Page 48 of 2 Books in One Bundle

With Connie.

For a long while Connie just lay there. Scarcely moving. Scarcely breathing. The room was deathly quiet, with not even the hum of the air-con to disturb the silence—for the temperature was dropping and it was no longer needed. But not heating yet, either.

It was poised between hot and cold.

Scalding hot and killing cold...

Like me.

She was poised between two overpowering impulses, completely contrary, that were tearing her in two.

Random thoughts were going through her head, almost like the wisps of a dream—not that she could remember dreaming last night.

But was that so surprising, given that her dreams had been completely shattered...obliterated...with a few simple words from Dante.

She heard them again now, in this ‘in between’ place where she seemed to be, with the room dim from the early hour and the drawn curtains, the air so quiet. Only the sound of her shallow breaths penetrated.

‘Plenty of time...before we need to think about our divorce...’

They were repeating themselves on a loop. A loop she couldn’t stop, or change, or get out of her head.

Such simple words. Such devastating consequences. Circling around and around in her head.

Round and round they went—like millstones, crushing her to pieces between them. Crushing her stupid,stupiddreams and all her hopes and secret longings. Grinding them all to dust...

She must have slept again, somehow, with the millstones grinding still, because when she surfaced again it was to the sound of the hotel phone beside her. She fumbled for the handset, barely awake. It was the reception desk, telling her she had a visitor.

She glanced at the time display—it was gone ten in the morning, and bright sunlight was pressing behind the curtain drapes.

‘Signor Ranieri is here,signora.’

She started.Rafaellowas here?

Still hazy with heavy, comfortless sleep, she struggled to sit up.

‘I’ll... I’ll be down shortly.’

She dropped the handset, staring blankly. What on earth was Rafaello doing here?

Her mobile phone pinged with a text, and she stared at it.

Connie, hi—I hope I’m not disturbing you. Dante asked me to look in on you since he had to abandon you at short notice. I’m at your disposal for the day if you like. Ciao. R

She swallowed. Part of her wanted to text back and tell him to go away. She could not cope with him. Could not cope with anything at all.

But I have to!

She stared bleakly into the luxurious bedroom, so handsomely appointed, from the velvet window drapes to the huge carved wooden bed and the ornate carpets. It seemed alien, so entirely alien.

She threw back the bedclothes, stumbled up, her mind in pieces, her thoughts in pieces...ground down to dust.

Dante’s plane was touching down in Geneva—the last place he wanted to be. Because the only place he wanted to be was back in Rome. With Connie.

Maybe I should have brought her with me. She could have had the day in Geneva while I got my business meeting over and done with and then—who knows?—we could have spent the night here, and flown back to Rome tomorrow?

That way she’d have been with him on the flight there and back, and he wouldn’t be missing her the way he was right now.

It had seemed so wrong to leave her like that. OK, so he’d left her during the day in Milan, when he went into the office, but that wasn’t the same thing as flying off to a different country without her—even if he was going to be back in time for dinner.

---