A Moment on the Lips(55)

‘Thank you.’

He rang the taxi firm he normally used, and Carenza read Fiorella another story until the taxi arrived. His mother insisted on giving them both neatly wrapped parcels of cake; after hugging everyone goodbye, Dante and Carenza climbed into the back of the taxi.

She reached out to take his hand. ‘You’re really tense. What’s wrong?’

Everything. ‘Nothing,’ he said through gritted teeth.

To his relief, she didn’t push it.

When the taxi pulled up outside her flat, she smiled at him. ‘It’s not that late. Would you like to come up for coffee?’

‘That’s not a good idea, Princess.’

‘Are you angry with me for gatecrashing your birthday dinner?’

‘No.’ He was angry with himself. ‘Anyway, you didn’t gatecrash. My mother invited you.’ He blew out a breath. ‘Just leave it, Caz. Please. I’ll see you later.’

‘OK. Ciao.’

He made the taxi wait until she was safely inside, then headed for home. His head was pounding and that tightness was back in his chest. Well, tough. Nobody said that life was fair or that you could get what you wanted. And what he wanted had to stay off limits. For Carenza’s sake as well as his own.

On Friday morning, as promised, the painting arrived from the Parisian gallery.

Dante decided to give it to Carenza the next evening, when they met for their usual mentoring session. But the parcel disturbed him all day, looming in the corner of his office. Tempting. Giving him an excuse to see her.

In the middle of the afternoon, he gave in and called her. ‘Are you busy, this evening?’

‘I’m playing with ice cream recipes—but I could do with a taste-tester, if you want to come over.’

‘I’d like that. What time?’

‘Eight?’ she suggested.

‘I’ll bring pizza with me—Mario’s marinara is the best in Naples.’

‘That’d be good. I’ll see you tonight, then.’

Carenza wondered just why Dante wanted to see her tonight. She couldn’t help the flutter of excitement down her spine; they’d grown much closer in Paris, so did he want to see her for herself and not the business?

Then again, given how he’d reacted that morning to the possibility of her being pregnant, and the way he’d reacted last night at his family birthday meal, probably not. She still didn’t quite understand why he was backing away from her, why he was so insistent that a relationship between them wouldn’t work. Over the last few weeks, since she’d got to know him, she’d revised her own opinion on that score. Yes, they came from different worlds; but she thought that they balanced each other nicely. He’d taught her a lot about business, and he’d given her the confidence to run Tonielli’s because she was beginning to understand what she was doing. She’d discovered that she had a serious side, and people were at last taking her seriously, thanks to him. And she was teaching him to relax and that you didn’t have to work every second of the day, putting some balance back into his life, too. She liked his family, and she was pretty sure that he liked hers, otherwise he wouldn’t be mentoring her.

Together, they could be such a great team.

How could she persuade him to give them that chance?

That evening, she almost dressed up and put on full make-up. Then again, that was just surface and Dante saw deeper than that. He would tease her for being princessy if she wore a dress. And she didn’t want him to think she was just a clothes horse. She wanted him to take her seriously—as herself, not just in business. So she contented herself with changing into a clean pair of jeans and one of the little strappy tops she knew he liked, left her hair down and brushed it until it shone, and added a slick of lipstick and a touch of mascara.

When he arrived, he was carrying two parcels. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Pizza.’

She rolled her eyes at him. ‘I know that—you said you were bringing it. I meant the other box. The one that isn’t pizza-sized.’

‘All in good time, Princess.’

The teasing smile in his eyes warmed her.

‘We’d better eat. The pizza’s getting cold.’

It was as good as he’d promised. And there was an expression on his face she hadn’t seen before when he looked at her. She couldn’t even begin to guess what it meant; but she tried really hard not to hope for too much. To hope that two nights of sleeping away from her had made him realise that he missed her. That his bed, like hers, felt just too big for one.