A Moment on the Lips

chapter TWELVE

CARENZA half woke, aware that something was tickling her face; it took her a few moments to work out that it was the hair on Dante’s chest. She shifted to get more comfortable, and ended up with her face pressed against his neck. And somehow her mouth was open against his skin and she was kissing his throat.

He murmured her name sleepily, and tipped his head back to let her kiss him. She was half lying across him and he shifted, pulling her so that she was on top of him. And then he was kissing her throat, nuzzling her skin, nipping it gently.

She could feel him hardening beneath her, and rocked against him; right now, she really needed to feel him inside her. It was obviously the same for him because he lifted her slightly, then eased inside her as she lowered herself onto him. He wrapped his arms round her and held her close, still kissing her as he thrust into her.

This felt so incredibly good. She loved the power of his body against hers, loved the way he made her feel, each thrust taking her higher. Pleasure rose through her body; heat began to pool in the soles of her feet, then spiralled up through her, tightening and tightening. And then she was falling over the edge. Dante was right there with her, all the way.

As the aftershocks died away he withdrew, gently rolling her onto her side. His body spooned round hers, one hand settling round the curve of her breast and his mouth resting against her shoulder.

Was it her imagination, or did he just murmur, ‘I love you, Caz,’ against her skin?

Wishful thinking, she decided. It was the kind of thing Dante would never admit, even if he felt it. He was positively phobic about relationships. Given his childhood experiences, she could understand why. But somehow she needed to find a way to get him to open up to her … She drifted back into sleep, still mulling it over.

The next morning, Dante woke her with a kiss.

Carenza smiled and stroked his face. ‘Good morning. Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘Mmm.’ She stretched languidly. ‘But I had the most incredibly realistic dream.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘That sounds interesting. Going to share?’

She smiled. ‘You. Me. Sex in the middle of the night.’

His smile faded. ‘That’s odd. So did I.’

And then a really nasty thought hit her. ‘We didn’t. Tell me we didn’t.’

His dark eyes were filled with wariness. ‘What are the chances of us both having exactly the same dream?’

She blew out a breath. ‘Dante, if it wasn’t a dream, then …’ This wasn’t going to be good, but she had to bring it up. She needed to be honest with him. ‘I don’t remember using a condom.’

His face went white. ‘If you fall pr—’

She pressed her finger against his lips. No. She didn’t want him saying that he’d take responsibility if she ended up becoming pregnant. That wasn’t what she wanted from him.

What she wanted from him was what she thought he’d said in the middle of the night.

And, judging from the look on his face right now, it had definitely been her imagination. The sex had been real enough, but love … ? No. Dante wouldn’t let himself love anyone.

She shook herself. ‘Don’t say a word. It’s fine. The chances are pretty low.’

He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Carenza, we had unprotected sex. How can you be so—so unconcerned? So casual about it?’

‘Think how many people try for babies for months and months and months without conceiving. We had unprotected sex once. What are the chances?’

‘And how many people have been caught out by “just the once”?’ he countered.

‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she said firmly. ‘And I’m starving. I need a shower before breakfast.’ And she tried not to mind when he didn’t offer to join her in the shower.

Dante could barely breathe. The prospect of Carenza being pregnant … He could just imagine her, exhausted after labour and yet radiant, with a newborn baby in her arms.

Their newborn baby.

And the longing that surged through him horrified him. How stupid could he get? Given that his sister had made exactly the same mistakes as his mother—believing that her partner would change for her when he couldn’t, and that her love would be enough to overcome the violence when it wasn’t—it was a fair bet that Dante would make the same mistakes as his father. For Carenza’s sake, he couldn’t risk his past repeating itself. Couldn’t risk hurting their child through impatience.

When it was his turn to shower, he turned the water down to cold, in the hope that it would shock some common sense back into him. His life was fine as it was. Just himself and the business. He didn’t need anything else.

And he’d make damn sure he never spent another night with Carenza. Because now he knew just how dangerous it could be for his peace of mind.

‘So what are the plans for today?’ he asked over breakfast.

‘Our flight back to Naples isn’t until early this evening, so we can spend the day in the city. The hotel’s agreed to keep our luggage in storage until we’re ready to pick it up—and our taxi’s booked to take us to the airport. So I thought I’d show you the other side of the city.’

‘That’d be great.’ And as long as they talked about Paris or business, and nothing in the slightest bit emotional, everything would be absolutely fine, Dante thought.

It didn’t take long to pack after breakfast; and then they took the Metro through to Montmartre. He looked up the incline of the street to the Sacré Coeur, the white domes of the church and the green hill on which it stood standing out against the blue, blue sky. ‘That’s beautiful,’ he said.

She looked pleased. ‘Wait until you get to the top. The view of the city from the steps is stunning.’

He discovered that she was absolutely right. And, just round the corner from the Basilica, the streets were narrow and bustling, just as they were in Naples, filled with souvenir shops and delis and cafés—a sharp contrast to the wide boulevards around the Champs Elysées, but this part of Paris felt more like home to him.

She dragged him over to a gelati shop.

‘Princess, this is an Italian artisan ice cream shop,’ he pointed out.

She smiled. ‘I know, and Italian ice cream is the best.’ When they came out, he was amused when she rattled off a quick assessment, saying where it was better than Tonielli’s and where it could learn from her. ‘Having said that, this crème brûlée gelato is pretty good.’ She looked enquiringly at him. ‘How’s the blueberry and white chocolate?’

He held out his cone so she could taste it.

‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘But I think it’d be better still if you had the blueberry and the white chocolate flavours separate, then rippled them together.’

They strolled through the streets to the historic Place du Tertre, full of cafés and artists selling their work from stalls; Dante could hardly believe how much they’d managed to cram into the centre of the square. People around the edges were performing street theatre and juggling; tourists were sitting quietly while artists drew caricatures and portraits of them.

‘Your picture, sir, madam?’ an artist asked. ‘I can do a special price for the two of you.’

Carenza’s eyes lit up and she turned to Dante. ‘Can we?’

Had he been on his own, he would’ve made a polite excuse and walked on; but he could see how much Carenza wanted to do it. The whole Parisian experience. And, since she’d given him so much over the last two days, who was he to deny her something so small? ‘Sure we can,’ he said.

They sat down on a nearby wall. ‘Your arm round the lady,’ the artist directed. ‘Smile at each other.’

Dante felt awkward and exposed—particularly when other tourists came to look over the artist’s shoulder at the picture he hadn’t yet seen—but everyone seemed to smile and nod approval at what the artist was capturing on paper.

It was only a few short minutes before the artist showed them the portrait, pastels on rose-grey paper.

And it scared Dante witless.

The way he was looking at Carenza, it was obvious to the whole world that he was in love with her. Oh, hell. Hopefully she’d just think that the artist had taken a bit of—well, artistic licence.

He paid the artist, then on the artist’s recommendation went into one of the souvenir shops and bought a tube so they could roll up the picture and keep it protected on the way back to Naples.

Carenza stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth against his. ‘Thank you.’

‘Prego,’ he said automatically. But he couldn’t get the portrait out of his head. Did he really look at her like that? And, if so, had she noticed? Because it really wasn’t fair to raise her expectations—to make her hope that he could be something he knew he just couldn’t be.

They stopped in a café for a croque monsieur and a coffee, and then Carenza took him to the Pompidou Centre.

‘It’s really impressive, isn’t it?’ she asked.

He looked at the huge steel-and-glass structure. ‘Yes.’ Though he didn’t like it anywhere near as much as he’d liked the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. And it didn’t even begin to compare to the beautiful white stone buildings across the other side of the city, the ones he’d fallen in love with on sight.

‘This is one of my favourite places in Paris.’

The second they walked in, he realised why. It was filled with modern art. And he just didn’t get it. The more he walked round, the more he saw, the less he understood. Half the stuff looked as if it had been drawn by a child in kindergarten, and the other half were just random splodges of colour. What was so special about all this? Why did she love it so much? Was it an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ kind of thing, or was he just missing the gene that made him appreciate it?

‘If you didn’t have Tonielli’s, what would you do?’ he asked.

She looked surprised by the question; then she smiled. ‘That’s an easy one. I’d like my own art gallery.’

Just as he’d guessed. ‘And you’d sell this kind of stuff?’ He looked at the painting of squares in front of him, and others that just seemed a chaotic mess of colour.

‘Yes. It’s the vibrancy and the energy of the pieces that I like.’

Vibrancy and energy. She could’ve been describing herself. But he couldn’t see it in the works of art. ‘I don’t get it,’ he admitted. ‘To me, you could hang this stuff any which way and it still wouldn’t make any sense. It’s all random.’

She shrugged. ‘That’s probably what the artist wants you to feel. That the world’s mixed up and random.’

He wasn’t convinced.

‘Art’s a personal thing. It’s better to go for the stuff that you like—the stuff that makes you feel something.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘I guess I was hoping that seeing it all together here would make you see what I see in it.’ She sighed. ‘I really should’ve taken you to the Musée D’Orsay instead of here. I think you would’ve liked the Impressionists more. And Van Gogh.’

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I’m a philistine. I like art to look like what it’s meant to be.’

She nodded. ‘And this doesn’t. OK. Let’s go.’

‘If you want to stay, I don’t mind,’ he fibbed.

‘Yes, you do—and there’s no point in staying if you’re not enjoying it. I want you to love Paris as much as I do. And there’s somewhere else near here I want to show you—somewhere I think you’ll like.’

She led him through the Marais district to the Place des Vosges. ‘This is the oldest square in Paris.’

It was a beautifully laid out square with gorgeous buildings, and he liked this a lot more than the modern building she’d just taken him to.

They wandered through the arcaded walkways together; he noticed that there were an awful lot of art galleries among the shops. Carenza was clearly enjoying window-shopping; and then she went very still and gave a sharp intake of breath.

‘What have you spotted?’ he asked.

‘That’s gorgeous.’ She pointed out a tall, narrow canvas with five wide bands of jewel-bright colours across it. ‘But unfortunately the price tag would blow my fritter budget for years.’

‘Fritter budget?’ It wasn’t a term he was familiar with.

‘Spending money, for little pleasures. Though some people would see it as frittering my money away. So I might buy myself flowers, or some music, or some luxury chocolate.’ She smiled. ‘Or I’d save it all up for ages and ages and blow the lot on a piece like that one.’

‘It looks almost like a slice of a rainbow,’ he mused, ‘except there aren’t quite enough colours.’

‘The blue and purple bands are sky—a midnight sky, I’d say—the green band in the middle’s the sea, and the orange and red bands are the beach,’ she explained. ‘Look at the way they blend into each other. It’s gorgeous.’

To him, it was simply five bands of colour; but he liked the effect it had on her, the way it had made her face glow. Now she’d explained it to him, he could see what she meant. Though it still wasn’t something he’d choose to hang on his wall.

‘Come on, let’s go and get a coffee,’ she said.

They stopped at a café where they could watch the fountain splashing in the centre and children playing on the grass in the autumn sunshine. ‘Did you know that loads of cavaliers duelled here?’ she asked.

‘I can imagine it,’ he said. ‘Is this where you’d settle if you lived in Paris?’

‘I’d love to,’ she admitted. Then she grinned. ‘Just think, we could take over a whole corner of the square between us. A branch of Dante’s, a branch of Tonielli’s, and an art gallery sandwiched between them.’ She laughed. ‘But there’s a slight problem. We’d have to sell everything we owned between us, and we still wouldn’t be able to afford three shops here, let alone a flat.’

‘A branch of Dante’s.’ He gave her a thoughtful look.

‘No, no, I was kidding—’ she held both hands up in a gesture of surrender ‘—and this isn’t a business trip.’ She finished her coffee and wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry, I need the ladies’. I won’t be a minute.’

‘No problem.’

Did he have enough time to go back to the gallery where she’d fallen in love with that painting? he wondered. Even assuming that there were the usual queues for the ladies’ toilets, he probably didn’t. But there was another way to get what he wanted. He whipped out his mobile phone, flicked into the Internet, found the gallery’s website, and rang them. It didn’t take long to close the deal. The painting would be wrapped securely and sent by international express delivery to Naples, and it would be there at his office on Friday morning.

Perfect.

He was just putting his phone away when Carenza walked back over to him.

‘I saw that. You were making a business call, weren’t you?’ she accused.

He had no intention of telling her what he’d really been doing. The whole point was for it to be a surprise. And it was sort of a business call. ‘Busted,’ he said lightly.

‘You’re impossible.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I guess we’d better be heading back. It’ll take us a good half an hour to get from here to the Champs Elysées, and the taxi’s booked to take us to the airport in an hour.’

To Carenza’s relief, everything ran smoothly on the way back. They collected their luggage from the hotel, and the taxi got them back to the airport in more than enough time to check in.

Dante held her close. ‘Thank you. These past couple of days have been really special.’

He held her hand all the way back to Naples, and she found herself hoping that those whispered words hadn’t been her imagination or wishful thinking. A man like Dante, so used to keeping himself aloof from people, would find it hard to say those words. So he’d say them when he thought she was asleep, wouldn’t he?

Maybe she was hoping for too much, but the way his fingers were laced through hers gave her confidence. He cared. He just wasn’t used to saying it. With her help, he’d learn.

From the airport, they took a taxi back to her flat. Dante insisted on seeing her to the door.

‘Stay here tonight?’ she asked.

Though she could see in his face that he was remembering last night, how they’d made love in the middle of the night. Riskily. Without a condom. For a man so in control as Dante, that was a nightmare. And she knew even before he spoke what his answer would be.

‘Best not,’ he said gently, ‘but thank you. You made it the most memorable birthday of my life.’

And I could make every day like that for you, if you’d let me. Not that she said the words. She knew they’d make him back away from her even faster.

He kissed her lightly. ‘I’d better go. The taxi’s waiting for me. Goodnight, Princess.’

And that was it.

He was gone.