The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,28

the sight of Vittorio and her father in what looked like a cosy tête-à-tête. Enrico looked up and smiled as she entered, and Vittorio stood.

‘We were just talking about you,’ Enrico said with a little smile and, despite the treacherous beating of her heart, Ana smiled rather coolly back.

‘Were you? What a surprise.’

‘I came to see if you’d like to have dinner with me,’ Vittorio said. He seemed entirely unruffled at being caught gossiping about her with her father.

Ana hesitated. She wanted to have dinner with Vittorio again but suddenly she also felt uncertain, afraid. Of what, she could not even say. She was afraid to rush, to show her own eagerness. She needed time to sort her thoughts and perhaps even to steel her heart. ‘I’m not dressed—’

‘No matter.’

She glanced down at her grey wool trousers and plain white blouse—which, aggravatingly, had become untucked. Again. ‘Really?’

Vittorio arched his eyebrows, a smile playing around his mouth. ‘Really.’ And, though he said nothing more, Ana knew he was surmising that she had a wardrobe of similarly unappealing clothes upstairs. At least they were clean and freshly ironed.

Still, she accepted the challenge. Why should she change for Vittorio? Why should she attempt to look pretty—if such a thing could be done—for the sake of this business arrangement? She lifted her chin. ‘Fine. Let me just wash my face and hands at least.’ He nodded, and Ana walked quickly from the room, trying to ignore the hurt that needled her, the little sink of her heart at his indifference to her clothes, her appearance. She wanted Vittorio to care how she looked. She wanted him to like how she looked.

Get over it, her mind told her, the words hard and determined. If you’re going to marry him, this is how it is going to be.

Her heart sank a little further. She wished it hadn’t.

Within just a few minutes they were speeding down the darkening drive, away from Villa Rosso, the windows open to the fragrant evening air.

‘Where are we going?’ Ana asked as the hair she’d just tidied blew into tangles around her face.

‘Venice.’

‘Venice!’ she nearly yelped. ‘I’m not dressed for that—’

Vittorio’s glance was hooded yet smiling. ‘Let me worry about that.’

Ana sat back, wondering just how and why Vittorio was going to worry about her clothes. The idea made her uneasy.

She found out soon enough. Vittorio parked the Porsche at Fusina and they boarded a ferry for the ten-minute ride into the city that allowed no cars. As the worn stone buildings and narrow canals with their sleepy-looking gondolas and ancient arched bridges came into view, Ana felt a frisson of expectation and even hope. What city was more romantic than Venice? And just why was Vittorio taking her here?

After they disembarked, he led her away from the Piazza San Marco, crowded with tourists, to Frezzeria, a narrow street lined with upscale boutiques. Most of them had already closed, but all it took was Vittorio rapping once on the glass door of one for the clerk inside, a chic-looking woman with hair in a tight chignon, wearing a silk blouse and a black pencil skirt, to open the door and kiss him on both cheeks.

A ridiculous, totally unreasonable dart of jealousy stabbed Ana, and fury followed it when the woman swept her assessingly critical gaze over her and said, ‘This is the one?’

‘Yes.’

She snapped her fingers. ‘Come with me.’

Ana turned to Vittorio, her eyes narrowed. ‘You talked about me?’ she said in an angry undertone, choosing to show anger over the hurt she felt inside, a raw, open wound to the heart. She could only imagine the conversation Vittorio must have had with this woman, talking about her hopeless clothes, her terrible taste, how pathetic and ugly she was…

She tasted bile, swallowed. What a fool she’d been.

‘She’s here to help you, Ana,’ Vittorio murmured. ‘Go with her.’

Ana could see racks of gorgeous-looking clothes—a rainbow of silks and satins—in the back of the boutique. They beckoned to her, surprisingly, because she’d never been a girly kind of woman. She’d avoided all things feminine, mostly out of necessity. She didn’t want to look ridiculous. Yet the enticement of the clothes was no match for the hurt—and fury—she felt now.

‘Perhaps I don’t want help,’ she snapped. ‘Did you ever consider that?’

Vittorio remained unfazed. ‘Is that true?’ he asked calmly, so clearly confident of the answer. Humiliatingly, his gaze raked over her, more eloquent than anything he could have said. Ana’s cheeks burned.

The woman appeared once