Italy's Most Scandalous Virgin - Carol Marinelli Page 0,10

not.

The prison doors felt as if they were parting as, for the first time since the day they’d met, she allowed herself to meet his gaze and be held there.

Oh, prim Mia, Dante thought as it was he who finally removed his gaze, you are so not.

The second course—suckling pig—was served as the atmosphere at the table grew increasingly tense. Now it was Mia who wanted to fling down her cutlery and head upstairs, but instead she asked for a very small portion, though it was almost impossible to eat even that much.

‘Where is Angela to be seated in the church?’ Luigi’s wife asked Dante.

‘Wherever she chooses.’

‘But what pew?’ Luigi persisted on his wife’s behalf. ‘Surely the children of the deceased should be at the front and their mother with them.’

‘Mia shall be seated at the front,’ Dante said. ‘Etiquette dictates that the ex-wife should be discreet and stay back...’ Though Dante knew, of course, that there wasn’t a hope in hell of that happening tomorrow. His mother would be sitting behind Mia like a cat put out in the rain, Dante thought, and he felt a rare prickle of sympathy in Mia’s direction for the circus his mother created. Very deliberately he pushed that thought aside and got on with explaining the order of events tomorrow. ‘He shall be buried back here by the lake, in a very short ceremony...just his children, and...’ Dante swallowed ‘...his current wife, and then back here for drinks, and no doubt more damn antipasti...’ his bile was rising ‘...then the reading of the will...’ He took a belt of brandy and Mia gave up on her suckling pig and stared at her plate in silence.

‘I forgot to say—’ Dante’s voice was now eerily calm ‘—that I shall be giving the eulogy. Mia?’

She looked up, somewhat startled by the sound of her own name and the question in Dante’s voice. ‘I have spoken with all my family to ask what they want included, and now I ask you. Is there anything you would specifically like me to add?’

Mia had not been expecting to be offered any input into the eulogy and she did not know how to respond without offending those who had loved Rafael the most—after all, Mia was more than aware that their marriage had been a charade.

‘Mia?’ Dante invited a touch more tersely.

She could not meet his dark eyes now, even as she spoke. ‘I’ve already said everything I wanted to to your father. I am sure whatever you have written will be wonderful.’

‘So there is nothing you would like me to add?’ Dante checked.

Mia did not know what to say and the silence that seemed to stretch on for ever was broken only when Luigi’s chair scraped back and he stood. Luigi looked at her with so much disgust that for a second Mia thought he might fling the contents of his wineglass in her direction, but instead he walked away from the table. ‘I am going to the church,’ he said. ‘I rather think it might be warmer in there, even with the doors open.’

‘We shall come too,’ Stefano said, gesturing to Eloa to stand as he shot Mia a look and then addressed his brother. ‘Are you coming, Dante?’

‘I have a few more things to sort out first.’ Dante declined his brother’s invitation to leave.

‘Then I shall come back later and collect you for the vigil.’

The rest of the family all agreed that they too would not wait for dessert and as they headed out she heard someone mutter a distasteful word under their breath. She also deciphered a comment in Italian, about her not even being able to squeeze out a tear, let alone declare her love for her late husband.

Only Dante remained seated.

‘Well, that went well...’ Mia’s voice was high, her burst of mirthless laughter shrill.

‘It was never going to go well,’ Dante said, and turned those black eyes to her. ‘I have no idea what my father was thinking, requesting that we dine together.’

‘Neither do I.’ She did not look at him and instead wrung a serviette between her hands. ‘Dante, I have no issue with your family sitting at the front, either with me, or I can sit farther—’

‘No.’ Dante cut in. ‘You will not be seated farther back. I will speak with my mother. However—and I’m being frank now, Mia—I can usually give speeches and eulogies with my eyes closed, but I am struggling with what to say in this instance. Should I