Page 39 of 2 Books in One Bundle

That wave of emotion came again...sweeter and more powerful. She knew it for what it was. Knew it and gloried in it. Gave herself over to it completely.

It was the most precious emotion of all...

Dante glanced up from the screen. ‘OK, so now add the chopped tomatoes to the mix. Then you need to slice and salt the aubergines to draw off the excess liquid and add them too. Because they’ll be salty you don’t need to add any more salt, the recipe says.’

‘Yes, Chef,’ said Connie dutifully, with a nod and a smile.

His answering smile was a slash of white. ‘Tomorrow night I’ll be cooking and you can be the one giving orders,’ he said, and laughed.

They ate at the apartment every night—sometimes cooking themselves, sometimes ordering in. At weekends they went touring, staying in boutique hotels full of charm and character, though always very upmarket. They ate out then, of course—both lunch and dinner.

But they hadn’t been out to dine in Milan since that evening with Rafaello, some weeks ago now. Connie had no objections—she loved these domesticated evenings with Dante, just her and him in his apartment. There would be plenty of time to meet his friends here in Milan, go out in public with him as she had when they saw Raf. For now, she was happy—more than happy—to devote herself to him. Just the two of them, together.

Like an old married couple...

It was another happy thought.

A contented smile hovered at her lips as she reached for the salt to sprinkle it on the sliced aubergine on the chopping board. The herby aroma of the already cooking vegetables was enticing, and she was looking forward to the meal. Dante had poured her a glass of white wine, fresh and crisp, as anaperitivo, and she reached for it now, taking a sip of its chilled fruitiness.

‘OK, I’ve found a recipe for my turn tomorrow,’ Dante announced, and described it to her. ‘I’ll bookmark it, so if you like maybe you can pick the ingredients up tomorrow?’

‘Happy to.’ Connie smiled. She was getting used to shopping for groceries, trying out her halting phrasebook Italian.

I need to knuckle down and really learn the language properly,she thought in passing, crossing to the sink to rinse the excess salt off the aubergines.

Her vocabulary was improving every day, but her grammar was very shaky, she knew. And to settle fully into a new country one really did need to crack the language.

Adding the final ingredient to the pot, and turning down the heat to let it simmer till it was ready, she picked up her wine glass and went to join Dante at the bar, perched on a high stools. A memory came to her of how she’d done just that at the swish cocktail bar in London, when Dante had seen her for the very first time since her makeover. How his stunned gaze had devoured her.

It had changed everything he’d ever thought about her.

Changed everything between them from that night onwards to this moment now.

That same wave of emotion went through her, just as before, and as before she gave herself over to it, so dearly precious it was to her.

‘Saluti,’Dante said casually, clicking his beer glass against her wine glass and sliding his tablet aside. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘where do you fancy going this weekend?’

‘What about the mountains?’ Connie suggested. ‘The Italian Alps? Or are they too far away?’

‘Not at all,’ Dante assured her, and ran through some of the options.

They went on discussing an itinerary for the weekend and then, dinner ready, repaired to the dining area of the spacious apartment. It was a long and lazy meal, followed by a long and lazy lounge on the sofa, where Connie happily indulged Dante’s desire to watch a football match on the huge wall-mounted screen. She was content to curl up against him, reading a woman’s magazine in Italian—or attempting to read it—interrupting him from time to time to ask for translations of words she didn’t yet know.

‘You’re getting pretty good.’ Dante dropped an admiring kiss on her head.

‘Well, I need to study the language properly,’ Connie said. ‘I’d love to get really fluent.’

‘Is that necessary?’ Dante asked. ‘Considering—’

He broke off, his attention suddenly snapping back to the screen as the commentator’s voice rose in excitement and the crowd became even noisier. A goal was scored, and Dante enthusiastically punched the air with a happy exclamation.

The match ended soon after, with the team Dante supported winning, much to his satisfaction. He reached for his coffee, draining it down.

‘By the way, I’ve got some business coming up that will take me down to Rome—at the end of next week, most likely. We could add the weekend and see the Eternal City in all its glory, if you like?’

Connie smiled. ‘Oh, that would be brilliant!’ she said. A thought struck her. ‘Would you want to meet up with Rafaello?’ She frowned a moment. ‘Is he partnered, by the way? I mean, I know he’s not married—he doesn’t wear a ring. Not that that necessarily means anything, of course,’ she said, conscious that Dante did not either. Nor did she.

Maybe now we should?

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