As she waited for him to finish she suddenly had a vivid flashback. The two of them snuggled up together in the ridiculously narrow bed of the tiny student flat she had been renting when they’d first met, with the diffused afternoon sun filtering through the cheap cotton curtains. Rafael had been teasing her about her schoolgirl French, making her repeat words after him as he trailed his fingers down her naked skin, following them with a line of feather-light kisses. As each word had become more erotic than the last he’d finally claimed her pouting lips with his own, and the lesson had ended with something that was certainly never taught in school.
‘Bene—everything is sorted.’ Slipping the phone into his trouser pocket he turned, frowning slightly as he noticed the flush on Lottie’s cheeks. ‘I’ve arranged a little trip away for us.’
Lottie readjusted her face. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We are going to Villa Varenna. I thought you might like that.’
‘Well, yes...maybe.’
Now it was Lottie’s turn to frown. The Revaldis had property all over the place, but this was her favourite—a beautiful villa, perched on the side of a stunning Italian lake.
‘When were you thinking of going?’ It seemed a strange time to be considering a holiday, when their lives were on hold until they knew if she was pregnant.
‘Now.’ Rafael’s beautiful dark eyes regarded her calmly.
‘Now?’ Lottie repeated incredulously. ‘How could we possibly go now?’
‘Easy. I’ve already got the helicopter here. We can be there in a couple of hours.’
‘But we can’t. I mean—not now. I don’t have any things...clothes, toiletries.’
‘You’re not seriously telling me you can’t go because you don’t have a toothbrush?’
Lottie gave him her best imperious stare. Just because he had come over all Mr Spontaneous, it didn’t give him the right to mock her.
‘I am just trying to be practical. What about the car—the one I drove here in?’
‘All sorted.’ He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. ‘There is really nothing to get worked up about.’
‘I am not worked up.’ She modulated her voice accordingly. ‘How long would we go for?’
‘Until we know for sure that you are pregnant.’
‘Two weeks!’ The voice soared again. ‘Surely you can’t just drop everything and go away for two weeks?’
‘There are such things as computers, Lottie, and phones and modern technology. I’m not suggesting we paddle up the Amazon and live in a mud hut. I can work quite well from the villa. Neither am I suggesting that we drop everything, come to that. Let me put your mind at rest on that score.’
Well. That was her firmly put in her place.
‘There is one thing, though. The villa is unstaffed, with this being a spur-of-the-moment decision. There is no one around. I could arrange it, of course, but I’ve decided not to bother. I thought we might enjoy having the place all to ourselves.’
CHAPTER FOUR
SITTING ON THE terrace of Villa Varenna was like having been transported to a different world. Only a few hours ago she had been lying on a hospital bed, staring at the central heating ducts. Now dusk was turning into night over Lake Varenna and the colourful lights of the properties scattered along the shoreline were glittering like a necklace of jewels. As the sky turned a milky blue against the jagged black shapes of the mountains the water was transformed to a luminous purple.
Lottie had never been able to get used to this—the sheer wealth and privilege of the Revaldi family. It was so far removed from her own upbringing she had never felt comfortable with it; growing up in a suburban semi had hardly prepared her for this. Her life had been all Neighbourhood Watch and twitching curtains—her own mother having given them plenty to twitch about when she had arrived back from yet another little holiday with a suntanned gentleman and a giftwrapped memento of some exotic place she had no doubt viewed from the deck of a cruise ship.
It was different for Rafael, of course; he had been born into this lifestyle—it was a part of him, who he was. And along with the wealth and privilege came an enormous amount of commitment and hard work. Lottie had seen for herself the weight of responsibility that came with the title of Conte di Monterrato—a title that had passed to Rafael on the death of his father.
Lottie had never met her father-in-law, Georgio Revaldi. He had died suddenly when she and Rafael were still living in Oxford, effectively ending their fairytale life there and then. Because that was what it had been, Lottie now realised. A Rafe and Lottie fairytale—a glorious, passionate, heady love affair that had been far too perfect to make it in the real world. It had been inevitable that the story would come to an end, that the book would eventually slam shut.