as a boy it had captivated her.
When they’d stepped out of the gallery, darkness had fallen, the cloaking spell of evening giving the city a new and enchanting vibrancy. The tourists had all but disappeared, no doubt retiring to their hotels after a day spent sightseeing in the merciless August heat, and the locals had reclaimed their streets. Crowds of young, stylish Florentines, posing and gesticulating, spilled out of bars and cafés into cramped alleyways and grand piazzas, illuminated by neon and lamplight. As she’d clung on to Gio and watched Florence and its inhabitants whip past, Issy had been assailed by a powerful sense of belonging. Tonight, with Gio beside her, it didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t speak a word of Italian and couldn’t have looked less Mediterranean if she tried. She knew it was a fanciful notion, conjured by the city’s enchanting allure, but it had brought with it a buzz of anticipation to complement the desire coursing through her veins.
What if she and Gio could become friends again, as well as lovers, during their weekend of debauchery?
The meal had been equally glorious. The small but packed trattoria wore its centuries-old history on its smoke-stained walls and in the sensational tastes and textures of its signature dish. Gio was clearly a regular. The head waiter had clapped him on the back and led them to the only table which wasn’t communal as soon as they’d arrived.
Issy suspected Gio had entertained hundreds of other women here before, but she refused to care. This was a few days out of time for both of them. A chance not just to indulge in the intense physical attraction between them, but maybe also to renew the precious childhood companionship they’d once shared before misunderstandings and maturity—and one night of misguided sex—had destroyed it.
But how could they do that if Gio insisted on shutting her out and treating her as if her view on love and relationships was beneath contempt?
Maybe she’d been young and foolish at seventeen, and she’d certainly made an enormous mistake picking Gio as her Mr Right, but she intended to carry on looking—and she resented him implying that made her an imbecile.
She tugged her hand out of his. ‘That’s all very interesting, Gio. But what about love? What about when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?’
‘You don’t still believe that’s going to happen, do you?’ he said with an incredulous laugh.
‘Yes, I do. It happens all the time. It was exactly like that for my parents,’ she said with passion, her temper mounting. ‘They adored each other. My mum still talks about my dad, and he’s been dead for twenty-one years.’
‘If you say so,’ he said, sounding sceptical. ‘But that would make your parents the exception, not the rule.’
She heard the tinge of regret, not quite drowned out by his condescension, and her temper died. ‘What makes you think your parents aren’t the exception?’
He stiffened at the quiet comment, and she knew she’d hit on the truth. Gio’s cynicism, his bitterness, had nothing to do with his opinion of her but with the terrible example his own parents had set.
Although the Hamiltons had divorced three years before she and her mum had come to live at the Hall, lurid stories about the split had fed the rumour mill in Hamilton’s Cross for years afterwards.
Two impossibly beautiful and volatile people, Claudia Lorenzo, the flamboyant Italian socialite, and Charles Hamilton, the playboy Duke of Connaught, had indulged in years of vicious infighting and public spats, before Claudia had finally stormed out for good, taking their nine-year-old son back to Italy with her. The brutal custody battle that followed had made headlines in both the local and national press. Although Issy had never understood why the Duke had fought so hard for his son when he’d treated Gio so harshly during his court-ordered summer visits.
As a teenager, Issy had found the concept of Gio as a tug-of-love orphan both fabulously dramatic and wonderfully tragic, like something straight out of Wuthering Heights, but she could see now it must have been a living hell for him as a child. And could easily have warped his view of relationships ever since.
‘Your parents were selfish, self-absorbed people,’ she said. ‘Who didn’t care about love or each other.’ Or you, she thought. ‘But you shouldn’t let that make you give up on finding a loving relationship for the rest of your life.’
Gio groaned, dumping his napkin on the table. ‘Will you give it a rest? You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
It wasn’t quite the reaction she’d been hoping for, but she wasn’t going to give up that easily.
‘I know enough,’ she countered. ‘My
mother and I heard how your father shouted at you and belittled you. And I saw for myself how much it upset you,’ she persevered, despite the rigid expression on his face. ‘On that last night, when I found you in the orchard, you’d just had a massive row with him. You looked so upset. So…’ She trailed off as he turned away, a muscle in his jaw twitching. And she realised something she should have figured out years before.
‘That’s why you needed me that night. That’s why we made love,’ she said softly, her heart punching her throat. ‘Because of something he said to you.’
His head swung back, his eyes flashing hot, and she knew she’d touched a nerve.
Whatever his father had said that night had made him reach out to someone, anyone, to ease the pain. And, thanks to circumstance, that someone had been her.
The revelation shouldn’t really matter now. But it did. She’d believed for ten years that their first night had been a terrible mistake, brought about by her immature romantic fantasies. But what if he really had needed her—just not in the way she’d thought?
‘We didn’t make love,’ he said flatly. ‘We had sex.’
She didn’t even flinch at the crude words. ‘What did he say?’ she asked, her heart melting at the anguished frown on his face.
‘Who the hell cares what he said? That was a million years ago.’
It wasn’t a million years ago, but even if it had been it was obvious it still hurt.
‘Dammit, you’re not going to let this go, are you?’