‘No, I grew up in Rome. Vallombrosa was our holiday home.’
‘And?’ she prompted.
‘And it had been in my mother’s family for generations. We used it to escape the summer heat of the city. She and I used to come here for the entire vacation and my father would travel down at weekends.’
Darcy nodded because she knew that, like her, he was an only child and that both his parents were dead. And that was pretty much all she knew.
She circled a finger over the hardness of his flat belly. ‘So what did you do when you were here?’
He pushed her hand in the direction of his groin. ‘My father taught me to hunt and to fish, while my mother socialised and entertained. Sometimes friends came to visit and my mother’s school friend Mariella always seemed to be a constant fixture. We were happy, or so I thought.’
Darcy held her breath as something dark and steely entered his voice. ‘But you weren’t?’
‘No. We weren’t.’ He turned his head to look at her, a hard expression suddenly distorting his features. ‘Haven’t you realised by now that so few people are?’
‘I guess,’ she said stiffly. But she’d thought...
What? That other people were strangers to the pain she’d suffered? That someone as successful and as powerful as Renzo had never known emotional deprivation? Was that why he was so distant sometimes—so shuttered and cold? ‘Did something happen?’
‘You could say that. They got divorced when I was seven.’
‘And was it...acrimonious?’
He shot her an unfathomable look. ‘Aren’t all divorces acrimonious?’
She shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘Especially when you discover that your mother’s best “friend” has been having an affair with your father for years,’ he added, his voice bitter. ‘It makes you realise that when the chips are down, women can never be trusted.’
Darcy chewed on her lip. ‘So what happened?’
‘After the divorce, my father married his mistress but my mother never really recovered. It was a double betrayal and her only weapon was me.’
‘Weapon?’ she echoed.
He nodded. ‘She did everything in her power to keep my father out of my life. She was depressed.’ His jaw tightened. ‘And believe me, there isn’t much a child can do if his mother is depressed. He is—quite literally—helpless. I used to sit in the corner of the room, quietly making houses out of little plastic bricks while she sobbed her heart out and raged against the world. By the end of that first summer, I’d constructed an entire city.’
She nodded in sudden understanding. Had his need to control been born out of that helplessness? Had the tiny plastic city he’d made been the beginnings of his brilliant architectural career? ‘Oh, Renzo—that’s...terrible,’ she said.
He curled his fingers over one breast. ‘What an innocent you are, Darcy,’ he observed softly.
Darcy felt guilt wash over her. He thought she was a goody-goody because she suspected he was one of those men who divided women into two types—Madonna or whore. Her virginity had guaranteed her Madonna status but it wasn’t that simple and if he knew why she had kept herself pure he would be shocked. Married men having affairs was hardly ground-breaking stuff, even if they chose to do it with their wife’s best friend—but she could tell him things about her life which would make his own story sound like something you could read to a child at bedtime.
And he wasn’t asking about her past, was he? He wasn’t interested—and maybe she ought to be grateful for that. There was no point in dragging out her dark secrets at this late stage in their relationship and ruining their last few days together. ‘So what made you decide to sell the estate?’
There was a pause. ‘My stepmother died last year,’ he said flatly. ‘She’d always wanted this house and I suppose I was making sure she never got her hands on it. But now she’s gone—they’ve all gone—and somehow my desire to hang on to it died with her. The estate is too big for a single man to maintain. It needs a family.’
‘And you don’t want one?’
‘I thought we’d already established that,’ he said and now his voice had grown cool. ‘I saw enough lying and deceit to put me off marriage for a lifetime. Surely you can understand that?’
Darcy nodded. Oh, yes, she understood all right. Just as she recognised that his words were a warning. A warning not to get too close. That just because she was here with him in the unfamiliar role of girlfriend, nothing had really changed. The smile she produced wasn’t as bright as usual, but it was good enough to convince him she didn’t care. ‘Shouldn’t we think about getting ready for lunch?’ she questioned, her voice growing a little unsteady as his hand moved from her breast to the dip of her belly. ‘Didn’t...didn’t Donato say it would be ready in an hour?’
The touch of her bare skin drove all thoughts from Renzo’s mind until he was left with only one kind of hunger. The best kind. The kind which obliterated everything except pleasure. He’d told her more than he usually told anyone and he put that down to the fact that usually she didn’t ask. But she needed to know that there would be no more confidences from now on. She needed to know that there was only one reason she was here—and the glint of expectation in her eyes told him that she was getting the message loud and clear. He felt his erection grow exquisitely hard as he looked at the little waitress who somehow knew how to handle him better than any other woman.
‘I employ Donato to work to my time frame, not his,’ he said arrogantly, bending his head and sucking at her nipple.
‘Oh, Renzo.’ Her eyes closed as she fell back against the pillow.
‘Renzo, what?’ he taunted.
‘Don’t make me beg.’
He slid his finger over her knee. ‘But I like it when you beg.’
‘I know you do.’
‘So?’
She groaned as her hips lifted hungrily towards his straying finger. ‘Please...’
‘That’s better.’ He gave a low and triumphant laugh as he pulled her towards him. ‘Lunch can wait,’ he added roughly, parting her thighs and positioning himself between them once more. ‘I’m afraid this can’t.’
‘THIS?’ DARCY HELD up a glimmering black sheath, then immediately waved a flouncy turquoise dress in front of it. ‘Or this?’
‘The black,’ Renzo said, flicking her a swift glance before continuing to button up his shirt.
Her skin now tanned a delicate shade of gold, Darcy slithered into the black dress, aware that Renzo was watching her reflection in the glass in the way a hungry dog might look at a butcher, but she didn’t care. She found herself wishing she had the ability to freeze time and that the weekend wasn’t drawing to a close because it had been the best few days of her life.
They’d explored his vast estate, scrambling up hilly roads to be rewarded with spectacular views of blue-green mountains and the terracotta smudge of tiny villages. Her hiking boots had come in useful after all! He’d taken her to a beautiful village called Panicale, where they’d drunk coffee in the cobbled square with church bells chiming in stereophonic all around them. And even though Renzo had assured her that May temperatures were too cold for swimming, Darcy wasn’t having any of it. She’d never