Vettori's Damsel in Distress (Harlequin Romance Large Print) (4 page)

‘Here, Rattino will be more comfortable on this,’ he said. ‘Bring the box through to the fire when he’s settled.’

She looked down at the towel he’d thrust into her hand and then at the space where, a moment before, Dante Vettori had been standing.

What had she said?

* * *

Everything about Dante was still except the hand holding the wooden spoon as he stirred something in a saucepan. The light glinting off the heavy steel band of his wristwatch was mesmerising and Geli could have stood in the doorway and watched him for ever.

‘Is he settled?’ he asked without looking up.

‘Asleep and dreaming he’s in heaven,’ she said. ‘Life is so simple when you’re a cat.’ She held up the lease that was currently severely complicating hers.

He turned down the heat and took it from her. ‘There’s no mistake about the address,’ he said.

‘No. I have Signora Franco’s number,’ she said, clutching the phone she’d used to tell her sisters that she’d arrived safely. Well, she’d arrived... ‘If I call her will you talk to her?’

‘Of course.’

The wait to connect seemed endless but, in the end, was nowhere near long enough.

‘No reply?’ he asked when she let the phone drop to her side.

She shook her head. ‘The message was in Italian, but “number unavailable” sounds the same in any language.’

He shook his head. ‘Tell me, Angelica, how did you learn such impressive self-control?’

She held her breath momentarily. Let it out slowly. ‘Self-control?’

‘Few women I know—few men, come to that—would have taken the news about the apartment without throwing something, even if it was just a tantrum.’

‘Oh...’ Momentarily thrown, she said, ‘I don’t do tantrums.’

‘Is there a secret to that? Anything you’re prepared to share with Lisa?’ he asked.

‘Yoga?’ she offered. ‘It’s all in the breathing.’

He turned back to the sauce without a word, stirring it very slowly.

Damn it, she didn’t know him... He might regret kissing her but he’d been kind when he didn’t have to be. He hadn’t yelled at her, or thrown her or the kitten out when they’d caused a near riot in his café.

She took one of those yoga breaths.

‘I cried a lot when my mother died. It made things difficult at school and my sisters sad because there was nothing they could do to make things better.’ This was something she never talked about and the words escaped in a soft rush of breath. ‘I wanted to stop but I didn’t know how.’

‘How old were you?’ He continued to stir the sauce, not looking at her.

‘Eight.’ Two days short of her ninth birthday.

‘Eight?’ He swung round.
‘Madre de Dio...’

‘It was cancer,’ she said before he asked. ‘The aggressive kind, where the diagnosis comes with weeks to live.’

‘Non c’è niente che posso dire,’
he said. And then, in English, ‘There are no words...’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing anyone can say. No words, not an entire river of tears... Nothing can change what happened.’

‘Is that when you stopped crying?’ he asked. ‘When you realised it made no difference?’

‘I was eight, Dante!’ So much for her self-control...

‘So?’ he prompted, ‘you were too young for philosophy but clearly something happened.’

‘What? Oh, yes... My grandmother found an old black hat in the attic. With a floppy brim,’ she said, describing in with a wavy gesture. ‘Crocheted. Very Sixties. My grandmother was something of a style icon in her day.’

‘And that helped?’ he asked, ignoring the fashion note that was meant to draw a thick black line under the subject.

‘She said that when I was sad I could hide behind the brim.’ She still remembered the moment she’d put it on. The feeling of a great burden being lifted from her shoulders. ‘It showed the world what I was feeling without the red eyes and snot and was a lot easier for everyone to live with. I wore that hat until it fell apart.’

‘And then what did you do?’

‘I found a black cloche in a charity shop. And a black dress. It was too big for me but my grandmother helped me cut it down. Then, when I was twelve, I dyed my hair.’

‘Let me guess. Black.’

‘Actually, it was nearer green but my grandmother took me to the hairdressers’ and had it sorted out and dyed properly.’ The memory of the moment when she’d looked in the mirror and seen herself still made her smile. ‘My sisters were furious.’

‘Because of the colour or because they hadn’t had the same treat?’

‘Because Grandma had blown all the housekeeping money on rescuing me from the nightmare of going to school with green hair. They thought eating was more important.’

‘Hunger has a tendency to shorten the temper,’ he agreed, turning the sauce down to minimum and pouring two glasses of wine from a bottle, dewed with moisture, that stood on the china-laden dresser that took up most of one wall.

‘Where was your father in all this?’ he asked as he handed a glass to her.

‘I don’t have one. None of us do.’

His eyebrows rose a fraction. ‘Unless there’s been a major leap forward in evolution that passed me by,’ he said, leaning back against the dresser, ‘that’s not possible.’

‘Biologically perhaps, but while my mother loved babies, she didn’t want a man underfoot, being moody when his dinner wasn’t ready.’ She turned and, glass in hand, leaned back against the dresser. It was easier being beside him than looking at him. ‘My grandparents’ marriage was not a happy one.’ She took a mouthful of the rich, fruity wine. ‘I imagine the first time she got pregnant it was an accident, but after that, whenever she was broody, she helped herself to a sperm donation from some man she took a fancy to. A travelling fair visits the village every year for the Late Spring Bank Holiday,’ she said. ‘Our fathers were setting up in the next county before the egg divided.’

‘She lived dangerously.’

‘She lived for the moment.’

‘“Take what you want,” says God, “take it and pay for it...”’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘It’s an old Spanish proverb. So? What colour is your hair?’

She picked up a strand, looked at it, then up at him. ‘Black.’

He grinned and it wasn’t just the wine that was warming her.

‘How did you find it?’ he asked. ‘The apartment.’

‘What? Oh...’ Well, that was short-lived... ‘On the internet.’ He didn’t have to say what he thought about that. A muscle tightening at the corner of his mouth wrote an entire essay on the subject. ‘It was an international agency,’ she protested, ‘affiliated to goodness knows how many associations.’ Not that she’d checked on any of them. Who did? ‘There were comments from previous tenants. Some who’d enjoyed their stay in the apartment and couldn’t wait to come back, and a few disgruntled remarks about the heat and the lack of air conditioning. Exactly what you’d expect. Look, I’ll show you,’ she said, clicking the link on her smartphone.

Like the phone line, the web link was no longer available.

Until that moment she hadn’t believed that she’d been conned, had been sure that it was all a mistake, but now the air was sucked right out of her and Dante caught her as her knees buckled, rescued her glass, turned her into his chest.

His arm was around her, her head against his shoulder and the temptation to stay there and allow him to hold her, comfort her, almost overwhelmed her. It felt so right, he was such a perfect fit, but she’d already made a fool of herself once today. She dragged in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and stepped away.

‘Are you okay?’ he said, his hand still outstretched to steady her.

‘Fine. Really.’

He didn’t look convinced. ‘When did you last have something to eat?’

‘I don’t know. I had a sandwich at the airport when they announced that my flight had been delayed.’

‘Nothing since then?’ He looked horrified. ‘No wonder you’re trembling. Sit down while the pasta cooks.’ He tested it. ‘Another minute or two. It’s nothing fancy—
pasta al funghi
. Pasta with mushroom sauce,’ he added in case her Italian wasn’t up to it.

She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it’s wonderful but, honestly, I couldn’t eat a thing.’ He didn’t argue but reached for a couple of dishes. ‘The apartment looked so perfect and the rent was so reasonable...’
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
‘I assumed it was because it was the middle of winter, off-season, but it was a trap for the gullible. No, make that the cheap.’ She’d had it hammered into her by Elle that if something looked too good... But she’d been enchanted.

‘Did you give them details of your bank account?’ Dante asked.

‘What? No... At least... I set up a direct debit for the rent...’ As she realised what he was getting at, she blinked, looked down at her phone and then swiftly keyed in her password.

As she saw the balance she felt the blood leave her head.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘When things are bad, send ice cream. With hot fudge sauce, sprinkles and mini-marshmallows.’

—
from
Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream

‘M
ADONNA
...’

Dante caught her before she hit the floor and carried her through to the living room. He placed her gently on the sofa, her head flat and her feet propped up on the arm, and knelt beside her until she opened her eyes.

For a moment they were blank as she tried to work out what had happened, where she was.

‘Angelica...’ She blinked, focused, saw him, tried to sit up but he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lie still for a moment. Breathe...’

He’d thought she was pale before but now she was white, emphasising the size of those extraordinary silver fox eyes, the splendour of her luscious crimson mouth.

‘What happened?’

‘You fainted.’

She groaned. ‘How unutterably pathetic.’

‘The combination of shock and a lack of food,’ he suggested. Then, as she made an effort to sit up, ‘No. Stay there. I’ll get you some water.’

‘Dante—’ For a moment she challenged him, but then sank back against the cushion. ‘Why do you call me Angelica?’

‘Geli is not a name for a grown woman.’

‘Oh...’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘Right.’

Once he was sure that she was going to stay put, he fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. Angelica had dropped her phone and, as he bent to pick it up, he saw why she’d fainted. The con artists had cleaned her out.

He half expected her to be sitting up, fretting when he returned but she was exactly where he’d left her, flat on her back but with one arm thrown across her eyes. The gesture had pulled up her dress, exposing even more of her thighs, and it was a toss-up whether he gave her the water or threw it over himself.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘take a sip of this.’

She removed her arm, turned her head to look up at him. ‘Your first aid skills are being thoroughly tested this evening.’

‘I may have been a bit slow on the kissing-it-better cure,’ he assured her, ‘but I remembered the head down, feet up recovery position for a faint.’

‘Gold star. I said so...’ She made a move to sit up and take the glass.

‘Don’t sit up too quickly,’ he said, slipping his arm beneath her shoulders to support her while he held it to her lips.

‘Sì, dottore...’
She managed a smile which, under the circumstances, was pretty brave but drew unnecessary attention to her mouth. The temptation to see just how much kissing it would take to make this better was almost irresistible. So much for his declaration to Lisa about not taking advantage...

Putting the glass down on the end table, he moved to the safety of her feet.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked when he slid a hand beneath her ankle and reached for the zip of her boot.

‘Taking off your boots. Didn’t they teach you that at your very comprehensive first aid course?’

‘Absolutely. It came right after kissing it better, but I thought you were absent that day.’

‘It’s just common sense. Everyone feels better with their boots off.’

‘That’s true,’ she said, stretching her foot and wiggling her long toes. Apparently there was no ‘safe end’ when it came to Angelica Amery, and he quickly dispensed with the second boot and took a step away.

‘Okay. You can sit up when you feel up to it,’ he said, ‘but slowly. Take your time.’

She eased herself up into the corner of the sofa, smoothing her skirt down and tucking her feet beneath her. ‘What happened to my phone, Dante? I have to call the bank.’

He took it from his pocket and handed it to her.

‘You saw?’ she asked.

‘When I picked it up. Will they refund you?’

She sighed. ‘Not the first month’s rent and deposit, that’s for sure. I created the direct debit so that was a legitimate withdrawal as far as they’re concerned. The rest would appear to be straightforward fraud so I should get that back. Eventually.’ She found the number in her contact list and hit call. ‘After they’ve done everything in their power to imply that it’s my fault.’ She looked up at him. ‘Dante...’

‘Angelica?’

‘Thank you. For catching me.’

‘Any time.’

The jet brooch at her throat moved as she swallowed down her emotions. ‘You rate a gold star while I’m a triple chocolate idiot. With fudge topping. And sprinkles.’

‘You won’t be the only one who’s been caught.’

‘That doesn’t make me feel any less stupid.’ She shook her head then winced, clearly wishing she hadn’t, and he had a hand out to comfort her before he could stop himself. Fortunately, she was listening to the prompts and didn’t see. ‘I should have run some checks, but we’d found a short-term tenant for the house and it was all a bit of a rush.’

‘You’ve let your home in England?’

‘Yes.’ So, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t run for home... ‘My sisters moved out when they married so it was just me, Grandma and Great-Uncle Basil. Grandma’s arthritis was playing up and Basil wanted to take her somewhere warm for the winter so we decided to let the house to finance it—’

‘And you were in a rush to escape from the horror of all that pink and white ice cream.’

‘I shouldn’t mock it.’ She managed a somewhat watery smile. ‘Ice cream has been very good to my family and, let’s face it, art and fashion have never been safe career choices.’

‘We do what we have to.’

‘Yes...’

Leaving her to speak to the bank, he returned to the kitchen. She might think she had no appetite, but if it was put in front of her it was possible that she would be tempted.

When he returned, with a tray containing two bowls of
pasta al funghi
, a couple of forks and some napkins, she was staring into the fire.

‘Sorted?’ he asked, and she surprised him with a grin. ‘What?’

‘
“Sorted...”
You sound so Italian and yet you use English as if it was your first language. It sounds odd.’

‘Not that odd. My mother is English.’

‘That has to help,’ she said.

‘That and the fact that when she left my father she took me with her to England and refused to speak another word of Italian for as long as she lives.’

‘Tough on you.’

He shrugged but there was nothing like a reminder of that first endless cold, wet English summer hearing, speaking only an alien language, to dampen his libido.

Her eyes softened. ‘How old were you?’

He handed her a fork, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘Twelve, just coming up to my thirteenth birthday.’

‘A bad age.’

‘Is there a good one?’

She shook her head. ‘I guess not, but it was tough enough to be faced with your parents splitting up without losing your home, your language.’

‘My mother was angry, hurt...’ He shrugged. ‘She’d discovered that my father had been having an affair with the woman she thought was her best friend. She offered me the choice to go with her or to stay in Italy.’

‘And you chose her.’

‘She needed me more than he did.’ He passed her a bowl of pasta. ‘Eat...’

She looked at the dish she was holding as if unsure how it had got there but, as he’d hoped, she was too well-mannered not to eat food put in front of her. ‘It smells very good,’ she said politely and took a mouthful.

‘Life is short,’ he said as he settled at the far end of the sofa. ‘Eat pasta every day.’

‘I have to admit that on a cold, snowy Milan night it’s the perfect comfort food.’ Her brave attempt at a smile lit up her eyes, fringed with thick lashes and set in a soft smudge of charcoal. It went straight to his groin and he propped his foot on one knee in an attempt to keep that fact to himself. The kiss had been a mistake. Kissing anyone was a mistake... ‘Of course, come spring I might be persuaded to make you a Bellini sorbet and then it would be a close run thing,’ she added.

‘A Bellini sorbet?’ he repeated, mentally grabbing onto the thought of something ice-cold slipping down his throat.

‘Fresh peach juice, Prosecco... The real thing, sparkling on the tongue, but frozen.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, I see. You thought my sisters use mass-produced vegetable fat goo for their events business.’

He shrugged. ‘The British are not famous for their ice cream.’

‘Unlike Italians?’

‘I believe you mentioned an ice cream van? If it’s one of those stop-me-and-buy-one vans it won’t be loaded up with Bellini sorbet.’

‘True, but Rosie is a bit special. She goes to children’s parties, hen nights, weddings...any fun bash that ice cream is going to enhance.’

‘Is there a demand for that?’

‘Huge. Of course, the fact that she makes the occasional appearance in a popular television soap opera means that we could book her three times over. We...they...my sisters...also make bespoke ices for weddings, corporate events and the like—that’s the Bellini sorbet market—and now Sorrel, she’s the sister with the business brain, is franchising a chain of retro American-style ice cream parlours.’

‘And you design the interiors?’

With luck, talking would keep her mind off the non-existent flat until she’d finished the pasta. He prompted her to talk about how the business had evolved, looked at the photographs on her phone of the ice cream parlours she’d designed. She was very talented...

‘So, you’re a designer, an ice cream maker and you rescue kittens in your spare time?’ he asked.

‘Rescue is a two-way thing, Dante. People think that cats are selfish, but I’ve seen them respond to need in their owners and in other animals.’

As she looked up at him from under those heavy lashes he found himself wondering who, in the kitten scenario, was rescuing whom. He sensed something deeper than a desire to paint, design, experience Italy behind her ‘escape’, but they were already way too deep into personal territory; he had no wish to hear more.

Maybe she sensed it too because she took another mouthful of the pasta. ‘This is really good.’

‘Wait until you try chef’s
Risotto alla Milanese
. Arborio rice from the Po Valley, butter, dry white wine, saffron and Parmigiano-Reggiano.’ Food was always a safe topic. ‘I’m sorry you missed it but, with the weather closing in, Lisa sent everyone home.’

‘Now that is really impressive.’

‘Sending staff home early on a bad night?’

She shook her head, then said, ‘Well, yes, but I was referring to your ability to name the ingredients in the risotto recipe.’

He shrugged. ‘Nonnina used to make it for me,’ he said.

‘Nonnina? That’s your grandmother, right?’

‘Actually, she’s Lisa’s grandmother, my great-aunt, but everyone calls her Nonnina,’ he said. ‘Café Rosa was her bar until she finally surrendered to pressure from her son to retire and join him and his family in Australia. She used to let me help in the kitchen when I was a boy.’

She smiled. ‘That’s a sweet picture, but I think you were wise not to step into her shoes and take over the cooking.’

‘Oh? And why is that?’

‘You forgot the chicken stock.’

‘Did I?’ He sensed a subtext, something he was missing. ‘Does it matter?’

‘It does if you’re the chicken.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘you find them wandering, lost or abandoned, and put them in your pocket—no, in the basket of your bicycle. Do you put them in the bath, too?’

She grinned. ‘I wouldn’t advise you to try that with a chicken. They can’t fly, but they do a very energetic flap and a panicky bird in a confined space is going to make a heck of a mess.’

‘You are a fount of wisdom on the animal welfare front. So, what do you do with them?’ he asked. ‘Should the occasion ever arise.’

‘I take injured birds to the local animal sanctuary, to be cared for until they can be released or found a good home.’

‘Not to the vet?’

She tilted her head in an awkward little movement. ‘I found a pheasant once. It had been winged by a shotgun and had taken cover in our hedge. I picked it up and carried it across the village to the vet, expecting him to take care of it. He didn’t even bother to look at it, just wrung its neck, handed it back to me and told me to make sure my mother hung it for a few days before she cooked it.’

‘
Perdio!
How old were you?’

‘Nine.’ She sketched a shrug. ‘Grandma and I gave the poor thing a very elaborate funeral and buried it in the garden.’

‘I hope your grandmother tore a strip off the vet.’

‘No. She told me that he was an old school farm vet who thought he was giving a useful life lesson to a girl who lived in the country. No sentiment there.’ She stirred the pasta with her fork. ‘At least he was honest. He could have sent me on my way, promising to take care of the bird, and then eaten it himself.’

With his head now filled with the picture of a motherless little girl clutching a dead pheasant, he really wished he hadn’t asked. And then her comment about the chicken stock registered. ‘Are you a vegetarian, Angelica?’

‘I don’t eat meat,’ she said.

‘Is there a difference?’

‘I don’t wear fur, but I wear leather and wool and use it in my clothes. I don’t eat meat, but I eat fish and cheese and eggs and I pour milk over my cereals.’ She circled her fork over the dish she was holding to prove her point. ‘I am fully aware of the hypocrisy.’

‘I think you’re being a little hard on yourself,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you say something earlier? When I ordered the risotto for you?’

‘I was about to when events overtook us and actually this is perfect. One of my favourites,’ she said, making an effort to eat a little more. ‘Is it a problem for you?’

‘Of course not; why would it be? It’s just I’m surprised, that’s all.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Surprised? Why?’

‘You are aware that you dress like a vampire?’

‘Oh
that
,’ she said, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile. ‘That’s what Sean called me, the first time he set eyes on me. A skinny vampire.’

Sean? Who was Sean? Don’t ask...
‘That must have been some time ago,’ he said.

‘I was sixteen. I’ve put on a bit of weight since then,’ she said, looking down at the soft curves of her breasts and then up at him and caught him doing the same.