A Venetian Affair

Domenico Chiesa did not, it was obvious, suffer from the same problem. When he ushered Laura through a surprisingly unimpressive door and took her upstairs, the head waiter in Harry’s Bar greeted him by name. The dining room was plain by Venetian standards, with half-panelled walls and large black and white photographs of American landmarks, but it was full except for the table reserved for Signor Chiesa.

‘The restaurant is a little austere, and there is no terrace, but it never lacks for patrons,’ Domenico told her.

‘I can see that,’ said Laura, eyeing the crowded room. ‘I know that Hemingway and Churchill used to come here, but are there any celebrities around tonight?’

‘None that I know,’ he said dismissively.

Her eyes danced. ‘You mean that if Domenico Chiesa doesn’t know them they’re not celebrities?’

‘You are mocking me,’ he accused, laughing. ‘And now,’ he added as a waiter set glasses in front of them, ‘you must taste the cocktail first created here.’

‘A Bellini?’ said Laura, eyeing the drink with respect.

Domenico raised his glass. ‘Enjoy.’

Enjoy was the right word, she thought as she tasted the famous mix of fresh white peach juice and sparkling Prosecco. ‘Mmm, fabulous!’

‘Bene!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Now, tell me what you like to eat.’

Choosing their meal was a serious business. When Laura firmly refused a first course Domenico described the main dishes in detail, teasing her because she wasn’t brave enough to try carpaccio, the raw, marinated beef of his own choice. Eventually, after much discussion, she settled for pasta baked with prosciutto, and enjoyed it enormously, but shook her head regretfully when Domenico suggested the house speciality of rich chocolate cake for dessert afterwards.

‘Thank you, but I couldn’t eat another thing.’

‘Then we shall drink coffee while you tell me your plans for tomorrow.’

‘I thought I’d go shopping for presents before I make a start on the local culture. I want something special for my mother, my sister, and my closest friend,’ she said, ticking off her fingers, ‘and inexpensive things—if there are such things in Venice—for friends at the bank.’ She smiled at him. ‘Any advice for the tourist would be welcome.’

Domenico gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled back. ‘I can do more than that. Tomorrow I shall show you the best places to find your souvenirs of Venezia.’

Laura looked at him in silence for so long he raised an eyebrow in silent question.

‘Domenico,’ she said at last, ‘why are you doing this?’

‘This?’ he repeated innocently.

She nodded. ‘I can’t believe that Lorenzo Forli asked you to go to such lengths to look after me!’

‘This is true,’ he admitted. ‘He asked me to arrange a hotel, meet you at the airport and escort you to the vaporetto, and afterwards check to see that you were happy with your hotel.’ The spectacular eyes locked with hers. ‘I did as he wanted. But now, Laura, I am doing what I want.’

She held the gaze steadily. ‘In that case I need to ask you the question you asked me.’

‘And what is that?’

‘Is there someone in your life?’

‘No.’ He shrugged an expressive shoulder. ‘There was. Now there is not.’

‘Snap,’ she said, sighing.

‘Snap? What is this?’

‘It means the same thing. I recently had someone in my life, too, but not any more.’

Domenico’s eyes softened. ‘This makes you sad, Laura?’

She shook her head. ‘Relieved, not sad. I’d known Edward for years, but not as well as I thought. I had no idea he was into embarrassing romantic gestures.’

There was a pause while coffee was served.

‘I am very curious,’ said Domenico, leaning nearer when they were alone. ‘What did this romantic man do?’

‘He took me out to dinner one night. But when the waiter took the lid off a serving dish there was a diamond ring sitting there instead of the salmon I’d asked for.’ Laura shuddered. ‘And right there in front of all the other diners Edward went down on one knee and asked me to marry him.’

‘Dio! What did you do?’

‘There was no way I could possibly humiliate him in public so I let him put the ring on my finger and kiss me, and everyone applauded.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘When I handed the ring back in the taxi afterwards Edward rejected my offer of friendship pretty violently. So we don’t see each other any more.’

‘This does not surprise me. When a man is in love it is not friendship he desires from his woman.’ Domenico got up suddenly. ‘Mi scusi, Laura, I must leave you for a moment.’

Laura watched him cross the room to speak to a waiter, who nodded quickly, pocketed the money he was given, and left the dining room. When Domenico rejoined her he pressed her to more coffee, but she shook her head.

‘Nothing else, thank you. It was such a wonderful meal. Thank you for bringing me here.’

‘Thank you for the pleasure of your company.’

Laura had expected to walk back to her hotel the way she came, via the floodlit Piazza San Marco, but Domenico took her back along silent, dimly lit alleys punctuated by bridges. He pointed out landmarks and gave her the names of the different calles as they strolled, and eventually, when they were on territory that was beginning to feel familiar, he paused on a bridge to point out the moon’s reflection in the water.

‘By day it is best not to linger on our bridges, but at night when it is quiet we may do so for a moment. In the past there were no railings,’ he informed her. ‘This meant taking much care at night.’

She gave a sudden chuckle, and he took her hand and looked down into her face.

‘What amuses you, Laura?’

‘I was just thinking that to a practical soul like me your city is too romantic for words, Domenico.’

‘Ah, but Venezia is not always kind to us as she is tonight,’ he assured her. ‘We have fog and rain and floods in winter.’

‘I can’t imagine it right now.’

‘Then you must come back again to Venice and see for yourself,’ he said, and drew her nearer.

‘I must get back to the hotel right now,’ she said hastily.

‘Let us say goodnight here first.’ He took her gently by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks, looked down into her eyes for a moment, then bent his head to capture her mouth in a kiss of unexpected tenderness.

‘I was told that I’d have no problem with the average Italian male,’ she said breathlessly when he raised his head. Not that there was anything average about Domenico Chiesa.

He smiled and took her hand to resume walking. ‘One kiss is a problem?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘It will be a problem for me if you now refuse my assistance with your shopping.’

‘I won’t.’ Laura grinned at him and he laughed, his hand tightening on hers. ‘Find me bargains and I forget the kiss.’

‘But I shall not,’ he said, with such a theatrical sigh she laughed at him.

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘It is the truth,’ he assured her. ‘I shall lie awake all night thinking of the touch of your lips against mine.’

She chuckled. ‘And where will you spend this sleepless night? At the hotel you work in?’

He shook his head. ‘I have a small apartment right here in San Marco. Tonight I shall sleep—or not sleep—only a short distance away from you, Miss Laura Green.’ He smiled down at her and raised her hand to his lips. ‘I have enjoyed this evening very much. I shall call for you at nine tomorrow and we shall eat breakfast together. Sleep well.’

Chapter Two

LAURA found it hard to sleep at all for a while. The long afternoon nap was partly to blame, but Domenico’s kiss had rather more to do with it. She frowned in the darkness. If this was the effect Venice was having on her it was a good thing she wasn’t staying long.

After her restless night Laura woke late next morning and rushed through a shower, slapped on moisturiser and lipstick, wove her hair into a loose braid, pulled on a mint-green T-shirt and white cotton trousers and raced down to the reception hall to find Domenico, in jeans with a shirt that matched his eyes, talking to Signora Rossi.

‘Buon giorno, Laura,’ he said, smiling, and took away what breath she had left by kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Like a baby,’ she lied.

‘Then let us begin.’

During breakfast, which she enjoyed all the more for sitting down to eat it, Laura told Domenico what she had in mind.

‘I’ve been reading up about shopping in my guidebook, so I’ve made a list. First priority is a pair of the velvet slippers worn here for Carnival for my mother.’

‘And for your father?’

Her eyes fell. ‘My father’s dead.’

‘Mi dispiace!’ said Domenico swiftly, and laid his hand on hers.

‘You didn’t know. Now,’ she added briskly, ‘where do we start?’

Shopping with Domenico Chiesa was a very pleasant experience. He took Laura to places she would have had no hope of finding on her own, and seemed to enjoy it all as much as she did. He hunted down an authentic gold carnival mask, helped Laura choose pretty, inexpensive Venetian glass earrings and T-shirts in vivid colours printed with the Venezia logo, and at last took her to the stalls at the foot of the Ponte delle Guglie on Strada Nuova for crimson velvet slippers for her mother.

‘And now,’ said Domenico firmly, just when Laura felt ready to drop rather than shop any more, ‘we must eat.’

She gave him a pleading look. ‘Domenico, please let me pay for lunch.’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘It is already arranged. And you are tired so we shall go by water taxi.’

A journey in a sleek white motorboat was such a different experience from one by vaporetto the journey was over far too soon for Laura.

‘Thank you, that was fun,’ she said as Domenico helped her off the boat. ‘But I know it was also expensive so I hope we’re eating in a cheaper place than Harry’s Bar.’

‘I can assure you that we are. With your permission I shall give you lunch in my private retreat.’

Domenico’s retreat was an apartment in a converted palazzo, with a view of the Grand Canal and the Santa Maria della Salute church. When he ushered her into a compact sitting room with tall windows and apricot walls Laura felt a stab of envy as she took in the gleaming wood floors and white-covered sofas, the shelves with books and the mirrors everywhere.

‘This is just lovely.’

‘I am glad you like it.’ He laid her shopping bags on one of the sofas. ‘I thought you might prefer a quiet meal here in peace after your shopping.’

Domenico’s dining room was small, but opened onto a balcony with a view of the Grand Canal. He set a meal on the table with speed and efficiency, which impressed Laura as she sat down to Fontina cheese and San Daniele ham served with ripe red tomatoes and salad leaves.

‘This is perfect. Exactly what I need. Shopping is tiring, even here in Venice.’ She smiled at him gratefully as she buttered a roll. ‘I’m so grateful for your help, Domenico. You took me to places I wouldn’t have found on my own.’ And because of it she had spent far less money than expected.

‘I was happy to help,’ he assured her. ‘Would you like wine?’

‘Water, please. If I drink wine at this hour I’ll need another sleep, and it’s a sin to waste too much time in Venice in bed!’

‘Alone, certainly,’ he agreed, and laughed at her look. ‘Laura, per favore! Is that one small, sweet kiss to blame for such dark suspicion? I intend you no harm, I swear.’

‘Oh, I know that!’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘If you did the boss wouldn’t like it.’

He looked blank. ‘The boss?’

‘Lorenzo Forli!’

‘Ah, yes.’ He got up to take her plate. ‘Now, then, Miss Laura Green, I shall make coffee while you rest in the salotto.’

‘I could help wash the dishes,’ she offered, but he shook his head.

‘My machine will do that. I shall not be long.’

Laura was standing at one of the tall windows, looking down on the busy waterway, when Domenico came in with a tray. She turned to him with a smile. ‘What a priceless view!’

‘I am often told I would make much money if I rented my apartment to visitors.’

‘You don’t like the idea?’

He shook his head as he poured coffee. ‘I am constantly surrounded by people at the hotel, therefore I have much need of my private retreat when time allows. Which is not often enough, alas.’

Laura sat down and took the cup he offered her. ‘Domenico?’

‘Sì?’

‘Tell me to mind my own business, if you like, but I can’t help feeling curious. When we were discussing my love life—or lack of it—you kept pretty quiet about your own.’

‘Because it is embarrassing.’ He shrugged, and sat down beside her. ‘It is no secret. I was engaged to be married while still young, but my fidanzata changed her mind.’

‘How did you feel about that?’

‘Angry.’

Laura looked at him curiously. ‘Only angry?’

His face hardened. ‘A week before our wedding day Alessa ran away with my oldest friend.’

‘Oh, bad luck,’ she said with sympathy, and to her relief Domenico let out a crow of laughter.

‘That is so British!’ He shook his head. ‘My fidanzata deserts me for another man and all you can say is bad luck?’

‘What would you like me to say?’

‘You say, ‘‘Domenico, my heart bleeds for you’’,’ he said promptly. ‘Then you comfort me with many kisses.’

‘Oh, right—that’s going to happen!’

He smiled at her soulfully. ‘I wish so much that it would!’

‘When was this, by the way?’

‘Ten years ago.’

‘Then your heart can’t still be bleeding! Have you seen the lady since?’

‘Many times. Since her marriage Alessa has gained three children and several kilos in weight.’ Domenico gave her a wicked grin. ‘And I have received a little comfort from other ladies over the years to assuage my sorrow.’

‘I bet! Anyway, I thought you were angry, not sorrowful.’

He was suddenly serious. ‘Mario was my friend. He should have faced me with the truth instead of running away with Alessa like a criminal.’

‘Probably they both felt like criminals for hurting you.’

He shrugged. ‘Those hurt most were Alessa’s parents. They wanted the marriage very much.’

‘Because you were a good catch for their daughter?’

‘They know my family,’ he said simply, as though that explained it. ‘Alessa comes from a long line of aristocrats with very little money, and she has two younger sisters. As soon as Alessa left school she was pushed into marriage with someone suitable able to provide for her.’

‘Did you know she was being pushed?’

His mouth twisted. ‘Of course not. In my arrogance I believed she was madly in love with me. She was very sweet, very pretty. Not long after our first meeting we became engaged, and her parents arranged the wedding.’

‘Couldn’t they have gone through with it with a different bridegroom?’ asked Laura.

Domenico looked amused. ‘A practical idea, but not possible. Alessa and Mario were already married by the time they returned to Venice. Their first son was born seven months later,’ he added, shrugging.

‘Ah. But in that case surely you must have wondered if the child—’ She stopped dead. ‘Sorry! Forget I said that.’

His lashes came down like shutters. ‘The child could not have been mine. Alessa had insisted that we must be married before we made love.’

Laura’s eyes widened. ‘And you went along with that?’

He shrugged. ‘She was so young and shy and—I believed—inexperienced, that I respected her wish.’

‘Yet all the time she was sleeping with your best friend. No wonder you were angry.’ She eyed him curiously. ‘But this was a long time ago. And there must have been other women in your life since then.’

‘Of course. I am wary of marriage, not women.’ He waved a hand at the room. ‘I have this apartment, I enjoy my work, I travel, and in winter I indulge my passion for skiing. My life suits me very well.’

‘So does mine now,’ she told him. ‘Since the fiasco with Edward I’m keeping men out of my social life for a while. I get quite enough of them during the day. Part of my job involves collating reports to pass on to the likely lads on the trading floor at the bank, and to a man they believe they’re irresistible to women!’

Domenico smiled. ‘But not to you?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘You dislike them all?’

Laura shook her head. ‘Actually, I like some of them well enough. But if I said yes to so much as sharing a pizza with any one of them I’d be asking for trouble.’

He frowned. ‘You mean they would also expect to share your bed?’

‘From the way they talk, yes. So I say no. Behind my back,’ she added tartly, ‘they call me the Ice Maiden.’

Domenico nodded sagely. ‘And all of them burn to melt the ice!’

She gave a scornful sniff. ‘No chance of that.’

‘The proposal in the restaurant—this was recent?’

‘Very recent. I should have been on holiday in Tuscany with Edward this week, in a villa with some of his college friends and their partners. He sent my share of the cost back to me the day after the quarrel, so because I’d already arranged the time off my mother asked Fen to sort something out for me in Venice. If you work for the Forlis,’ she added, ‘maybe you know her. Lorenzo Forli is married to her sister Jess.’

‘I have met Fenella, yes,’ said Domenico. ‘What time shall we meet this evening, Laura?’

She looked at him steadily. ‘Are we doing something this evening?’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘I shall take you to a favourite restaurant of mine.’

Secretly delighted with the idea, Laura gave him a militant look. ‘I’d like that very much, but on one condition.’

‘That I do not kiss you,’ he said, resigned.

‘That I pay for the meal!’

Domenico held up his hands in laughing surrender, and gave her his phone number. ‘Now give me yours.’ And although Laura assured him she could find her way back alone, he insisted on walking back with her to the Locanda Verona. ‘Sleep for a while,’ he advised. ‘I shall call for you at seven-thirty.’ He speared her with a look of glittering blue command as he left her at the familiar bridge. ‘And this time I insist that you wait for me!’

Laura turned suddenly when she was halfway across. ‘Domenico! I forgot my shopping.’

He smiled indulgently. ‘Non importa. I shall bring it this evening. Ciao!’

Laura smiled her thanks and went into the hotel, her spirits high at the prospect of another evening with Domenico—her third in his company if she added the brief encounter at Florian’s. Her eyes narrowed as she went up to her room. Perhaps she was enjoying his company rather more than was sensible in the circumstances. Holiday romances rarely translated well into everyday life. Not that she could call this a romance, exactly, nor would this man ever be part of her life. Once she left Venice she would never see him again.

With this in mind Laura took longer to get ready than usual. While she was eyeing the limited choice in the wardrobe a flash of lightning preceded a clap of thunder, and she ran to close the open doors on the rain hammering down outside. Choice made, she thought irritably. It had to be the black dress again, but at least she could wear it with the white cotton trench coat packed for just this kind of emergency—very Audrey Hepburn, according to Fen.

Laura had been ready and waiting for several minutes before Domenico rang to say he was in the foyer. When she hurried down to meet him he gave her the now familiar double kiss of greeting and brandished a tall black umbrella.

‘You see, Laura? It is not always moonlight in Venice!’

‘And when it rains it certainly rains,’ she agreed.

In the doorway Domenico put up the umbrella, then with his usual ‘Permesso’ slid an arm round her waist. ‘If you wish to stay dry we must walk close together. Which makes me very happy,’ he added in her ear.

Laura chuckled, feeling quite happy about it herself. ‘Do we walk very far?’

‘No. The restaurant is so near I thought you would not mind a walk in the rain.’

Held close against Domenico, she didn’t mind at all. All too soon for Laura they entered an alley so narrow they had to keep very close together indeed before he ushered her into the large, luxurious interior of a restaurant divided into two parts, one very sleek and cosmopolitan, the other more rustic, with a stone fireplace and windows looking out onto a courtyard.

‘I thought you would prefer the room with the true Italian atmosphere,’ said Domenico as a waiter hurried to relieve him of Laura’s raincoat.

‘You were right, I do,’ she assured him, thanking her lucky stars as she took in her surroundings that she could rely on her credit card to pay the bill. Because whatever it cost she was going to pay for their meal.

‘It is not crowded yet as early as this,’ he told her, and looked at her in silence for a moment, something new in his eyes as they moved over her face.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘You glow tonight, Laura.’

‘You look pretty good yourself,’ she said, smiling.

‘Grazie!’ Domenico pushed the menus aside. ‘Allora, tonight the choice is simple if you like fish.’

‘I love it.’

‘Good. This restaurant is famous for its frittura mista dipesce, a platter of many varieties of fish,’ he added. ‘You will like it.’

He was right. But though the meal was delicious, and the surroundings elegant, Laura knew very well that most of her pleasure was down to the man who made it so flatteringly plain he delighted in her company.

‘It is hard to believe,’ he said, when they were drinking coffee, ‘that we have known each other so short a time. I wish that you could stay longer, Laura.’

‘So do I,’ she said regretfully, ‘but in three days I fly back to London, and so far I haven’t been inside the Basilica, visited the Guggenheim, taken a trip to Murano, or any of the things I was told were a must on holiday in Venice.’

‘We shall do that tomorrow.’

Laura’s eyes widened. ‘But what about your job?’

‘I have arranged a little holiday. Until your flight home my time is yours. But now,’ he added, a glint of steel in his eyes, ‘we come to the difficult moment. Laura, I am known here in Venice. I cannot allow a lady to pay for dinner. So I will settle the bill, per favore. If you must,’ he added as she opened her mouth to protest, ‘you can pay me in private later.’

‘Oh, very well,’ she said, resigned. ‘But just make sure you keep the bill for me.’

‘Of course I will,’ he said, looking injured. ‘Why do you not trust me, Laura?’

She smiled in sudden remorse. ‘I do trust you. I just can’t let you spend so much money on me.’

‘But it is customary for a man to do this when he asks a woman to dine with him. I cannot believe that this is different in London.’ Comprehension dawned in his eyes. ‘But of course! I am a fool. You think I will expect—’

‘No! I most certainly do not,’ she retorted, colouring.

‘You say it is the problem with the men who work in your bank,’ he pointed out.

‘You’re different.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘In what way? I am a man.’

‘I know that,’ she said, exasperated. ‘But it never occurred to me that you’d want—expect—’

‘I do not expect to make love to you,’ Domenico said very quietly, leaning nearer. ‘But I would lie if I said I did not want to.’ He signalled to the waiter for the bill, paid it, received Laura’s raincoat and held it for her, then escorted her outside into the narrow alley.

Nothing was said other than a ‘Permesso’ from Domenico as he put his arm round her under the umbrella, but once they left the narrow alley he halted, looking down into her face as the rain teemed down around them.