‘Can any man do that?’ Alex mused.
‘Rinaldo can. He can do whatever he sets his mind to. Why should he want to go through such pain again?’
‘But surely it could never happen again? No man could be so unlucky twice.’
‘I think he’s decided not to take a chance on it. Since Maria died the farm has been his whole life. Poppa left the running of it to him.’
‘What about you?’
Gino gave his attractive boyish grin.
‘Theoretically I have as much authority as my brother, but Rinaldo’s a great one for letting you know who’s the meat and who’s the potatoes. His being so much older helps, of course.’
There was something slightly mechanical about Alex’s smile. She no longer felt able to joke about Rinaldo. The image of the overbearing dictator that had dominated her thoughts had suddenly become blurred.
There was another image now, a young man agonising over the death of his wife and child, then growing older too fast, hardening in his despair.
‘Are you all right?’ Gino asked as she rubbed her hand over her eyes.
‘Yes, I’m just a little tired. I’m not used to so much heat.’
‘Let me take you back to the hotel.’
The night air was blessedly cool as they strolled back. To her relief he seemed in tune with her mood, and did not talk.
At the door of the hotel he took her hand and said, ‘I’d ask to see you again, but you’d only think Rinaldo put me up to it. So I won’t.’
She smiled. ‘That’s very clever.’
‘But it’s all right if I call you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but not tomorrow.’
He nodded. Leaning forward he kissed her cheek gently, and walked away.
Gino slipped into the house quietly, but his caution was wasted, as he had feared that it would be.
‘Good evening,’ Rinaldo said, without looking up from the computer screen where he was doing the accounts
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ Gino asked.
Rinaldo didn’t answer this. Dragging his eyes away from the screen he leaned back, stretching like a man whose limbs had been cramped too long.
‘You look like the cat that swallowed the cream,’ he observed. ‘I hope the cream was good.’
‘Don’t be coarse.’
‘I also hope you didn’t forget that you were there for a purpose. You haven’t just been enjoying yourself, you were supposed to be neutralising a threat.’
‘Alex is no threat. She’s trying to be as helpful to us as she can.’
Rinaldo groaned.
‘She really got to you, didn’t she? Well, before you get too starry-eyed, remember that this is the woman who was negotiating with Montelli at our father’s funeral.’
‘She wasn’t negotiating. He just walked up to her. In fact he did it again today and she drove him off with threats of violence. I heard her.’
‘He was there again?’
‘They were in the coffee shop when I arrived, and she sent him packing.’
‘Of course-because she saw you.’
‘You’re a cynical swine, aren’t you?’
‘I know more about women than you do, and a damned sight more about hard cash. And one of us needs to be cynical about this lady. You’re evidently a lost cause. What did she do? Flutter her eyelids and let you look deep into her blue eyes?’
‘They’re not exactly blue,’ Gino said, considering. ‘More like a kind of violet.’
‘They looked ordinary blue to me.’
‘Maybe you weren’t looking at them in the right way.’
‘I was looking at them with suspicion, and that’s the right way,’ Rinaldo growled.
‘Well, maybe it was the dress,’ Gino agreed. ‘That was dark blue and very elegant, sort of clingy, especially over her waist and hips-’
Rinaldo got to his feet restively.
‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ he growled. ‘You’ve plainly made a fool of yourself-’
‘If you mean that I’m enchanted, I plead guilty.’
‘Enchanted. Listen to yourself. You were sent on a mission and you return spouting a lot of sentimental drivel. She’s probably laughing at you this minute. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she got straight on the phone to Montelli as soon as you left.’
‘You’re determined to think the worst of her, aren’t you?’
‘With reason.’
‘You know nothing about her,’ Gino said with a flash of anger. ‘You’ve been prejudiced since the first moment.’
‘Do you blame me?’
‘I blame you for not giving her a chance.’
Rinaldo sighed.
‘But it isn’t up to me. It lies in her hands now, that’s what’s so damned-’ he checked himself.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gino said. ‘She’s as crazy about me as I am about her. From now on, everything’s going to be fine.’
CHAPTER FOUR
ALEX had often heard of the magic of Italy, but, being a practical person, she had dismissed it as romanticising. Now she found that it was real.
Perhaps it was in the light that intensified every colour. Or perhaps it was Florence, packed with medieval buildings, where there were as many cobblestones as modern roads.
She tried not to be seduced by the beauty. She was only here to raise money, then return to London, marriage to David, the partnership: in other words, her ‘real’ life.
It was just that it seemed less real suddenly, and she could feel no hurry to push things along. David had told her to take as much time as she needed, and it might be better to stay here for a while, and broaden her mind.
So the day after her meeting with Gino, she did something she hadn’t done for years. She played hookey.
Firmly turning off her mobile phone she hired a car and left Florence, heading south. After a few miles she began to climb until she reached the tiny, ancient town of Fiesole.
After wandering its cobbled streets for an hour, she found a restaurant with tables on a balcony looking far down, and sat there, sipping coffee and gazing at the rows of cypresses, and the elegant villas that were laid out before her.
‘You’re in good company,’ said a quiet voice.
Rinaldo had appeared, seemingly from nowhere. She wondered how long he had been standing there, watching her.
But today, although his face was grave, there was no antagonism in it as he came to sit at her table.
‘Good company?’ she asked.
‘Your English writers, Shelley and Dickens, once admired this valley. Down there is the villa where Lorenzo de Medici entertained his literary friends. This little town is known as the mother of Florence. Look around and you’ll see why.’
Alex saw it at once. The whole panorama of Florence, barely five miles away, was spread out before them, glowing in the noon haze, the great Duomo rising out of a sea of roofs, dwarfing everything else.
‘What are you doing up here?’ he asked lightly.
‘Do I need your permission?’
‘Not at all, but wouldn’t you be better occupied negotiating? You’re a woman of business. There’s work to be done, and here you are, wasting time, staring into the distance.’
Alex didn’t normally quote poetry, but this time she couldn’t resist it.
‘What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?’
Rinaldo frowned. ‘Who said that?’
‘An English poet.’
‘An Englishman?’ he demanded on an unflattering emphasis.
‘Yes,’ she said, nettled. ‘Strange as it may seem, an Englishman wrote it. Shock! Horror! Now you might have to adjust your ideas about the English.
‘You think of me holding court, receiving my financial suitors one by one, selling you out to the highest bidder. And let’s face it, that’s how you prefer to see me.’
Rinaldo hailed a passing waiter and ordered two coffees. Alex had an amused feeling that he was giving himself a breathing space to come to terms with her attack.
‘You were probably following me up here,’ she added, ‘to see if I met up with a prospective buyer behind your back.’