"You were looking at me like a girl looking at her

first man," Lorenzo said mockingly. "Which leads me

to wonder what kind of woman you are that you look

at me like that — and what kind of man this ex-fiance.

of yours was to give you that need."

"I wasn’t looking at you like anything," Jodie argued

frantically. "You’re imagining it. No modern

woman needs to wonder what a man"s body looks

like."

"So it wouldn’t bother you, then, if I weren’t wearing

this?" Lorenzo suggested, his fingers resting

against the top of his towel.

Jodie made a valiant attempt at a small nonchalant

shrug. "No — why should it? One naked male body is

much like any other."

"Was your ex-fiance. circumcised?"

Jodie opened her mouth and then closed it again,

her face slowly turning a deep shade of pink whilst

her heart skidded and bounced around inside her chest

cavity as though seeking the same invisible escape

route as her thoughts. Was he asking her that because

he had guessed that she simply didn’t know? Because

he wanted to humiliate her by making her admit how

limited her sexual experience really was?

"Er…why do you ask?"

"Why Don’t you answer?"

"I’m not questioning you about your past sex life.

And if we"re going to get married—"

"If? There is no if about it. I’ve already contacted

my lawyer. He"ll be here in the morning."

"It will take quite a long time to go through all the

legal formalities, I expect."

"Not for us. Once we have seen Alfredo we shall

be leaving for Florence."

"Florence?"

"I have some business to attend to there, and you

will want to buy a wedding outfit."

"A wedding outfit?"

The dark eyebrows lifted. "I take it that you didn’t

bring your bridal gown with you when you ran

away?"

Jodie looked away from him. "No, I didn’t," she

agreed quietly. Her wedding dress was still hanging

up in the shop where she had bought it, paid for but

never collected.

Lorenzo watched her impassively. "There are any

number of designer shops in Florence. You are bound

to find something in one of them."

Designer shops? Finding something would be the

easy bit, Jodie reflected; paying for it at designer shop

prices with her limited budget would be the hard part.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

"What if…? What if I’ve changed my mind?"

"I shan’t let you."

"But you can’t stop me."

The way he was looking at her brought it home to

her that she was trapped here in this ancient stronghold,

where no doubt his ancestors had once held their

prisoners captive in the depths of its dank dungeons.

"What is it exactly that you are so afraid of?" he

asked.

"I’m not afraid of anything — or anyone," Jodie lied.

"So there is no reason why we should not be married,

then, is there? It is an arrangement from which

we both stand to gain something of importance to us.

When is this ex-fiance. of yours to marry?"

"The middle of next month."

"Bene. We will be married ourselves by then, so

you will have the pleasure of introducing me to him

as your husband. Now, it is late, and tomorrow there

is much to be done."

"Why Don’t you want to marry Caterina?"

Immediately his face hardened. "That is no concern

of yours," he told her dauntingly. "I shall leave you

now to sleep. With any luck the cramp will not return."

In other words, mind your own business, Jodie reflected

ruefully as she watched him leave.

THE sound of her bedroom door opening and the rattle

of crockery brought Jodie out of a complicated dream

in which she had been forced to watch as John walked

down the aisle towards his waiting bride. But when

he reached her it wasn’t John who was marrying

someone else but Lorenzo. Bizarrely, instead of feeling

relieved, she had actually felt searingly jealous.

"Buongiorno," Maria greeted her cheerfully as she

put down the tray she was carrying and then walked

over to the windows to draw back the heavy curtains.

Sunshine immediately flooded the room, followed by

deliciously soft warm air as Maria opened the windows

to reveal a small balcony.

The smell of fresh coffee and the sight of rolls and

fruit made Jodie salivate with hunger.

"Grazie, Maria." She thanked the elderly maid with

a warm smile, pushing back the bedclothes as Maria

turned to leave the room.

She hadn’t realised her room had a balcony, and

when she hurried over to investigate it she discovered

that it looked out onto an enclosed courtyard garden

that was almost Moorish in style. Fretted archways

were swathed with tumbling masses of pink roses, and

from her vantage point above them she could look

down into the heart of the garden to a fish pond,

where an ornate fountain sent sprays of water jetting

upwards before they fell back to dimple the surface

of the pond, disturbing the fat goldfish basking in the

morning sunshine.

Returning to the bedroom, Jodie poured herself a

cup of coffee and then headed back to the balcony.

It was wide enough to hold a small wrought-iron table

and two chairs, and she was just about to sit down on

one of them when her bedroom door opened a second

time. Thinking that Maria had come back, she looked

up with a smile that faded as she saw that it was not

Maria who had come in but Lorenzo.

"Bene, you are awake. Alfredo has telephoned to

say that he is on his way and will be here within the

hour. I trust you slept well, with no return of your

cramp?"

"No — I mean, yes — I did sleep well, and, no, the

cramp didn’t come back." It hadn’t come back, but

the faint tingle in her flesh where he had massaged it

had kept her awake for a long time after he had gone.

Unlike her, Lorenzo was fully dressed, making her

feel acutely conscious of the brevity of her nightshirt.

Not that he was looking at her. Instead he was frowning

as he stared at something on the floor beside her

bed, next to the case she had been too tired to unpack

last night.

Striding over to it, he leaned down and retrieved

the basque she had forgotten to put back in the case,

holding it up between his thumb and forefingers and

looking at her with a query in his scowl.

"What is this?"

"What does it look like?" Jodie challenged him

crossly

"It looks like something a certain type of showgirl

might wear."

"It…it was part of my trousseau," Jodie told him

reluctantly. She certainly didn’t want him thinking it

was something she had brought with her to wear on

holiday. "It got into my case by…by mistake."

"Your trousseau? You mean you were going to

wear this as a means of enticing your husband to

make love to you? What was he? Some kind of bondage

fetishist?"

It took several seconds for his meaning to hit her

defences.

"It’s a chainstore basque, that’s all," she told him

furiously. "If you want to give it some kind of sleazy,

sordid interpretation, then that’s up to you." She was

perilously close to angry tears of humiliation as she

remembered the shy uncertainty with which she had

purchased the boned and lace-tied item of underwear,

hoping that it might tempt John to behave more passionately

towards her. "Right now They’re a fashion

item. Some women even wear them as outerwear."