“I noticed.” Maybe it was the weight loss that had affected her behavior and made her seem less than her herself. The way she’d brushed him off had stung.
“Bianca, too. You remember her sister.”
“Very well.” She was a year younger than Clara and almost as sweet. Too bad he couldn’t say the same about Clara’s twin brother, Silvio. The Casalis and the Rossettis had attended the same schools, but from the beginning Silvio had taken a distinct dislike to Valentino.
By high school he’d become Clara’s self-appointed guardian, doing his best to keep her away from Valentino, always reminding her she was needed back at the farm. Though it had never come to an actual fight, they’d exchanged heated words on occasion when Valentino had stood up for Clara.
“Rumour has it that Clara has been seeing one of the Romaggio brothers from the valley.”
So that was the reason she’d seemed changed. “Which one?”
“I think it’s Leandro, the really good-looking one who has his own vegetable farm now. Apparently Clara is the envy of all the girls around here.”
Izzy had to be kidding—Leandro was the one with more brawn than brains. Valentino had known the Romaggios in school. Clara had an intellect that could run circles around any of the guys. He wasn’t her type at all!
For some reason the news made Valentino restless. “Thanks for backing me up in my ideas. Now I’ve got to go. I left Monaco early this morning and fatigue has caught up with me.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I need to go back inside, too. The staff will be wondering where I am.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He kissed her cheek before wheeling around to make his own way through the ancient town and up the hillside to the villa.
Valentino hadn’t been completely honest with Isabella. After being up since five that morning to drive to Italy, he would normally be tired and wanting his bed. But the old saying that you couldn’t go home again seemed to be in operation here. Meeting up with a changed Clara had disturbed him and he found himself wide awake.
Once he reached his destination, he let himself in the villa originally built in the 1800s by a member of Prince Maximilliano Di Rossi’s family for a summer getaway. Because of his love for Izzy, Max had made the villa available to Valentino, who had insisted on paying him rent. He didn’t like owing anyone for favors. With no strings attached, he could move about freely in his world.
The villa was much smaller but no different in style from Valentino’s home in Monaco. Both had been built around the same period of time and contained similar furnishings. The only real difference besides size was the view. It looked out on the picturesque countryside rather than the Mediterranean.
At the sound of his footsteps echoing throughout the interior, Valentino realized that without warm bodies inhabiting this domicile it was nothing more than an empty tomb. Valentino wasn’t used to the peace and quiet. He didn’t know if he could stand being here for even a month. Already he was climbing the walls.
He had thought about asking his latest companion, Yvette, to come and bring her friends, and knew she would be here in an instant. But he couldn’t do that because then she would read more into his invitation than he meant. Like the other women he’d been with over the years, her hints about settling down weren’t so subtle and the last thing Valentino could imagine doing was giving up his freedom.
His thoughts jumped to his father, who’d been married twice. Though divorced from his first wife, he would probably still be with Valentino’s mother if she were alive. Valentino wasn’t like him. He enjoyed taking risks, but not when it came to women.
Though he knew nothing about his birthfather, he suspected that, since he hadn’t shown a fathering instinct where Valentino had been concerned, he’d probably never married either.
At a totally loose end, Valentino headed to the kitchen for a beer. He phoned Roger, his longtime friend at the track. They talked shop for half an hour, then he checked in with Claude, the manager of his bike company in Monaco. Following that, he took a hot shower and got ready for bed.
To his irritation, his scattered thoughts returned to Clara. Throughout his years growing up in Monta Correnti, she’d been the only female constant besides his sister. He couldn’t help but wonder how close she was to settling down. For the hell of it, maybe he’d take the time to find out tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWO
WHILE Clara was getting dressed in jeans and a pink cotton top with three-quarter sleeves, Bianca, who was barely pregnant again, walked in the bedroom carrying her six-month-old boy. “Mamma wants to know how you’re feeling this morning.”
“I’m fine,” Clara murmured as she slipped into her sandals. “How’s my little Paolito today?” The little boy was old enough now that when she gave him kisses on his tummy, he laughed out loud. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” She kissed his tender neck.
“He loves his zia more.”
Together they walked down the hall of the small stone farmhouse to the kitchen where the family ate all their meals. It used to bulge at the seams, but these days it was home to Clara, her parents and grandmother on her mother’s side who lived on the main floor. Because of a stroke, the ninety-one-year-old woman was in a wheelchair. Bianca and Silvio lived upstairs with their spouses and children.
The other married siblings and extended family lived in homes on the outskirts of Monta Correnti. Now when they gathered for meals three times a day, there were only twelve at their noisy table.
Her father cast her an anxious glance. “Ah, good. You’re up.”
Clara kissed him on top of his balding head. “I’m up and hungry.” She turned to her mother, who waited on everyone. “I’ll get my own breakfast. Sit down, Mamma. You work too hard.”
“No, no. You must preserve your strength.”
“I have plenty of strength this morning.”
“That’s good to hear. Now you sit and eat!”
“Yes, Mamacita.” She took her place across from Silvio, smiling secretly at his three children aged seven, five and three who giggled to hear their nonna get mad at her.
Silvio’s pregnant wife, Maria, darted her a friendly glance. “You look better this morning.”
“I feel good enough to run the stand today.” She drank the freshly squeezed orange juice waiting for her.
“Absolutely not!” Silvio barked, so overprotective of her these days she felt smothered.
“Do you think you should?” her anxious mother questioned as she put the hot omelet in front of her. Her devoted mother who did the work of a dozen people went out of her way to make certain she was well fed.
“Of course I do. Thank you, Mamma.”
“Are you telling us the truth?”
“If I weren’t, I would stay in bed.” Clara was getting desperate and wanted to scream, but only because everyone was so good to her and worried about her continually. More than anything she hated being a burden, yet within the last three months that was what she’d become to her hard-working family.
“So you really feel up to it?” Her father stared hard at her.
“Sì, Papa,” she answered in a controlled voice. “Some days I wake up feeling worse than others. Right now I feel good and want to do my part around here on the days when I can.”
His eyes grew suspiciously bright before he nodded. “Then it’s settled.”
Grazie, she murmured inwardly, but Silvio set his mug of coffee down too hard, telling everyone his opinion. He was the sibling who stifled her most