‘I don’t want you stressing about it,’ Salvatore went on. He was holding her gaze, his expression intent. ‘I want you to be comfortable here—comfortable with me.’
He took a step towards her. His expression changed suddenly. Softened. Gently, with one finger, he touched her cheek—a fleeting moment only—looking down at her out of deep, long-lashed eyes, their darkness unfathomable.
‘So—are we all right together?’
She swallowed again, feeling the trace of his fleeting touch on her cheek. Then she made herself nod.
He smiled. A warm, genuine smile. ‘Bene—I am glad.’
Then he moved towards the champagne cooler, lifted the bottle from it. Looked back at her. ‘Let’s drink to that,’ he said.
His voice was lighter now, she could hear it, and she could see it in his expression too. She felt something lighten in herself as well. She watched him fill two slanted flutes in turn, judging the effervescence with practised skill, then he replaced the bottle and picked up the frothing glasses, handing one to her. She took it gingerly, not wanting their fingers to touch for reasons she didn’t want to think about—for the reasons he’d just kicked into touch by what he’d said to her.
He lifted his glass, tilting it slightly towards her. ‘To being comfortable with each other,’ he said. There was a wry smile in his voice, on his lips, in his dark, unfathomable eyes.
She didn’t reply, not sure what to say, but lifted her glass, let him clink his lightly against hers, then took a mouthful as he did from his. The mousse was chill, cooling the heat that had suddenly flushed her face—mistakenly, surely?
He set down his glass, smiled at her. A reassuring smile. ‘And now, with our new understanding, we shall enjoy an excellent dinner!’ he announced.
As if on cue, as they sat down at the table, one of the two manservants appeared, placing a bowl of plump olives on the table and a plate of crostini canapés. Salvatore exchanged pleasantries with the young man, who responded in kind.
He’s polite to his staff...courteous and considerate, Lana could not but observe. Did that include herself? After all, she’d said last night that she was really nothing more than a kind of employee.
But even as she’d called herself that she had known it was not true. It was far more complicated than that. No employee would sit here like this, sipping champagne with him, dining with him, just the two of them...
She reached for an olive, plump and glistening with rich oil, taking a delicate bite from it to stop herself thinking about what it was, exactly, that she and Salvatore were to each other.
‘What do you make of them?’ Salvatore was asking, helping himself to one of the large, luscious olives as well. ‘They’re from the estate here.’
Lana swallowed the rest of her olive. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise there was land attached to the palazzo other than the gardens.’
‘Oh, yes, there’s an extensive estate—olive groves, farmland, vineyards, woodlands... The wine is nothing spectacular, but I’m reserving an interest in wine-making for my old age! I’ll do something about improving it then,’ Salvatore replied lightly.
He started to tell her about the traditional grapes of the region, and Lana listened with half an ear, knowing little about wine but grateful that it was an innocuous subject. As she sipped at her champagne, nibbling the delicious olives and the equally delicious crostini, salty with anchovy and goat’s cheese, she started—thankfully—to feel the tension that had racked her all day—and all the previous night—begin to ease from her.
Comfortable—that was what Salvatore had said he wanted them to be together. And maybe we can be. However complicated the situation between us is—
Her eyes rested on him momentarily as he waxed lyrical about Tuscan grape varieties. She felt her breath catch. He really was just so gorgeous...
She fought to clamp down on her reaction. What had happened last night had been a mistake—that was all. An impulse neither of them should have succumbed to. And now he’d apologised for it and put it aside.
So I don’t have to think about it any more. Or feel awkward about it. Or feel awkward around him.
She made herself focus on what he was telling her, asking him a question she hoped wasn’t too distracted. The young manservant appeared again, bearing a tray of more dishes, one of which he reverently placed on the table. Salvatore said something appreciative in Italian, and then turned to Lana.
‘Black truffles,’ he announced as the manservant took his leave. ‘From our very own woods—but if I told you exactly where I’d have to shoot you!’
It was humorously said, and Lana gave the expected laugh, glad to do so. Glad to sip at her champagne, too, letting it help her set aside any obsessing about the complications of why she was here with Salvatore in the first place, the confusing tensions those complications engendered whenever she gazed at him in all his gorgeousness. She felt herself start to relax little by little, glad just to listen to him descant on the art of truffle-hunting, on the incredible noses of the trained dogs that sniffed out the prized treasures from under the earth and leaf mould.
As he did so, he shaved two of them into razor-thin slices, proffering them to her. ‘Try them neat, before they go on the risotto,’ he recommended.
She took a tiny sliver, tasting it somewhat tentatively. ‘Oh, that is good!’ she exclaimed.
‘Isn’t it?’ he agreed, and then proceeded to scatter generous amounts on their respective servings of risotto.
With a will, Lana tucked in. The rich creaminess of the risotto was brilliantly offset by the musky earthiness of the truffle, and she ate with her eyes half shut to get the full impact. With a sigh, she set her fork aside, her dish empty.
‘We’ll save some truffle for the secondo,’ Salvatore announced. ‘It’s going to be venison.’