The backbone Rose had always managed to keep so rigid suddenly crumbled. Unable to look away, she slumped down on a kitchen chair. ‘Yes, you are. But this doesn’t change anything. I have absolutely no intention of telling Dante.’
‘Why not?’ Grace reached to take her hand. ‘Can you tell me what happened after we left that night, darling?’
Rose nodded reluctantly.
She had been dancing to something slow with Dante late in the evening when it struck her that Charlotte’s home would now be in Italy with Fabio, and her lifelong friendship with Rose would naturally take a back seat. When Dante had asked why she was sad she’d confided in him and blinked away her tears, suddenly desperate to get to bed. Dante had insisted on escorting her to her room, where he’d held her in his arms to comfort her, at which point she’d found she was no longer tired and within seconds they’d been kissing and caressing wildly, shedding their clothes to fall on the bed and join together in a maelstrom of heart-stopping bliss. They had still been locked in each other’s arms, breathless as they came back to earth, when Dante’s phone rang. Cursing, he had reached over Rose to pick it up, then with a wild exclamation he’d withdrawn to leap to his feet to dress, all the while continuing an impassioned conversation with the caller in Italian. Rose had pulled the sheet up to her chin as Dante, face ashen and haggard, begged forgiveness for his sudden departure, his English erratic in his distress as he explained he had to return home immediately because his grandmother was very ill. ‘I will contact you soon. Arrivederci, tesoro,’ had been the parting words she’d never forgotten.
She smiled bitterly. ‘After he’d gone I lay in a rose-tinted afterglow, dreaming of a future relationship with Dante, only to discover the next morning that he had a fiancée he’d forgotten to mention.’
Grace winced. ‘And you’d had unprotected sex!’
Rose gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Not a bit of it. He used a condom, but it was faulty. In his rush to get away he didn’t realise that, so I knew it was unlikely he’d believe he was the father of my child.’ She eyed her mother ruefully. ‘Not that it was possible to tell him, anyway. By the time I realised I was pregnant I was two months along, as you well know, and Dante Fortinari was well and truly married by then. So there was no way I could name him as Bea’s father. Dante is one of Fabio’s closest friends, and Fabio is married to my dearest friend, so I just couldn’t spoil things for Charlotte and perhaps even risk affecting the relationship between you and Tom.’
‘So you invented a one-night stand after a college party.’ Grace got up and pulled her daughter into her arms. ‘My darling girl, what are you going to do now?’
‘Nothing.’ Rose swallowed hard. ‘I was such a fool to go to Florence. I’d been refusing to all this time just in case I met Dante again. And then Charlotte actually sent him to see me at the hotel, and I took one look at him and knew exactly why I’d fallen in love at first sight all those years ago. Because, Mum, if I hadn’t fallen so hard for him it wouldn’t have happened.’ Her face flamed. ‘And in case you’re wondering, Dante was no way to blame. It was completely consensual.’ Not only then but last night, too. Would she ever learn?
Grace stood back and looked at her daughter searchingly. ‘Are you still in love with him?’
Rose nodded miserably. ‘But I don’t want to be. Part of me still blames him for what happened, and now and then my resentment gets the upper hand.’
‘Did you part on good terms last night?’
‘Eventually, yes. But there were a few awkward moments during the evening and when he brought me home. In fact, I offended Dante so much he drove off in a strop. But he drove back again later, so we were on good terms again before we said goodbye.’ Far too good, damn him. ‘It’s a pity Bea inherited my disposition, not Dante’s.’