She glanced up, and found him watching her with a frown.
‘Why are you frowning?’ she asked, and his mouth kicked up a fraction in one corner, the frown ironed out with a deliberate effort.
‘No reason. How’s your head now?’
She shrugged. ‘OK. It just feels as if I fell over my feet and spent the day hanging about in a hospital.’ It was rather worse than that, but he didn’t need to know about every ache and pain. The list was endless.
She reached out and covered his hand. ‘Massimo, I’m all right,’ she said softly, and the little frown came back.
‘Sorry. It’s just a reflex. I look after people—it’s part of my job description. Everyone comes to me with their problems.’
She smiled at him, remembering her conversation with Francesca.
‘I’m sorry I kept your father away from you for so long. He’s been so kind and helpful.’
‘He is. He helps everybody.’
‘You’re just a fixer, aren’t you? You fix everything for everybody all the time, and you hate it when things can’t be fixed.’
His frown deepened for a moment, and then he gave a wry laugh and pulled his hand away, swirling the wine in her glass before draining it. ‘Is it so obvious?’
She felt her lips twitch. ‘Only if you’re on the receiving end. Don’t get me wrong, I’m massively grateful and just so sorry I’ve dragged you into this awful mess and upset everyone. I’m more than happy you’re a fixer, because goodness only knows I seemed to need one today. I think I need a guardian angel, actually. I just have such a gift for getting into a mess and dragging everybody with me.’
She broke off, and he tipped his head on one side and that little crease between his eyebrows returned fleetingly. ‘A gift?’
She sighed. ‘Jen’s accident was sort of my fault.’
He sat back, his eyes searching hers. ‘Tell me,’ he said softly, so she did.
She told him about Russell, about their trip to her parents’ farm for the weekend, because Jen and Andy were going to be there as well and she hadn’t seen them for a while. And she’d shown him the farm, and he’d seen the quad bike, and suggested they went out on it so she could show him all the fields.
‘I didn’t want to go with him. He was a crazy driver, and I knew he’d want to go too fast, so I said no, but then Jen offered to show him round. She wanted to get him alone, to threaten him with death if he hurt me, but he hurt her instead. He went far too fast, and she told him to stop but he thought she was just being chicken and she wasn’t, she knew about the fallen tree hidden in the long grass, and then they hit it and the quad bike cartwheeled through the air and landed on her.’
He winced and closed his eyes briefly. ‘And she ended up in a wheelchair?’
‘Not for a few weeks. She had a fractured spine, and she was in a special bed for a while. It wasn’t displaced, the spinal cord wasn’t severed but it was badly bruised and it took a long time to recover and for the bones to heal. She’s getting better now, she’s starting to walk again, but she lost her job and so did Andy, so he could look after her. He took away everything from them, and if I’d gone with him, if it had been me, then I might have been able to stop him.’
‘You really think so? He sounds like an idiot.’
‘He is an idiot,’ she said tiredly. ‘He’s an idiot, and he was my boss, so I lost my job, too.’
‘He sacked you?’
She gave him a withering look. ‘I walked … and then his business folded without me, and he threatened to sue me if I didn’t go back. I told him to take a flying hike.’
‘What business was he in?’
‘He had a restaurant. I was his chef.’
Hence the tidy kitchen, he realised. She was used to working in a kitchen, used to bringing order to chaos, used to the utensils and the work space and the arrangement of them that always to him defied logic. And his restaurant had folded without her?
‘You told me you were a cook,’ he rebuked her mildly. ‘I didn’t realise you were a chef.’
She quirked an eyebrow at him mockingly. ‘You told me you were a farmer and you live in a flipping fortress! I think that trumps it,’ she said drily, and he laughed and lifted his glass to her.
‘Touché,’ he said softly, and her heart turned over at the wry warmth in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on. ‘Sorry about this man who clearly didn’t deserve you, sorry about your sister, sorry about your job. What a mess. And all because he was a fool.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Tell me more about him.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like why your sister felt she needed to warn him not to hurt you. Had you been hurt before?’
‘No, but she didn’t really like him. He wasn’t always a nice man, and he took advantage of me—made me work ridiculous hours, treated me like a servant at times and yet he could be a charmer, too. He was happy enough to talk me into his bed once he realised I was a good chef—sorry, you really didn’t need to know that.’
He smiled slightly. ‘Maybe you needed to say it,’ he suggested, and her laugh was a little brittle.
‘There are so many things I could tell you about him. I said I was a lousy judge of character. I think he had a lot in common with Nico, perhaps.’
He frowned. ‘Nico?’
‘The guy at the airport?’
‘Yes, I know who you mean. In what way? Was he a drinker?’
‘Yes. Definitely. But not just a drinker. He was a nasty drunk, especially towards the end of our relationship. He seemed to change. Got arrogant. He used to be quite charming at first, but it was just a front. He—well, let’s just say he didn’t respect women either.’
His mouth tightened. ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to tolerate that.’
‘No, I shouldn’t. So—tell me about your house,’ she said, changing the subject to give them both a bit of a break. She reached out and tore off another strip of bread, dunking it in the oil that she couldn’t get enough of, and looked up to see a strange look on his face. Almost—tender?
Nonsense. She was being silly. ‘Well, come on, then,’ she mumbled round the bread, and he smiled, the strange look disappearing as if she’d imagined it.
‘It’s very old. We’re not sure of the origins. It seems it might have been a Medici villa, but the history is a little cloudy. It was built at the time of the Florentine invasion.’
‘So how come your family ended up with it?’
His mouth twitched. ‘One of our ancestors took possession of it at the end of the seventeenth century.’
That made her laugh. ‘Took possession?’
The twitch again, and a wicked twinkle in his eye. ‘We’re not quite sure how he acquired it, but it’s been in the family ever since. He’s the one who renamed the villa Palazzo Valtieri.’
Palazzo? She nearly laughed at that. Not just a fortress, then, but a proper, full-on palace. Oh, boy.
‘I’ll show you round it tomorrow. It’s beautiful. Some of the frescoes