And Gianfranco himself had not exactly helped the situation when, on heaving himself dripping from the pool, he had found the older woman watching him through her designer shades.
His, ‘What are you doing here, Carla?’ had not exactly oozed warmth and welcome!
Actually he’d said it in Italian, but Dervla’s command of the language had progressed to the point where she could even get the gist of fairly rapid conversations. She despaired of her accent, but Gianfranco had promised her it was extremely sexy.
Dervla didn’t entirely believe him, but it was always flattering to be told you were sexy, especially by a man who was lusted after by every female under ninety that came in contact with him!
‘I know you two are friendly, but I would like my wife to myself sometimes.’
Friendly?
Dervla felt a spasm of guilt. She ought to think of Gianfranco’s cousin as a friend; the other woman had gone out of her way to make Dervla feel at home when she had arrived.
If it hadn’t been for Carla’s tactful suggestions she could have made a number of painful faux pas—actually she’d made them anyway, but that was because she didn’t always accept the older woman’s very good advice.
It had been Carla who had supplied the identity of the gorgeous, nubile young woman who had plastered herself against Gianfranco as they did a circuit of the dance floor when everyone else she had asked changed the subject or pleaded ignorance.
Carla had explained about the blonde’s on/off relationship with Gianfranco. It seemed that they picked up the threads of their relationship when it suited them both.
‘More of a habit than a relationship, really,’ she observed dismissively.
Habits, Dervla thought, watching Gianfranco’s ex-girlfriend trail her scarlet fingertips down his lapel before drawing his face down to kiss his lips, were hard to break.
Even if you wanted to, and she wasn’t sure in the early days Gianfranco did!
Carla advised her not to bring up the subject.
‘You really mustn’t feel insecure about it, Dervla, because I’m sure he would never disrespect you by being unfaithful.’
Carla was the only one who didn’t clam up when she mentioned Sara, Gianfranco’s first wife and mother of his son.
‘He adored her,’ Carla confided when she walked into a room and saw Dervla staring at a framed portrait by a famous photographer of a newborn Alberto in the arms of his mother, who had the serene look of a glowing Madonna.
Not exactly news, but it had made Dervla’s spirits sink like a lead weight anyway.
If she considered anyone a friend here in Italy it really ought to be Carla. Yet somehow she never felt totally easy in the Italian woman’s sophisticated company.
Maybe, she mused, it was because of the incident just after her move to Tuscany when she had still been feeling totally out of her depth and insecure.
Understandable really—Dervla had been less philosophical about the mix-up at the time—that a person would assume that Carla was Gianfranco’s wife. The stylish Italian woman was the sort of person you expected to find married to an incredibly attractive Italian billionaire.
But he chose me, she reminded herself, sticking out her chin in an attitude of defiance.
‘We should get back to the house. Carla’s on her own.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth and grimaced. ‘I think we’ve neglected her a bit this weekend,’ she reflected guiltily.
The moment Angelo and Kate had arrived the two men had exchanged their suits for jeans and tee shirts and headed out onto the hills on horseback while Angelo’s heavily pregnant wife had understandably been pretty much unable to talk about much else but pregnancy and birth.
‘Carla’s not really a woman who feels comfortable in the company of other women,’ Dervla mused, thinking how the other woman became more animated when a man walked into a room—which made her efforts to seek out Dervla all the more considerate. ‘And she definitely doesn’t like baby talk,’ she added, recalling the other woman’s glazed expression and yawns.
Gianfranco threaded his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans and turned his squinting regard on the panoramic view of the valley, drawing her a little to one side as they joined the path through the trees that led back to the house.
‘But were you all right with it?’ His eyes swivelled towards her, the expression in the dark depths concealed from her by the sweep of his ebony lashes. ‘All the baby talk?’
Not fooled by his casual tone, Dervla knew exactly what Gianfranco was really wondering.
Was being around the heavily pregnant and glowing Kate a painful reminder of her own infertility? Did it make her mourn for the child she could never carry for the man she loved?
If she had been being strictly honest about the subject—which she never was, not even to herself—Dervla would have had to reply yes to his question. Or she would have, but, fingers crossed, things had changed. Excitement fizzed up inside her and she quickly lowered her lashes like a shield, because she knew he would see the hope she felt sure was shining in her eyes.
And now wasn’t the right moment.
When she did tell Gianfranco her news she didn’t want any interruptions and cousin Carla had an instinct for walking into a room at the wrong moment!
‘Of course.’
Catching her chin between his long fingers, Gianfranco tilted her face up to his.
She shifted uncomfortably under his searching scrutiny, but did not drop her eyes. After a moment he nodded, presumably satisfied by what he had seen in her face.
Dervla was amazed, but relieved—normally it was impossible to get even a half-truth past Gianfranco.
‘Poor Carla,’ she said as his hand fell away. ‘I don’t think she could get her head around the fact the staff had the weekend off and you and Angelo were cooking. I think she thought it was beneath you.’
Dervla might have once assumed the same herself when the only things she had known about the billionaire Gianfranco Bruni, socialite and hotshot ruthless financier, were the headlines containing his name she had read. It wasn’t that he wasn’t that man the financial pages referred to with respect, awe and in some circumstances fear, but he was more—much more.
Gianfranco was a complex man, a man with many layers. A man it would take a lifetime to understand. A man who would drive you insane with frustration while you tried!
‘I have no interest in discussing Carla,’ her many-layered husband remarked, oozing male arrogance as he dismissed his cousin with a click of his long fingers and turned his attention to his wife.
The raw smouldering heat in his sensuous regard sent her temperature up several degrees in the space of a single heartbeat.
‘And at this moment I would much prefer that you were beneath me,’ he remarked, sliding his big hands to her shoulders.
Dervla, her wide eyes melded with his smouldering dark orbs, didn’t resist as he drew her towards him; molten heat pooled low in her belly and her knees gave way.
‘Carla…’ she faltered with one last attempt to cling to sanity and common sense.
Gianfranco just smiled, all smug male confidence, and she might have been angry with him if she hadn’t been able to feel the tremors running through his body like a fever. She could forgive him for turning her into a mindless slave to desire because amazingly she did the same to him…red hair, freckles and all. The man had the oddest taste, but who was she to argue…?
Still holding her eyes with his,