His father’s rejection of his mother had hurt her so deeply. He had seen it, witnessed it as a young teenager when he’d started to understand just how unhappy his mother had been made by his father’s constant infidelities. Yet she had not wanted to end the marriage either. Not just because she would not break up the family, but because, he had come to realise, his mother had constantly hoped that one day his father would turn away from all his other women and come back to the woman who’d loved him through thick and thin.
Instead, what had awaited his parents had not been some fairy-tale joyous reconciliation but a devastating plane crash, cutting short their lives.
He pulled his mind away from such painful memories, realising that Luc was speaking to him.
‘Talking of pregnancy, my old friend,’ he was saying, looking straight at Salvatore, his voice half-humorous, half-cautious, ‘you do realise that that was the suspicion Steph had about why you married so unexpectedly?’
‘Absolutely not!’ Salvatore refuted, tensing unconsciously.
He changed the subject decisively, to that of a recent football match, and Luc picked up the challenge for they supported opposing teams. With other sporting topics it served to take them through a long and convivial lunch.
Lana took a careful mouthful of her wine, conscious that she needed to be on her very best behaviour. She was lunching with the Duchessa in her private family apartments above the grandly magnificent piano nobile, where the charity fundraiser had been held.
The Duchessa was being very warm, very gracious, but she was also, Lana was aware, drawing her out. Thankfully, she seemed to accept at face level the fact that she and Salvatore had had a whirlwind romance and had acted on impulse, and there were no regrets.
‘I am glad to hear it.’ The Duchessa smiled. She looked directly at Lana. ‘You are aware that Salvatore’s parents were killed very tragically in a plane crash?’
Lana nodded. ‘Yes, he has told me,’ she said quietly. She took a low breath. ‘Mine, too, were killed. In a car crash—’
‘Ah,’ said the Duchessa, and her eyes rested on Lana—she could almost feel it. A beringed hand was pressed lightly on hers in a sympathetic gesture. ‘That is a bond between you indeed.’
Was it? Lana wondered. Her loss had driven her into the arms of Malcolm—an unwise reaction to the emptiness of her life. But her life was not empty any more. She had Salvatore—
She swallowed, her throat tight suddenly.
I’ve got him for a year, that’s all. No more than that.
The Duchessa’s hand was lifting from hers, and she was speaking again.
‘Salvatore’s mother was my goddaughter,’ she was saying. ‘She was very unhappy in her marriage.’
‘He...he told me as much,’ Lana replied.
‘Yes. I’ve often thought that it was his father’s philandering that made Salvatore avoid marriage,’ the Duchessa mused. ‘Because he did not want to risk discovering he was no better than his father.’ Her voice changed. ‘Which is why I am so glad that he has overcome that reluctance—thanks to you.’
Lana stayed silent. What could she say? She wished the Duchessa would stop talking about such things. They were really nothing to do with her. Discomfort filled her—both at the fact that she was being treated as though she were Salvatore’s wife for real, and because it only emphasised to her that she was not.
I’m just his lover—his current lover.
Emotion twisted inside her. Though it should not.
I’ve known from the start how temporary our time is together.
He had been straight with her right from the off. Straight about the reasons he wanted them to marry and about when their marriage would end. Straight, too, about his desire for her. He had not deceived her in anything.
Malcolm had deceived her from the start—had had a malevolent hidden agenda up his thieving sleeve.
Salvatore’s honesty set him totally apart from Malcolm. He was a far more worthwhile human being. One it would be very easy to come to feel more for than what held them to each other now merited...
She shied away from the thought—it was not a safe place for her mind to go.
What she had with Salvatore now was all she would ever have. She knew that—accepted it.
Because I must. Because his honesty from the start has spelled out all that we can ever be to each other. He’s never pretended otherwise. I must be glad of that.
And yet gladness, suddenly, was not what she felt at all...
‘You look troubled, my dear...’