He laid her down on the bed and she sat up, pulling the folds of the bath sheet around her shoulders. “Who did all this?” she asked. “It’s as if you have invisible retainers, like a fairy castle.”

Marco laughed and strode naked to the table. She admired the tautness of the muscles in his legs and his ass, the lovely taper of his back, the strength of his shoulders.

“There is a housekeeper and her husband,” he said, cutting a slice of the cheese. “They have been with my family since my father was a boy. They were also in hiding, but they returned. The rest of the house will not be like this room. It needs much work.”

He came back to her and began to feed her the moist, creamy cheese.

She took some between her teeth, savoring it on her tongue. “Delicious.”

“There’s a French painting,” she said, “called the Picnic. It’s of naked people eating on the grass. I always thought it was pretty fanciful until now.”

Marco nodded. “I’ve seen it. The women aren’t half as beautiful as you. Hair like jet, eyes with the promise of midnight, breasts that drive a man wild.” He bent his head to kiss each of them in turn.

She stroked his hair and ran her hand over his shoulder and down his back, feeling the ripple of the muscles under her fingers as he moved.

“Would you like more wine?” he murmured against the swell of her breast.

“No, thank you.” She sighed. “I could love this life after what happened in the last few days.”

“Whatever gives you pleasure is yours.”

“I know.” He had thought of her during all the events of the last few hours, making sure that he brought her somewhere clean and beautiful. The realization touched her deeply. He was stern when he had to be, and determined in pursuing what was right, but it was the underlying softness in him that left her without defenses. When she was with him and he treated her gently and lovingly, the needs she had suppressed for too long came to the surface and washed over her like a tidal wave. They destroyed her defenses, and left her confronted with the naked truth of her feelings for him.

“Tomorrow we could picnic outside,” he said. “There’s a beautiful grove-”

The word “tomorrow” hung like the sound of a bell in the air. He felt her stiffen and looked up at her. She swallowed the last of cheese.

“Tomorrow I’ll try to walk. I must telephone,” she said. “Marco-” She pushed the dark lock of hair back from his brow. “-you know I must let my father know I’m alive. I have already delayed too long.”

He took her hand and kissed her fingertips. He was silent for so long that she began to search for more words to explain why she couldn’t stay.

Before she could speak, he sighed, his eyes still on their joined hands. “Your father loves you very much.”

“Yes, he does.”

“You love him.”

“I do.”

“You have a home in England.”

“Yes.”

He looked her full in the eyes. “Go to him, but remember I love you too. I could make a home for you here.”

Her heart thudded against the wall of her chest. “I love you, too.” Every fiber of her being urged her to agree, to say she would live with him, would sleep in his bed, share his food, help him rebuild his life. But she couldn’t be sure. The intensity of their relationship, the atmosphere of danger and rampant passion had perhaps led them to believe that what they felt was love, when it was lust, burning clear and beautiful, but lust just the same. She longed to throw caution to the winds, to go with her heart, but she was her father’s daughter and she had her own past that warned her to be cautious, like a stern grandmother wagging her finger at a wayward girl. She needed time and space to consider before she agreed. When she agreed-if she agreed-it would be because she was absolutely sure of her own feelings as well as his.

She swallowed against the constriction in her throat. “Marco, I know about your wife. I know what happened to her. You and I-” she let her hand linger on his shoulder “-we have known each other three days.”

He looked up at her face. His eyes were hooded, his lips set in a thin line. She placed a finger on his lips. “Let me have some time, Marco. Let me go home. In a short while, if I still feel the same way as I do now, I will come back to you.” She smiled at him. “We have a few more hours together. Pour me some more of that delicious wine after all and tell me about your family, about this house.”

He filled their glasses again. “My family has owned the land around here for four hundred years,” he began. “The ancestors of most of the people who work for us tilled the soil and built the terraces…” He went on to tell her about the crops, the vines and the olives, and about all the intricate relationships, the intermarriages, the sense of belonging.

She sat cross-legged on the bed, listening to him talk, occasionally massaging and flexing her sore ankle. She understood completely. Her own family had been landowners for centuries too, ever since one of them had made a fortune sailing with Sir Francis Drake.

Dusk fell and Marco lit candles. The flickering flames sent shadows dancing in the room as he gestured, and emphasized the planes and hollows of his face, making his eyes glitter. She watched him, drinking in the lines of his body, the passion in his voice.

“What about Giovanni?” she asked at last.

Marco’s lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “My mother’s sister’s boy,” he said. “Two years younger than I, but we were inseparable growing up. His father died when he was just a baby and my father took him in like a son. Everything I had, he had too. Education, money, opportunity-” He sighed. “I don’t understand it.”

“Jealousy,” Emma said. “Easy enough to understand really. The younger boy always wanting to be as big, as strong, as clever as his older cousin. Never quite able to make it. Rebellious, plus resentment at being the poor relation, being beholden. Then an opportunity comes to follow a different path, to be successful in a totally opposite way, and it’s too tempting to resist.”

Marco stared at her. “Do you think so?”

“I know so. Seen it lots of times. You don’t make friends by heaping them with material things. I know your family’s intentions were good, but the grateful orphan only exists in novels.”

“You’ve a hard heart.”

“No, just a practical one.” She touched his hand. “But I also understand how it hurts when someone is ungrateful.”

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “Are you speaking from experience?”

Some of the juice from the grapes had clung to her hands and he placed each finger in his mouth, sucking the sweetness. She tried to ignore the desire tugging at her and gently withdrew her fingers.

“Yes. I know someone just like that.” She pulled a cover around her. “They leave poison behind them.”

He looked at her. The weight of his unspoken question hung between them. He reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “After all we’ve shared, I would like you to tell me who hurt you,” he said, his husky voice betraying the depth of his feeling. “We’ll have no chance together unless we’re honest with each other.”

He was right. This was the moment of truth. She had known in her heart that it would come as soon as he’d said, “I love you”. This was the revelation she had thought she might not have to make if she had been able to leave tomorrow with no questions. The last few days were not a case of “Thank you for a wonderful experience Signor Marco. If ever you’re in England look me up.” This hadn’t been a simple fling, nights and days of wonderful sex. Oh, the sex had been extraordinary, but there was more. They both knew they were on the brink of something life-changing, and the realization had already dawned that she’d moved too close to the edge to avoid disaster.

She would have liked him to believe she had no past, that she had come to him like Venus rising from the waves, all pure and unsullied. On the other hand, he knew for a fact she wasn’t a virgin, must have understood that there had been lovers.