The Echoes of Love (16 page)

Just at that moment, Paolo's mobile phone rang. He reached into his pocket, briefly glanced at it and frowned.

‘I'm sorry, Venetia. I'll take this, but I'll be quick.' He regarded her intently as he held the phone to his ear. ‘
Ciao
...' She watched his expression as he looked away, but it was unreadable. ‘Yes, why are you calling me?... Yes, I did say I was busy and couldn't join you.' He lowered his eyes and his voice softened. ‘No, of course that's not the reason…'

Venetia looked up sharply and met his eyes. They were dark and impenetrable. It was clearly a woman. Was it the same beautiful girl from the restaurant? There was that knife again, turning in the pit of her stomach, but this time it cut deeper. If he was unsettled by the inconvenience of another woman's phone call at dinner, Paolo didn't show it. She looked away, willing her face not to reveal any emotion.

‘
Sí, sí, lo so
, I know… I'll see you when I get back. Now I must go.
Ciao
.' Paolo slipped his phone into his pocket again and turned his attention back to Venetia. He stared at her and frowned slightly as if trying to read her thoughts. ‘I'm sorry,
cara
, an unexpected interruption. Now, where were we?'

She was determined not to ask the identity of the mystery caller, but raised her eyebrows. ‘Is everything okay?'

Paolo waved his hand dismissively. ‘Yes, fine – it's nothing.' He seemed disinclined to discuss it further, and instead his burning blue eyes searched her face.

Was it so easy for him to turn his attentions so freely between the women he juggled? The way he was looking at her now held so many things, it made her head spin with confusion. She stared back at him. What had she got herself into? Yes, this was some kind of fantasy, she thought, but one that would soon turn into a nightmare and consume her. She couldn't go back there again.

The waiter brought the coffees and Paolo lit a cigarette. ‘You're very pensive,
cara
.' His voice brought her back to earth.

Venetia smiled at him ruefully. ‘It's been an emotional evening,' she whispered, as she sipped her
espresso
.

He took her hand between his own and held it firmly. ‘
Penso di stare per
innamorarmi di te
, I think I might be falling in love with you,' he said gently, in that voice which she found to be one of his greatest charms.

She looked at him in shock and her throat constricted.

‘You mustn't, Paolo.'

‘Why not,
carina
? Can you deny that you have feelings for me?' His eyes were alight with blue fire and she thought they would burn through her heart.

‘I won't deny that I'm very attracted to you,' she said, choosing her words with care, ignoring their treachery, ‘but all this has been going too quickly, and as I told you earlier, at the moment I'm totally involved in my career and there's no place for anything else in my life.' She winced inwardly as she felt her defences lock firmly into place. ‘We must remain only friends.'

She withdrew her hand. Paolo's face suddenly set itself in grim lines.

‘Have you ever heard of friendship between a man and a woman? How naive you are, Venetia, if you think that the passion that consumes me…
yes
, the passion that consumes me – don't look so surprised – can ever become anything else but more passion.'

‘I have many men friends, and trust me when I tell you that they are only friends, and the best a person could wish for,' Venetia argued calmly, fighting her own longing to give in to his madness and let Paolo enfold her with the loving tenderness she sensed in him.

His eyes darkened underneath the straight black brows. He was angry now. ‘They're only eunuchs, these so-called men you talk about. Emasculated, cold-blooded men,' he burst out.

Venetia didn't answer. She felt the quiet anguish inside her, but she had to put an end to this whirlwind she had embarked on. She had been playing with fire and now she must stop or she would get burned again. With time, she told herself, Paolo's image would dim, but deep down she knew that nothing would eradicate his memory – there was something about him that would be forever engraved upon her heart, and the knowledge nearly tore her apart.

‘So this afternoon was just a masquerade?' Paolo's tone was flint, his eyes level, hard as glass.

Her voice trembled, almost choked, her heart so heavy she could scarcely breathe. ‘No, Paolo,' she said slowly. ‘It was a time of enchantment, an interlude to which I succumbed against my better judgement. Let's just say that I was drugged with the Venetian air, the scent of the sea, the romance of moonlight… and your eyes, Paolo, that caress me with such tenderness that sometimes I feel I could drown in them.' Her gaze held his for a moment and then dropped.

He leaned towards Venetia, mesmerising her, and she felt as if she was falling again. ‘You say such beautiful words,
cara
, and the fire in
your
eyes reflects the passion in your soul, so why are you denying us simple happiness? What is it that you're not telling me?'

‘This is also very hard for me,' Venetia whispered, her eyes fixed on her empty cup of coffee. ‘Please, Paolo, don't make things more difficult.'

His eyes widened. ‘I don't want to make things difficult for you. This should be easy.'

‘Well, it's not. Not for me. I can't give you what you want, Paolo.'

She felt him stare at her long and hard, as if her words had struck him.

‘That means that you have turned down my proposition – I must look for another restorer for my project?'

‘I'm already involved with another project which will take me until the beginning of summer,' she said, evading his question.

He stiffened and then closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his expression was impenetrable. ‘Very well, Venetia, the subject is closed, I will not importunate you again,' he said dryly.

In response to his signal, the head waiter brought the bill.

Venetia let him help her on with her coat and felt like a tendril of anguish had wound itself tightly round her heart. They went back down the vaulted walkway smothered in wisteria, but this time without holding hands.

* * *

It was two o'clock in the morning. The blue-lacquered Ferrari 550 Maranello sped through the night towards San Stefano in Tuscany. Attuned to the darkness surrounding him, his sombre mood overwhelming, Paolo drove the sleek, powerful sports car as though he was entering the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Driving always relieved his stress. But tonight it wasn't stress that was invading his body and his mind; it was the shadowy memory of a woman – Venetia. Vulnerable, bewitching Venetia, who haunted every hour of his days and nights.

Questions and more questions flickered in his eyes. Why Venetia? Granted, she was ravishing, but Paolo was used to beautiful women, not to mention ones who threw themselves at him. As far as he could remember, he had never needed to chase a woman. Still, there was something other than physical attraction that drew him to her. They were barely more than strangers, but he read her moods as if recovering her from another time, another place; somewhere known only to the two of them. Why? He knew almost nothing about her, yet when she had revealed a little about herself, for some reason he had not been surprised. Holding her, their bodies were so attuned that it seemed he had known it all his life.

… All his life? Paolo's face twisted and he laughed aloud, a bitter, angry laugh that echoed like a lonely half-sob in the silence of the car. His hands grasped the steering wheel so tightly that the knuckles showed white. Damn this miserable situation! Damn this ‘life' of his!

Still, so much of Venetia remained a mystery. It was the sadness he read in her eyes, whenever she thought she was not being watched, that got to him and puzzled him most. He had almost felt the struggle going on in her as she tried to pull back from him, both physically and emotionally; the pondering, the hesitation… the fear. He had not missed the tremors in her voice when she finally had the courage to rebuff him. Yes, she was afraid, deeply afraid: a fear that bordered on panic. What could have happened in her life to make her build such a protective fortress around her world? She had denied having known true love, but he doubted she was telling the truth; her words might have been deceitful, but her doleful, amber eyes were unable to lie.

Was he being fanciful? Paolo asked himself. Was Venetia only fleeing because she, like him, had felt the strange spell that seemed to weave itself around them, holding them prisoners of their caged, fiery passion? After all, hadn't he too tried to subjugate the rush of feelings that had so overwhelmed him that afternoon at Torcello? Like Venetia, confused and unable to think straight, he had pronounced words of such finality at the end of the day, running away from the enormity of what was happening between them.

Venetia's image swam out of the darkness, a picture of innocence and sensuality. He recalled the way they had kissed – the exquisite tenderness of that kiss had seemed to him to be opening a door into a strange world of beauty: wonderful and unnerving. Holding Venetia in his arms, feeling the rich fullness of her lips had been like a bloom from which he drew an intoxicating sweetness of joy. When her soft, yielding lips trembled beneath his own, more than ever he had been conscious of his own vast hunger for a woman's love, and the dangerous promise of those moments he had spent with Venetia. The intensity of this remembrance was so strong that Paolo felt his body ache with agonising need. He yearned for Venetia with a deep craving of his soul that was alarming. The thought that he might never see her again, hold her to him, smell the scent that filled his senses whenever he brushed against her, was unthinkable. But still the question kept coming back, like a haunting refrain. Why Venetia? Why Venetia? Could he really be falling in love?

He tried to tell himself that she had done him a favour, that it was better this way. There was no point in pursuing this passion the way things stood with him – it would be madness. He was not into love and promises and happily-ever-afters, how could he be?
With the heavy baggage you're carrying, how could you ever make a woman happy?
Light entered his life on one side, and darkness on the other. Dreaming of life with a woman,
any
woman, was something he had long put behind him and it had to remain that way. But since he had met Venetia, his life had turned upside down. Nothing made sense any more. He had almost succeeded in hiding the extent of his feelings – until tonight. If only Allegra hadn't called him at the restaurant. It had broken the spell and he had seen the look in Venetia's eye afterwards. He had been so close to telling her what was going on inside him. He felt like an unanchored boat that was being dashed against the rocks in a stormy sea.

As he drove on, the moon shone over the countryside where there were vineyards, and beyond, a belt of olive trees. Paolo was not far now from his destination. He could see Miraggio, the home he had known for the past eight years, perched high on a crag in the far-off distance, outlined against the moonlit sky. The turreted building stood on a bluff overlooking the sea, and, though quite small in size, it towered above the valley on the other side: his sanctuary.

Paolo's heart filled with pride, as it always did whenever he approached Miraggio. He had seen its elegant silhouette bathed in golden light at dawn, drenched in shades of purple and bright pink at sunset, and shrouded in mist and silver shadows as it was tonight; and every time, his breath caught in his throat with the same sense of gratification.

His thoughts roamed back to that first time he had set eyes on it. It was named La
Torretta
in those days
.
One stormy afternoon, as he was driving aimlessly around the countryside, the damaged turret of the house had loomed out of the clouds in the distance like a mirage. Curious, he had gone in search of the house and had found it without great difficulty. The dwelling, which he could see had been partly destroyed by fire, was almost a ruin and was set in about twenty-five hectares of untended land. The property stood in solitary desolation, four miles away from the first house in Cala Piccola, with a large ‘For Sale' sign posted on its rusty gates.

The estate agent in charge of the sale was only too pleased to get La Torretta off his books. It was going for less than a quarter of the price it would have sold for in its original condition.
‘The market is slow and it's been left to rot ever since the tragedy three years ago,'
he had told Paolo.
‘Because it overlooks the sea, it's been battered by the winds and the salt. Most of the walls are corroded… And, of course, as with all these types of old properties, there are rumours that the house is haunted, but what house doesn't have its harmless ghosts?'
he'd added with a shrug.

Paolo had gathered, from talking to various
caffetteria
owners and shopkeepers in the village of Cala Piccola, that La Torretta once belonged to a famous opera singer who had retired there when his fame started to dwindle. He was not a very likeable person and rumour had it orgies and other kinds of strange parties took place at his home. The notorious tenor and his guests had perished in the fire set by one of his vengeful mistresses. It was a gruesome story and locals said that on stormy nights as you approached the turreted house, you could hear the tenor singing the aria ‘
Addio, fiorito asil'
from Puccini's
Madama Butterfly
.

Paolo had bought La Torretta without hesitation, but had changed its name to Miraggio, because of his first impression of the dwelling when it had appeared to him suddenly in the distance, as though suspended in the clouds; and also because the word reflected more or less the way he felt about himself in those days. He saw the opportunity as an optimistic sign – a new beginning after the bad fortune life had dealt him. He would rebuild the grand house, together with his life, which at that time seemed to him a great black hole, with only the unknown to look forward to.