From Venice With Love. Alison Roberts

traditional to the ultramodern.

      The two women prowled the shops, stopping here and there to admire something beautiful, Gabriella found herself enjoying the day out much more than she had expected, maybe because she’d made her decision and it felt like she was taking back control of her life; maybe because Natania was such good company. One of her cousins worked on the island and her knowledge of the various glass-making techniques and styles was better than any guided tour.

      Gabriella took the opportunity to buy an intricate perfume-bottle for Phillipa. And, while Natania was busy talking to her cousin, purchased a necklace that simply begged to be around Natania’s neck—a glass heart, a brilliant red with splashes of gold, wild and sensual like the woman herself. It would be her thank-you gift.

      She was just paying for her purchases when Natania said farewell to her cousin and they moved onto the next store—the last one, she had promised herself, before they caught the water taxi home so she could pack.

      ‘Why must you leave so soon?’ asked Natania beside her.

      ‘I can hardly stay here for ever. I have a job I have to get back to in Paris some time. And a house waiting that is being neglected in my absence. Plus, there are the friends I want to visit.’

      Natania nodded to her long list of reasons and asked, ‘So, do you love him?’

      Gabriella simply blinked. Natania was the second person to ask that question today. Was it so obvious? She sighed, conceding the point, knowing there was no point beating around the bush with her. ‘I think I have always loved him, Natania—as a friend. But lately, that love has changed …’

      The other woman nodded, as if satisfied. ‘He is not an easy man to love. He has a dark past that colours his world.’ Almost immediately she moved away to investigate another table of ornaments. Gabriella followed, intrigued. ‘How long exactly have you worked for Raoul?’

      She shrugged, setting the gold hoops in her ears bouncing while her eyes searched the past. ‘Ten years, maybe eleven. I am not so good with numbers.’

      ‘Did you ever meet his wife?’

      She threw a glance over her shoulder. ‘That was not a good time for him.’

      ‘So you met her?’

      ‘No. But I saw what it did to him. I saw what it cost. It was an ugly time.’

      Gabriella wanted to ask why, and what else she wasn’t telling her, except then she found it—what she had been looking for all the time she had been on Murano and hadn’t even realised.

      A gift for Raoul.

      It was sitting amidst a sea of pretty ornaments, so many, too many to choose from, but this one was different. This one spoke to her. A paperweight. And at its base it swirled with darkness, clouds of purple to black, like the dark, dank sea. As it rose, the colours shifted and turned, still complex and rich in density but with the promise of light captured in the darkness. At the very top it was the clearest, sparkling crystal while at its heart sat a brilliant splash of red.

      It was Raoul, she realised as she picked it up and held it in her hand. It was Raoul and all his complexities, all his moods. And his heart, locked away somewhere deep inside it all, the heart he had shown her these last few days—the heart he had all but given her last night.

      Maybe she would leave and he would not follow her, be able to live without her—but she could leave him with this, and maybe one day he would understand.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      GABRIELLA found him in his office, already back from Paris on their return. ‘Raoul?’ He turned at her voice. ‘Am I interrupting? Is this a bad time?’

      ‘No, of course not,’ he said, closing down his laptop. ‘Come in.’ He rose to meet her, kissing her cheeks, warming her senses with his signature scent, bringing back last night’s memories in a rush that had her cheeks flushing and her body preparing all over again for their coupling. ‘You are a sight for sore eyes, Bella. I’m sorry I could not have been with you today.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, only a half lie. While it had mattered at the time, now it merely increased her resolve that what she was doing was right. Time and distance were what she needed, despite what her body kept trying to tell her. ‘How did your business go?’

      He waved his hand as if dismissing it. ‘A nuisance, nothing more, but unfortunately it had to be dealt with today.’ He took her hand. ‘I hated to leave you like I did but I was loath to wake you, knowing how little sleep you got. Can you forgive me?’

      She tried to ignore the flush of heat that flowed into her arm at his touch but there was no ignoring the heat that infused her face. They both knew he was the reason she’d had so little sleep. ‘I found you a present,’ she said, wanting to change the subject before she thought about what he could do to her to earn her forgiveness. ‘While we were in Murano.’

      He stilled, sensing something was not quite right. She was nervous and distant, as though she’d erected a wall between them in the hours since he’d left her sleeping. He cursed the impulse that had seen him take off for Paris rather than handle what was happening here. But then, something had changed last night, something that he had not planned, and he had needed the space to deal with it.

      ‘You do not need to buy me gifts,’ he said. You would not want to, if you only knew …

      ‘It’s nothing. Here,’ she said, holding out the package to him.

      He regarded it solemnly before taking the surprisingly heavy gift, strangely touched by this unexpected gesture.

      ‘Open it,’ she urged. Once again he caught a glimpse of that enthusiasm she had, that bright spark of life he’d once found so challenging, a quality he now associated with her and that he looked for—because it would mean his dark heart had not extinguished that spark, despite his early moodiness. ‘Unless,’ she added, a little sadly, he thought, ‘You would rather open it later?’

      ‘No,’ he said with a shake of his head, not wanting her to be sad now, knowing that there was enough disappointment and sadness ahead of her. Cursing himself, because with Garbas free he could see no way around it. ‘I want to see what you have found me.’

      So he slipped off the ribbon and peeled open the tissue paper until he held the cool, glass weight of her gift in the palm of his hand.

      ‘It’s a paperweight,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘I thought you could use it in your office. It reminded me of you.’

      He lifted it to the light, examining the mix of dark and light, the skilful melding and weaving of the different levels of colour with a core of intense red at its centre. With an electric charge up his spine, he saw what she so wanted to see.

      She was wrong, of course.

      ‘Do you always see the good in people, Bella?’ he said, looking at her. Even when they are not good? Even when they want something from you that you should not have to give?

      She looked confused. ‘I just wanted to give you a gift, Raoul. I’m sorry if you don’t like it; I just wanted to get you something to remember me by.’

      And suddenly every hair on the back of his neck stood up. ‘Why would I need something to remember you by? You’re not going somewhere?’

      ‘I have to go, Raoul. I’ve had the best time—really I have—but I’m in your way here; I know. And besides, I have a job to go back to. I can’t stay here for ever, after all.’

      He had blown it. There was a tightness in his throat, but it was no match for the ball tearing its way through his gut. She had been eating out of the palm of his hand and he had blown it by leaving her alone because he had had to go to Paris.

      No, that wasn’t true;