Hot Nights with...the Italian. Lucy Gordon

father and hers were friends,’ Dinah had confided. ‘And Dad says he’d be spinning in his grave if he knew what Janine was up to. If she gets her hands on the Estrello it will be closed, and Corin will be out by the end of the year.’

      ‘But it’s very successful,’ Marisa pointed out, startled. ‘He’s a terrific businessman, and his clients obviously trust him.’

      Dinah snorted. ‘You think she cares about that? No way. All she can see is a valuable piece of real estate. As soon as her father died she was badgering Corin to sell, and when he wouldn’t she decided to end the marriage—as soon as she found someone to take his place.’ She added, ‘He doesn’t deserve it, of course. But—as the saying goes—nice guys finish last.’

      Yes, Marisa had thought bitterly, and bastards like Lorenzo Santangeli spend their lives in pole position. There’s no justice.

      Feeling suddenly restive, she walked over to her desk and sat down, reaching determinedly for the small pile of paperwork that Corin had left for her. It might not be much, she thought wryly, but at least it would stop her mind straying down forbidden pathways.

      The afternoon wasn’t particularly busy, but it was profitable, as people came in to buy rather than simply browse. A young couple seeking a wedding present for friends bought a pair of modern miniatures, Mrs Brooke reluctantly agreed to buy the watercolour at full price, and an elderly man eventually decided to acquire a Lake District landscape for his wife’s birthday.

      ‘We went there on our honeymoon,’ he confided to Marisa as she dealt with his credit card payment. ‘However, I admit I was torn between that and the wonderful view of the Italian coastline by the same artist.’ He sighed reminiscently. ‘We’ve spent several holidays around Amalfi, and it would have brought back a lot of happy memories.’ He paused. ‘Do you know the area at all?’

      For a moment Marisa’s fingers froze, and she nearly bodged the transaction. But she forced herself to concentrate, smiling stiltedly as she handed him his card and receipt. ‘I have been there, yes. Just once. It—it’s incredibly beautiful.’

      And I wish you had bought that painting instead, because then I would never—ever—have to look at it again.

      She arranged a date and time for delivery of his purchase, and saw him to the door.

      Back at her desk, entering the final details of the deal into the computer, she found herself stealing covert looks over her shoulder to the place on the wall where the Amalfi scene was still hanging.

      It was as if, she thought, the artist had also visited the Casa Adriana and sat in its lush, overgrown garden on the stone bench in the shade of the lemon tree. As if he too had looked over the crumbling wall to where the rugged cliff tumbled headlong down to the exquisite azure ripple of the Gulf of Salerno far below.

      From the moment she’d seen the painting she’d felt the breath catch painfully in her throat. Because it was altogether too potent a reminder of her hiding place—her sanctuary—during those seemingly endless, agonising weeks that had been her honeymoon. The place that, once found, she’d retreated to each morning, knowing that no one would be looking for her, or indeed would find her, and where she’d discovered that solitude did not have to mean loneliness as she shakily counted down the days that would decide her immediate fate.

      The place that she’d left each evening as sunset approached, forcing her to return once more to the cold, taut silence of the Villa Santa Caterina and the reluctant company of the man she’d married, to dine with him in the warm darkness at a candlelit table on a flower-hung terrace, where every waft of scented air had seemed, in unconscious irony, to breathe a soft but powerful sexuality.

      And where, when the meal had finally ended, she would wish him a quiet goodnight, formally returned, and go off to lie alone in the wide bed with its snowy sheets, praying that her bedroom door would not open because, in spite of everything, boredom or impatience might drive him to seek her out again.

      But thankfully it had never happened, and now they were apart without even the most fleeting of contact between them any longer. Presumably, she thought, biting her lip, Renzo had taken the hint, and all that remained now was for him to take the necessary steps to bring their so-called marriage to an end.

      I should never have agreed to it in the first place, she told herself bitterly. I must have been mad. But whatever I thought of Cousin Julia I couldn’t deliberately see her made homeless, especially with a sick husband on her hands.

      She’d been embarrassed when Julia had walked into the drawing room that night and found her in Alan’s arms, but embarrassment had soon turned to outrage when her cousin, with a smile as bleak as Antarctica, had insisted that he leave and, in spite of her protests, ushered Alan out of the drawing room and to the front door.

      ‘How dared you do that?’ Marisa had challenged, her voice shaking when Julia returned alone. ‘I’m not a child any more, and I’m entitled to see anyone I wish.’

      Julia had shaken her head. ‘I’m afraid not, my dear—precisely because you’re not a child any more.’ She’d paused, her lips stretching into a thin smile. ‘You see, your future husband doesn’t want any other man poaching on his preserves—something that was made more than clear when I originally agreed to be your guardian. So we’ll pretend this evening never happened—shall we? I promise you it will be much the best thing for both of us.’

      There had been, Marisa remembered painfully, a long silence. Then her own voice saying, ‘The best thing? What on earth are you talking about? I—I don’t have any future husband. It’s nonsense.’

      ‘Oh, don’t be naive,’ her cousin tossed back at her contemptuously. ‘You know as well as I do that you’re expected to marry Lorenzo Santangeli. It was all arranged years ago.’

      Marisa felt suddenly numb. ‘Marry—Renzo? But that was never serious,’ she managed through dry lips. ‘It—it was just one of those silly things that people say.’

      ‘On the contrary, my dear, it’s about as serious as it can get.’ Julia sat down. ‘The glamorous Signor Santangeli has merely been waiting for you to reach an appropriate age before making you his bride.’

      Marisa’s throat tightened. She said curtly, ‘Now, that I don’t believe.’

      ‘It is probably an exaggeration,’ Julia agreed. ‘I doubt if he’s given you a thought from one year’s end to another. But he’s remembered you now, or had his memory jogged for him, so he’s paying us a visit in a week or two in order to stake his claim.’ She gave a mocking whistle. ‘Rich, good-looking, and a tiger in the sack, by all accounts. Congratulations, my pet. You’ve won the jackpot.’

      ‘I’ve won nothing.’ Marisa’s heart was hammering painfully. ‘Because it’s not going to happen. My God, I don’t even like him.’

      ‘Well, he’s hardly cherishing a hidden passion for you either,’ Julia Gratton said crushingly. ‘It’s an arranged marriage, you silly little bitch, not a love match. The Santangeli family need a young, healthy girl to provide them with the next generation, and you’re their choice.’

      ‘Then they’ll have to look elsewhere.’ Marisa’s voice trembled. ‘Because I’m not for sale.’

      ‘My dear child,’ Julia drawled. ‘You were bought and paid for years ago.’ She gestured around her. ‘How do you imagine we can afford to live in this house, rather than the one-bedroom nightmare Harry and I were renting when your parents died? Where did your school fees come from? And who’s been keeping the roof over our heads and feeding us all, as well as providing the money for your clothes, holidays and various amusements?’

      ‘I thought—you …’

      ‘Don’t be a fool. Harry edits academic books. He’s hardly coining it in. And now that he has multiple sclerosis he won’t be able to work at all for much longer.’

      Marisa flung back her head. She said hoarsely,