Swept Away!

‘Oh, my dear, I’m sure your friend will understand.’

‘He may, I won’t,’ Ferne said firmly. ‘Dante and I are together.’

‘So loyal,’ Sandor cooed in a voice that made Ferne want to kick him in a painful place. ‘Signor Rinucci, you’re invited too, of course.’

‘How kind!’ Dante said in a voice that revealed nothing. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

Ferne turned horrified eyes on him. ‘Dante, you don’t mean that?’ she muttered.

‘Of course I do. Getting really acquainted with the place may help me with the sale.’

‘How? You’ve never needed it before.’

‘Well, perhaps I have my own reasons this time,’ he said, his eyes glinting.

Sandor didn’t hear this exchange. Champagne had arrived and he turned to lift two glasses, one of which he handed to Ferne, saying, ‘It’s all settled, then. Here’s to our reunion!’

A young girl detached herself from the swooning crowd on the beach and asked him for an autograph, handing him her lipstick so that he could write his name on her back. Beaming, he obliged, then gave Ferne a questioning look.

‘No camera today? Not like you.’

‘I left it in the hotel.’

‘You? The lady who never moves without her camera? Well, well.’

His look was heavily significant, clearly meant to recall the last time she had turned her camera on him. She faced him back, her eyes full of anger.

Dante watched them and said nothing.

Having established the scene, Sandor didn’t linger over the champagne. Indicating the crowd, he said modestly, ‘You see how it is—wherever I go. I’ll leave now, and see you at the villa this evening.’

He strode away, pursued by adoring fans, plus Gino.

‘So that’s him,’ Dante said. ‘He’s exactly as you said, except worse.’

‘I don’t know what’s going on here,’ she said wildly. ‘When we last met, he couldn’t find words bad enough for me.’

‘But that was three months ago, and he did pretty well out of it. He’s a bigger star now than he was before, thanks to you. So clearly he wants to shower you with his favours. Tonight you’ll be his honoured companion.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’ she asked stormily. ‘Do you think that’s what I want?’

He gave a strange smile. ‘Let’s say I’m interested to find out. I didn’t mean to offend you. Let’s get going.’

It was late afternoon when they reached the Palazzo Tirelli, a magnificent edifice. Grander still were the ruins that lay nearby, dating back nearly two-thousand years. Ferne could just make out a film crew looking them over, making notes, rehearsing shots.

Gino came to meet them and show them over the place with its long, wide corridors and stone arches. In every room he was able to describe some notable historical episode, which sounded impressive until she saw Dante shaking his head.

Their rooms turned out to be on different corridors, the only ones left, according to Gino. His manner was awkward, and Ferne guessed he was acting on instruction.

At supper she was seated next to Sandor, with Dante on the opposite side of the table several feet down. There were about fifty people at the long table, most of them film crew and actors. Everyone was dressed up to the nines, making her glad she’d chosen the softly glamorous dress of honey-coloured satin that paid tribute to her curves, yet whose neckline was high enough to be tantalising.

‘Beautiful,’ Sandor murmured. ‘But why aren’t you wearing that gold necklace I gave you? It would go perfectly with that dress.’

‘I’m afraid I’d forgotten it,’ she said.

His self-assured smile made her want to thump him. She glanced down the table to see how Dante was taking it, but he wasn’t looking at her.

He was having a good evening. Dinner jacket and bow-tie suited him, as the ladies nearby made clear. Ferne would have signalled her admiration if she’d been able to catch his eye, but he seemed happy with the full-bosomed creature who was laughing so uproariously at his jokes, that her attractions wobbled violently in a way that Ferne thought extremely inappropriate.

For a moment, she was nostalgic for Dante’s jokes; sharing laughter with a man brought a special closeness. It was something she’d never known with Sandor, and it meant that she was always on Dante’s wavelength, always inhabiting his world, even when they were bickering. In fact, the very bickering was a sign of that closeness, because they could always trust each other to understand.

As Dante had predicted, Sandor treated her as his honoured guest.

‘I owe you so much, Ferne. If it hadn’t been for what you did for me, I’d never have got the next step up.’

‘That’s not what you said at the time,’ she observed wryly.

‘I didn’t appreciate your skill in turning a difficult situation into something that would benefit me.’

She stared at him, wondering how she’d ever taken this conceited booby seriously.

‘Sandor, what are you after?’ she demanded.

He regarded her soulfully. ‘Destiny works in mysterious ways. We were fated to meet on that beach. Everyone was staggered by those pictures you took of me. Between us, we produced something of genius, and I think we could be geniuses again.’

She stared at him in outrage. ‘You want me to…?’

‘Take some more, as only you can. We’ll go out to the ruins, and you tell me exactly how you want me to pose. I’ve been working out in the gym.’

‘And I’m sure you’re as fit and perfect as ever.’

‘What did you think when you saw me today?’ he asked eagerly.

It would have been impossible to tell him the truth, which was that he had seemed ‘too much’, because her ideal was now Dante’s lithe frame.

To her relief, the maid appeared to change the plates for the next course. For the rest of the meal she concentrated on the elderly woman on her other side.

Afterwards the great doors were opened onto the garden, where coloured lights hung between the trees. People began to drift out to stroll beneath the moon. Sandor drew Ferne’s arm through his.

The crowd congregated near the ruins, where blazing lights had been switched on, illuminating them up to the sky. The director, an amiable man called Rab Beswick, hailed Sandor.

‘I like this place more every time I see it,’ he said. ‘Just think what we can make of these…’ He indicated several walls, some of which stood at right angles to each other with connecting balconies.

‘Just the right place to make a speech,’ came a voice behind them.

It was Dante, appearing from nowhere.

‘Antony was known for his ability to make the right speech at the right time,’ he said. ‘And his genius for picking the place that would be most effective.’

The director looked at him with awe.

‘Hey, you’re Italian,’ he said, as though nothing could be stranger than finding an Italian in Italy. ‘Are you an expert about this?’

‘I’ve made a particular study of Marc Antony,’ Dante said.

‘Well, I’d be glad of anything you could tell me.’

‘Let’s not get carried away,’ Sandor interrupted peevishly. ‘This film isn’t meant to be an historical treatise.’

‘Certainly not,’ Dante said suavely. ‘Its selling point will be the personal charms of Signor Jayley.’

From somewhere there was a smothered choke. Sandor turned furious eyes in a vain attempt to detect who was making fun of him. Unable to locate a suspect, he turned back to Dante.

Which was what Dante had intended, Ferne thought. Whatever was he up to?

‘Height is always effective,’ Dante continued smoothly. ‘If Antony was to make a great speech up there, silhouetted against the sky—’

‘That’s not in the script,’ Sandor said at once.

‘But it could be written in,’ Dante pointed out. ‘I’m not, of course, suggesting that you yourself should go up there. That would be far too dangerous, and naturally the film company won’t want to risk their star. A double could be used for the long shot.’

Sandor relaxed.

‘But it could look something like this…’ Dante finished.

Before anyone realised what he was doing, he slipped out of sight, and a moment later reappeared on one of the balconies.

‘You see?’ he called down. ‘What a shot this would make!’

‘Great!’ the director called up.

Ferne had to admit that Dante looked magnificent, standing high up, bathed in glittering spotlight. She only prayed that the balcony was strong enough to hold him and wouldn’t start crumbling.

This time she really wished that she’d brought her camera, but one of the production staff had his and was snapping away madly. Sandor was livid, she was fascinated to notice.

‘Come on down and we’ll talk about it,’ Rab called. ‘Hey, be careful.’ Dante was hopping down like a monkey, ending with a long leap to the floor, where he finished with a flourish.

‘You’re right, that’s a great shot. You’ll help us work on it, won’t you?’

‘Sure thing,’ Dante said. ‘I can show Mr Jayley how to—’

‘It’s getting late,’ Sandor said hastily. ‘We should be going inside.’

‘Yes, let’s go and look at the pictures,’ Rab said eagerly. ‘Come on, everyone.’

As the rest of them drifted away, Ferne murmured to Dante, ‘What did you do that for?’

‘You know exactly what I did it for,’ he murmured back. ‘I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for ages. He’s ready to kill me.’

His whole being was flooded with brilliance, as though he’d reached out, taken life by the hand and was loving every moment.

‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to repeat a trick?’ she asked severely. ‘Just because you climbed up into that building the other week, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it. You were just showing off.’

He grinned, and her heart turned over. ‘You won’t insult me by calling me a show-off. Too many have said it before you. As for repeating the trick? Sure, it was the memory of the fire that gave me the idea. It was actually a lot easier to get up there than it looks, but your lover wouldn’t have tried it if you’d offered him an Oscar.’

‘He is not my lover.’

‘He wants to be.’

‘Come on,’ someone yelled from the retreating crowd. ‘They’re going to show the pictures.’

She would have argued further, but he slipped his arm about her, urging her forward irresistibly until they reached the villa, where someone had linked up the camera to a computer and had projected the pictures onto a screen.

There was Dante, high up, splendid, laughing down at them. Whether his triumph lay in making the climb, or in making Sandor look absurd and diminished, only Ferne knew. One thing she was sure of—he’d done it in style.

She looked around for Sandor, wondering how he was taking this.

‘He retired,’ Gino explained. ‘He’s had a long day.’

Translation: he’s sulking like a spoilt child, Ferne thought. Dante had hit the bull’s eye.

Dante himself seemed oblivious to his success. He was deep in conversation with Rab, and by now Ferne was sufficiently in tune with his mind to recognise that this was another move in the game. He wouldn’t say anything in front of an audience. But later…

‘I’ve had a long day too,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’

She slipped away and hurried up to her room. Sooner or later there was going to be a visitor, and she wanted to be ready.

First she needed a shower to wash the day off her. She turned it on as hard as she could and stood there, head back, arms wide, just letting it happen. It felt good.

She could have laughed aloud when she thought of how Dante had achieved his revenge—an Italian revenge—not violent, but skilled; a lithe, dancing movement, a quick thrust of the stiletto, unseen by anyone but his adversary, who had slunk away, humiliated.

Now she realised that she ought to have feared for Dante’s safety when he’d been up high, but she hadn’t, because she was under the spell he cast. And she was still under his spell, she thought happily.

She finished under the shower, pulled a robe around her and stepped out into the bedroom. But what she found there made her stop sharply.

‘Sandor!’

He was leaning against the door, his arms folded, a look of happy expectation on his face. He’d removed his shirt so that his magnificent chest was presented for her approval in all its naked perfection, smooth, muscular, evenly tanned.

‘What are you doing here?’ She sighed.

‘Oh, come on, sweetie. We both knew this was going to happen.’

‘Tommy, I swear, if you try to touch me I’ll thump you so hard you’ll see stars.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Don’t tell me what I mean. I’m warning you.’

He laughed and sauntered easily over to her, the king claiming his rights.

‘I think I might just put that to the test—Aargh!’

He yelped as her hand struck his face.

‘You bitch!’ he wailed. ‘I could get a swollen lip.’

She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak there was a knock on her door. She darted to open it and found Dante standing there. He was wearing dark-blue pyjamas, and his face had an innocent look that filled her with suspicion almost as great as her relief.

‘I’m so sorry to trouble you,’ he said, ‘but there’s no soap in my bathroom and I wondered if you’d mind—Oh dear, am I disturbing something?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Ferne said. ‘Mr Jayley was just going.’

Dante regarded Sandor with apparent surprise, seeming not to have noticed him before, but Ferne wasn’t fooled. He knew exactly what he was doing. In his own way, he was as much of an actor as Sandor, but a more subtle one.

‘Good evening,’ he said politely. ‘Oh dear, you seem to have suffered an injury. You’re going to have a nasty swollen lip.’

‘Eh!’ Sandor yelped. He tried to make for the bathroom, but Dante was blocking his way so that he was forced to turn away and retreat from the room altogether, slamming the door behind him.

‘That should keep him occupied,’ Dante said with satisfaction.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘BUT how did you know? I didn’t hit him that hard. He didn’t have a swollen lip.’

‘No, but he was afraid of it. I was just outside the door and I heard everything.’

‘And was it coincidence that you were there?’

‘Certainly not. I was lurking in the corridor. When I saw him go in, I listened. After all, you might have welcomed him.’

‘And then you’d have just gone away, I suppose?’ she said sardonically.

Slowly Dante shook his head, and there was something in his eyes she’d never seen before.

‘No way. If you’d welcomed him, I’d have come in and thumped him myself a lot harder than you did. But there was no need. You dealt with him very efficiently—I’m glad to say,’ he added softly.

‘You didn’t really think I wanted him, did you?’

He made a wry face. ‘I hoped not, but I needed to know. When I saw how easily he entered, I did wonder.’

‘I was in the bathroom, or he’d never have got in.’

‘Are you really over him?’

‘Of course I am. I just wish we’d never come here.’

‘You were a big hit at dinner.’

‘You weren’t doing so badly yourself,’ she flung at him.

‘Just passing the time, keeping an eye on you, making sure you didn’t misbehave. I had to know how you feel about him. It mattered.’

‘And now you know.’ She met his gaze, silently urging him on.

But the man who’d dismissed his enemy with a master stroke suddenly seemed to lose confidence.

‘What happens now?’ he said. ‘It must be your decision. Do you want me to go?’

‘I don’t know what I want,’ she said distractedly. It was almost true.

‘Ferne.’ His voice was quiet and suddenly serious. ‘If you don’t know, neither of us knows.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Fair?’ His voice was edgy. ‘You stand there half-naked, doing heaven knows what to me, and I’m being unfair?’

The towel robe had opened just enough to show her breasts, firm and glowing with the need she could no longer hide. While she hesitated, he took the edges of the material and drew them apart, revealing the rest of her nakedness.

‘That is being unfair,’ he said in a shaking voice.

She couldn’t move. Her whole being seemed to be concentrated on him, on his touch and the thought of where it would alight next. The feeling was so intense that it was as though he was already caressing her everywhere. It was almost a shock when he laid his fingers lightly at the base of her throat, leaving them there, seeming to wait for something.

She drew a long breath. None of Sandor’s dramatic caresses had affected her one tenth as much as Dante’s patience.

‘Tell me,’ he said softly.

‘Tell you…?’

‘Tell me what to do. Ferne, for pity’s sake, if you want me to stop say so now, because I don’t have that much control left.’

Her smile was deliberately provocative. ‘Perhaps a man can have too much control. Maybe he even talks too mu—’

Her words were silenced by his mouth on hers. It was too late now, past the point of no return. Her own kiss was as fervent as his, speaking of desire held in too long, of frustration released in giddy, headlong joy.

While he kissed he was pulling at the robe until it fell to the floor and there was no barrier to his hands caressing her everywhere, setting off tremors that shocked her with their intensity. She managed to return the compliment, ripping away at his clothes until he was as naked as she.

Neither of them knew who made the first move to the bed. It didn’t matter. They were running down the same road, seeking the same triumphant destination.

She had anticipated his skill, but her imagination had fallen far short of the reality. He made love as he did the quick-step, unfailingly knowing the right touch, the right movement, always in perfect understanding with his partner. Her body felt as though it had been made for this moment, this loving, this man, and only this man.

At the last moment he hesitated, looking down into her face as though seeking one final reassurance. By now her breathing was coming fast, and any delay was intolerable. She wanted him and she wanted him now.

‘Dante,’ she whispered urgently.

He gave a quick sigh of satisfaction, hearing something in her voice that he’d needed to know, and the next moment he was inside her, glorying in being part of her.

After he looked different. The teasing clown who enchanted her was also the lover who instinctively knew the secrets of her body and used them for his purpose in a way that was almost ruthless. He’d known what he wanted and been determined to have it, but what he’d wanted was her joyful satisfaction. Now he had it, which meant he knew his power over her, but she had no fears about that power. She trusted him too much for that.

She wondered if she looked different to him too. Then she caught the faint bewilderment in his eyes and knew that she did. That delighted her, and it was she who moved towards him for their second loving, caressing him in ways that had never occurred to her before, because he was like no other man. He laughed and settled himself against her, implicitly inviting her to do whatever she liked, an invitation she accepted with vigour.

Later, when they had recovered, he propped himself on his elbow, looking down at her lying beneath him with a mixture of triumph and delight.

‘What took us so long?’ he whispered.

How could she give him an honest answer when she was only just now facing the truth in her own heart?

It took time because I’ve been holding back, fearful of having too many feelings for you. I knew if I got too close I was in danger of loving you, and I don’t want to. To love you is to risk heartbreak, and I don’t have the courage. Even though—even though it may already be too late. Too late for me? Too late for you?

There was no way to say that.

She just opened her arms and drew him in so she could enfold him protectively until they fell asleep in the same moment.

As the first touch of dawn came into the room, Dante rose from the bed, careful not to waken her, and went to stand by the window. From here he could see the sun rising behind the ruins, casting its promise over the new day.

A new day. It was a feeling he’d thought he would never know. The circumstances of his life had bred in him a wary detachment, making it easier to stand back, observe himself wryly, often cynically, and sometimes with a melancholy that he fought with laughter.

But this morning the melancholy had lifted. Detachment was gone, leaving him at peace.

Peace: the very last quality he associated with Ferne. She teased him, haunted him, jeered and provoked him. Sometimes he wondered if she’d known how she tempted him, but then he would see the look in her eye—assessing, challenging, taking him to the next stage of the game they were playing.

The game was called ‘who will blink first?’ She’d played it with consummate skill, enticing him into indiscretions like buying her a bikini. That had shown his hand too obviously, and she’d played on it, luring him to the edge, closer to the moment when he’d had to abandon the control that ruled his life.

The luck of the devil had been on her side. Nobody could have predicted the arrival of Sandor and the fierce jealousy that had stormed through Dante. Seeing them together on the beach, Sandor’s hands actually touching her body—the one he thought of as his own personal possession—he’d come close to committing murder.

She’d tried to refuse the invitation to stay here, but why? A demon had whispered in his ear that she was afraid to be in Sandor’s company lest the old attraction overwhelm her. He’d insisted on accepting, driven by the need to see more of them together and know what he was up against.

It had been no satisfaction that so many lures had been cast out to him last night. There were at least three bedrooms at which he could have presented himself, sure of a welcome. Instead he’d haunted her door until inevitably Sandor had appeared, bare-chested, for seduction, and entered without knocking.

The moment when he’d heard her slap the man’s face had felt like the beginning of his life.

It meant that in the game they were playing she’d won and he’d lost. Or possibly the other way around. Whatever! He couldn’t have been happier.

He returned to the bed, sitting down carefully so as not to disturb her. He wanted to watch her like this, relaxed and content, breathing almost without making a sound. A wisp of hair had fallen over her face and he brushed it back softly. Somehow his hand stayed, stroking her face.

Her lips moved in a smile, telling him that she was awake. The smile turned into a chuckle and she opened her eyes to find him looking directly into them.

‘Good morning,’ he whispered, settling beside her and drawing her close.

No passion now, just her head on his shoulder in blissful content, body curled against body, and the sense of having come home to each other.

‘Good morning,’ she murmured.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Mmm!’ She hid her face against him.

‘Me too,’ he agreed. ‘Very much all right.’

After a while she opened her eyes again to find him sunk in thought.

‘What are we going to do now?’ he wondered.

‘Leave this place behind,’ she said at once. ‘Sandor will throw us out anyway.’

‘A pity. Part of me wants to stay around for a while just to poke him in the eye. He had his turn making me jealous. Now it’s my turn to pay him back.’

‘Jealous? You?’

‘Don’t play the innocent. You knew exactly what you were doing to me. You loved seeing me on hot coals.’

‘I’ll admit it had its entertaining moments,’ she mused. ‘But that was because you were trying to play hard to get. Not always successfully, mind you, but you tried.’

‘Of course,’ he said, sounding shocked. ‘Don’t forget that I promised “just friendly”, and a gentleman always keeps his word.’