The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

battle to help the villagers win the right to buy their farms. He gave his services for free, and put up a lot of his own money to pay the legal costs. Not only that, but he lent many people the money they needed to buy their land without them having to pay any interest on the loans.’ She smiled. ‘So you see he’s highly respected by everyone around here. The villagers know they can come to him with their problems and he will do his best to help them—and he charges them nothing for his advice.’

      Nicole resumed adjusting the settings on her camera, and Rebekah returned to slicing up vegetables to put in a salad for lunch. The more she learned about Dante, the more it became clear that there was another side to the cynical divorce lawyer and heartless womaniser she had believed him to be. He was a man who clearly cared about other people, and who had cared about a woman in his past. What had happened to make him turn his back on relationships? she wondered.

      She was still thinking about him when he walked into the kitchen a little while later.

      ‘Something smells good,’ he murmured, giving her a smile that made her heart flip. ‘I hope we’re going to eat the food after you’ve photographed it.’

      ‘Your timing’s perfect,’ she told him. ‘We’re almost ready to have lunch. It’s chicken breasts stuffed with wild mushrooms and mozzarella. I just need to add some onion to the salad.’

      ‘Oh … the smell of onion is revolting,’ Nicole muttered. She had suddenly turned pale, and dropped down onto a chair. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t gone mad,’ she said when Rebekah and Dante stared at her. She grinned at them. ‘I can’t keep it a secret any longer. I’m pregnant.’

      Dante reacted instantly, pulling Nicole into his arms and giving her a hug. ‘That’s fantastic news! When is the baby due?’

      ‘In just over five months. I’m thrilled to bits, but the only down side is that I seem to get morning sickness at all times of the day, and I can’t bear the smell of certain foods, especially onions.’ She glanced apologetically at Rebekah and gave a shocked cry. ‘Heck—what have you done to your hand?’

      ‘I wasn’t concentrating and the knife slipped. I’m sure the bleeding will stop in a minute,’ Rebekah mumbled as she wrapped a paper towel around the deep cut. She bit her lip as Dante strode over to her and caught hold of her hand to inspect the wound.

      ‘I think you’re going to need to have that stitched,’ he growled, his voice rough with concern.

      ‘It’s fine,’ she insisted tautly. ‘Just put a dressing on it for me.’ She managed to smile at Nicole. ‘I’m so pleased to hear about the baby,’ she said in a fiercely bright tone. ‘You must be over the moon. Try nibbling on a plain biscuit when you feel sick. It should help settle your stomach.’

      Dante would not allow Rebekah to cook dinner that evening, insisting that she needed to give her hand time to heal. Instead, he took her to a charming little restaurant in the nearby town of Montalcino, where they ate bruschetta topped with roasted red peppers and olive oil, followed by a creamy risotto that was the best Rebekah had ever tasted.

      Afterwards they strolled around the medieval walled town and explored the quaint narrow streets and the charming piazza. ‘It’s such a picturesque place,’ Rebekah said as they walked back to where Dante had parked the car. ‘We must be so high up. The view across the valley is spectacular.’

      ‘You’ll get a better view when we come back in the daytime.’

      Dante glanced at her, relieved that she seemed more relaxed this evening. His eyes fell to her bandaged hand and his jaw tightened. He had no idea what had upset her earlier, when Nicole had announced that she was pregnant. For some reason he recalled the strange way she had reacted at the christening party for James and Susanna Portman’s baby son. He was certain there was something in her past she had not told him. But there was no reason why she would choose to confide in him, he acknowledged. They were lovers, but at the end of the month they would leave Tuscany and go their separate ways.

      It was what he wanted, he assured himself. He wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship and he’d already broken one of his rules and become more involved with Rebekah than he had intended. Experience had taught him that a woman with emotional baggage spelled trouble and his common sense told him to end his affair with her. So why didn’t he? he asked himself impatiently. Why was the idea of sending her back to England so unappealing?

      When they got back to the house Dante discovered a message on the answerphone from his office in London. ‘I’ll have to check some information and send a couple of emails,’ he told Rebekah. ‘Why don’t you go up to bed and I’ll join you as soon as I can?’

      She nodded and went upstairs. Pausing outside her bedroom, she briefly debated whether to sleep on her own tonight. She knew it was silly, but hearing about Nicole’s pregnancy had stirred up emotions that she had tried hard to bury and she didn’t feel confident that she could make love with Dante and pretend that he did not mean anything to her.

      Why not enjoy what we have for as long as either of us wants it to last? he had said. But what if she wanted it to last for ever? Tonight, when her heart ached for everything she had lost, she did not want to face the truth that in a few short weeks she would lose him too.

      Fifteen minutes later Dante entered his dark bedroom and paused to switch on a bedside lamp before he crossed to the balcony where he could see Rebekah’s outline through the voile curtain.

      He came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist, drawing her against his chest. ‘Why are you out here?’ he murmured, pushing her long silky hair aside so that he could press his lips to the base of her neck. When she made no reply he turned her to face him and felt a cramping sensation in his gut when he saw tears shimmering in her eyes.

      ‘Cara, what’s wrong?’ he said urgently. He lifted up her bandaged hand. ‘Are you in pain? I knew I should have taken you to the hospital to have the cut attended to properly.’

      She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t hurt. It was my own stupid fault anyway. I should have been more careful.’

      Dante stared intently at her. ‘How come you know what to do to cope with morning sickness?’

      She immediately stiffened and attempted to pull away from him, but he held her tight. The sight of a single tear slipping down her cheek touched something deep inside him.

      Rebekah knew she was falling apart. A few days ago she would have been horrified to break down in front of Dante. But now … She thought about the breakfast he had made for her, and the rose he had picked and placed on her tray. It had been a kind gesture, nothing more, but she felt instinctively that she could talk to him, that she could trust him.

      ‘I had a baby,’ she said in a low voice. She swallowed. ‘He … he died.’

      Dante struggled to hide his shock. ‘I’m sorry.’ He knew the words were inadequate and he felt helpless. With an instinctive desire to try and comfort her, he stroked her hair and waited for her to continue.

      Rebekah took a ragged breath. ‘I had awful morning sickness for the first few months. That’s how I knew how to advise Nicole.’

      ‘What happened?’ Dante asked gently.

      ‘My baby was stillborn when I was twenty weeks into the pregnancy. A routine scan revealed that there was no heartbeat.’ Her voice was carefully devoid of emotion, but Dante sensed how hard she was finding it to talk about the child she had lost and he drew her closer. ‘The doctors didn’t know why he had died, but I had been under a lot of stress and I read afterwards that that could have been a reason.

      ‘After the scan showed that the pregnancy wasn’t viable—’ she stumbled over the coldly clinical terminology that had been used by the obstetrician ‘—I had to go through an induced labour.’ She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the hot tears seep beneath her lashes. ‘The baby was perfectly formed. He was tiny, of course, so tiny, but absolutely beautiful. I held him and prayed that there had been a mistake, that he would