The Platinum Collection. Maisey Yates

Cesario confided as though that were the most normal thing in the world for him to say to her.

      ‘It’ll be a mess,’ Jess warned him, pink warming her cheekbones. Wanting to match his generosity in not holding onto any spite, she reached up and dragged the band out of her hair so that her curls tumbled free to her shoulders. ‘I couldn’t be bothered to do anything at all with it today, which is why I put it up.’

      At that frank admission a slanting grin curved his wide sensual mouth. He bent down and fluffed her mass of curls round her anxious face with gentle fingers. ‘It doesn’t need anything. It looks great just as it is,’ he contended. ‘I like the natural look.’

      But Jess didn’t think Cesario would recognise ‘natural’ unless it hit him in the face; he had probably never been exposed to the real thing. She suspected that more than one woman had gone to bed with Cesario fully made up and just as many had sneaked out of bed early the next day to ‘brush up’ before he got a first look at them. She had noticed the very high levels of grooming amongst the female wedding guests and had appreciated that just to pass muster in such company she would have to make much more effort than she was accustomed to with her appearance.

      ‘About last night,’ she began awkwardly.

      ‘Forget about it. Today we start again—fresh page, open book,’ Cesario pronounced smoothly, sinking down in the seat opposite her and buckling up for the take-off. She found herself covertly watching his every fluid movement. The smooth bronzed planes of his high cheekbones framed his straight, strong nose and the sensual perfection of his full-modelled mouth. By the time his lashes lifted to reveal his dark golden eyes as he tilted back his dark head to address the stewardess, Jess was staring helplessly: he was a heartstoppingly handsome man.

      ‘Tell me about where we’re going,’ she urged, keen to find out about their destination and talk to him for a change.

      ‘Collina Verde…it means “Green Hill”. It’s the country house where I spent my earliest years with my mother. It’s in the hills above Pisa and very beautiful,’ he murmured softly.

      Jess recalled him telling her that he had grown up without a mother and scolded herself for having made no attempt to learn more about his background. After all, it was on the basis of such little nuggets of information that most relationships were built and life would be easier for both of them if she made the effort to be more interested. ‘What happened to your mother?’

      Cesario compressed his lips, his dark eyes taking on a grim light. ‘She died from an overdose when I was seven years old.’

      Jess was taken aback by that uncompromising admission. ‘That is so sad. It must’ve been very hard for you to handle that loss at such a young age.’

      ‘I blamed my father. He had had a string of affairs and they were living apart by then,’ Cesario mused wryly. ‘But he had a great line in self-justification: he said it was in the blood and that I would be exactly the same.’

      Jess was too craven and too tactful to dare to comment on that issue. ‘What was it like for you when you had to live with your father instead?’ she asked curiously.

      His dark eyes gleamed like polished bronze and he gave her a wry half-smile. ‘Dio mio. He wasn’t cut out to be a family man any more than he was fit to be a husband. He resented being tied down. He was very competitive with me and it got worse as he aged and had to face that his youth was gone. Nothing I achieved was ever quite good enough.’

      In recognising that he came from a much less happy and secure background than her own, Jess had plenty to think about during that flight. After a light early supper they landed in Pisa at the Galileo Galilei airport. Though it was by now early evening, it was a good deal warmer than it had been in London and the sun was still shining by the time the waiting limousine wafted them in air-conditioned comfort deep into the Tuscan landscape. She had expected lovely countryside but she sank into another dimension of appreciation entirely at her first glimpse of the most distant rolling hills and the serried green ranks of the grapevines, softened here and there by the silvery clouds of foliage that distinguished the olive groves. All the buildings, fashioned of pale apricot-coloured stone, seemed ancient and the medieval towns and villages on the hilltops were impossibly picturesque.

      Collina Verde sat on top of a hill ringed by woodland, and although its sheer size made it imposing it was a less formal property than she had expected. A fortified farmhouse composed of several rambling buildings, it sat with its castellated roof below a blue and gold evening sky and enjoyed the most breathtakingly timeless view she had ever seen. She got out of the car, still entranced by the outlook of the mountains and the valley below, and enjoyed the light breeze that lifted her hair back from her brow and cooled her warm skin.

      ‘It is lovely,’ she remarked, and then a chorus of familiar barks sounded and she jerked round in disbelief to see her six dogs pelting frantically across the paved courtyard towards her in noisy welcome. ‘My goodness, how on earth did they get here?’ Her attention flipped to Cesario. ‘You arranged this?’ she queried in visible disbelief.

      ‘With the help of your mother. I know you planned to leave them behind with your rescue animals and I’m sure they would have been well looked after but I know how attached to them you are,’ Cesario advanced, considering himself to be well rewarded by the shining look of appreciation etched in her face.

      ‘I’m just…stunned!’ Jess confided, hunkering down to be engulfed in a wave of wet noses, scrabbling paws and noisy greetings.

      Cesario had suspected that the white outfit would have a limited shelf life with his bride and his worst expectations were fully met by the time Jess straightened again to head for the front door, her pack of dogs prancing round her. Her skirt had acquired dusty paw prints and damp patches and her top was speckled with dog hairs but she gave him a huge smile that let him know that, while the designer wardrobe worth many thousands had failed to impress, his gesture in flying her pets out to Italy had won him his highest yet approval rating.

      ‘I mean, I know you’re not a doggy person,’ Jess pointed out breathlessly. ‘Which is why it was such a particularly kind and thoughtful thing to do—’

      ‘And not what you expect from me, piccola mia?’ Cesario completed silkily.

      ‘Well, no, it wasn’t,’ Jess agreed without hesitation. ‘But I was wrong.’

      Cesario was honest enough to feel a shade guilty, for all he had done was issue instructions to his staff, who had taken care of all the official hassle required to transport the dogs abroad on pet passports.

      ‘Hugs gets so upset when he doesn’t see me,’ Jess explained, fondling the nervous wolfhound’s ears while it gazed up at her adoringly. ‘And Magic gets frustrated when he can’t communicate.’

      Cesario frowned, studying the Scottish terrier currently playing dead on the ground with four paws stiffly extended so that his tummy could be tickled. ‘How does he communicate?’

      ‘He’s deaf and the man I hired to look after the sanctuary didn’t know any doggy sign language,’ she proffered, making a signal with one hand that made the terrier roll over and sit up, his little black beady eyes pinned to her.

      Cesario was impressed by the demonstration. ‘I’ve never really had a pet. My father disliked animals,’ he told her, curving a hand to her elbow to walk her into the house. ‘The closest I ever came to it was having a horse.’

      They stepped over the greyhound, already fast asleep in the lengthening shadows cast by the wall. Weed, the thin grey lurcher, pushed his long narrow face into Cesario’s hand and Jess stared in surprise. ‘My goodness, Weed must like you. Someone once treated him badly and he rarely approaches anyone for attention.’

      Resisting the urge to snap his fingers in dismissal of such notice, Cesario entered his Italian home with Weed sticking as close to him as a shadow. His housekeeper, Agostina, welcomed them all indoors, and as soon as introductions were over Jess surrendered to curiosity and wandered straight off alone for a tour. It was an atmospheric house,