as she went in, flicking on lights and closing the drapes. She had to get over this fear because soon she’d be a mother; soon it would be her chasing away shadows and things, as Dante would say, that went bump in the night.
Except there was nothing soothing about Suite al Limone just before a storm. She stripped off her riding clothes and stood in the shower, willing the water to warm her, yet she felt chilled to the bone.
And as she stepped out of the shower and pulled on her robe, birds were screeching as they came home to roost and to hide from the storm. It was then that a window blew open.
It was the wind, of course it was the wind, but, instead of closing it, Mia gave in to her fear and sank to her knees.
She had never been more terrified in her life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DANTE ARRIVED AT his mother’s apartment, this time without warning.
His pilot had skilfully dodged the storm and it was a surprisingly sunny Rome evening that Dante looked out on as a driver took him to his mother’s apartment. Less of a surprise were the reporters and photographers across the street, waiting for the reappearance of the errant Romano son.
‘Hey, Dante!’ they called as they snapped away with their cameras. ‘Where’s Mia?’
‘How did you get the bruise, Dante?’
But Dante turned angry eyes straight at them and the questions rapidly faded.
His mother, though, wasn’t daunted by his brooding and was suitably furious! Fresh from her cruise but less than relaxed, she hurled open the door.
‘Dante, how could you?’ she shouted. ‘I have the press outside, reporters calling, and you are all over the papers with her. She ruined my life, Dante! How the hell could you do this to me?’
Dante responded by greeting her lover. ‘Signor Thomas,’ he said, ‘would you excuse us, please?’
Signor Thomas stood tall, but far less imposing than he had appeared to Dante a couple of decades ago, and Angela was adamant that he remain.
‘He is to stay. We both want to hear how you defend your actions with the woman who wrecked my marriage.’
When she offered a rather choice word, the bear had been poked enough, and though Dante did not growl, his voice held an unmistakable threat. ‘Never, and I mean never, speak of Mia that way again,’ he warned, and then pulled his mother aside and spoke only for her ears. ‘Know this—if he does stay, I shall not be moderating my questions to suit the audience.’
‘David and I don’t have secrets.’
‘You mean he just blindly believes every word that you say?’
His mother took in a breath and, Dante noticed, was not quite so much on her high horse as she had always been before. She walked over to her lover.
‘David,’ she purred. ‘Would you leave us, please?’
‘Very well,’ said Signor Thomas. ‘But, Angela, please call me when you have finished speaking with Dante.’ He kissed her cheek and gave her arm a squeeze and then, having nodded to Dante, walked out.
Dante waited until the door had closed, but Angela did not. ‘What on earth were you doing with Mia?’
‘Exactly what it looks like,’ Dante said, refusing to lie. ‘But I am here to ask about you and Signor Thomas. You didn’t just bump into him after the divorce, did you?’
‘Dante, stop.’
‘No,’ he said belligerently. ‘I remember he was here once when I came home. He said he was dropping off schoolwork...’ He gave a scoffing laugh. ‘It was you who broke up the marriage, wasn’t it?’
His mother had the look of a deer caught in the headlights. ‘Dante, let things rest.’
‘Lies never rest,’ Dante said. ‘They wait and regroup and return. You were having an affair all along, weren’t you?’
‘I don’t have to answer to you!’
‘Then I’ll draw my own conclusion. You have the audacity to judge me, to judge Mia, to drag Ariana into your hate fest of negativity, when all along you were the one having the affair.’
‘Your father and I came to an arrangement a long time ago,’ Angela said.
‘Why involve Mia?’ Dante shot out, because he still didn’t get it.
‘Our marriage was over long before Mia.’
‘Did you ever love him?’
‘Dante, please...’
‘Do you even miss him, or was it all just an act?’ He looked at his mother, tanned from her cruise, dressed in the latest fashions with made-up eyes, and then he thought of Mia, who had admitted the marriage had been for money and been hot in his arms, and everywhere