Wedding in Venice

Chapter Six

Justine slipped away alone the next morning. This was a working trip, and as well as photographing the wedding, she wanted to explore Venice.

She called Dulcie to say she wouldn't be home for lunch.

"I'm in St. Mark's Square. I'll get something to eat here."

"You should go to Florian's," Dulcie told her. "It's a genuine eighteenth-century café, and Casanova used to go there because it was the only one in Venice where women were allowed."

Justine found Florian's and sat in the window drinking a sinfully delicious concoction of coffee, chocolate and cream, and listening to the four-piece orchestra playing just outside. The surroundings were still as they must have been two hundred years ago.

If she closed her eyes she could see Casanova, a tall, elegant man in powdered wig and knee breeches. In her vivid imagination, he paused a moment, smiling before he spoke.

"Can we talk for more than two minutes this time?"

His voice was familiar. Justine opened her eyes to find "Casanova" pulling up a chair beside her – in the form of Riccardo.

No wig or knee breeches. Just black jeans and a black shirt that showed tanned, muscular arms. In these sedate surroundings, his look of having just stepped off the brig of a pirate ship made him riotously out of place.

He hailed a waiter and ordered something for himself and a repeat of her order.

"You shouldn't have done that," she said urgently. "I swore I'd only allow myself one."

"I think you can afford the calories," he said with an admiring look at her tiny waist and long legs.

She was used to that kind of look, but this was different, as though he had taken in everything about her in one instant. She hoped she didn't look self-conscious.

"I'm sorry about my little deception," he said.

She gave a rueful smile.

"You don't expect to find a hotel owner collecting his own vegetables. And you were so convincing as a bargee. You swung me up onto the bank as if I weighed nothing."

He laughed and flexed his biceps theatrically. "No problem. I developed these tossing sacks of potatoes around."

She joined in his laughter, but regarded him wryly.

"I see. Women, potatoes – it's all one, huh?"

His eyes gleamed with pure mischief. "Oh, no! Not at all. Between a sack of potatoes and a woman – well, one is a lot more fun than the other."

She felt a sudden flicker of self-consciousness, and was annoyed at herself. For Pete's sake, she was a woman of the world, not a blushing violet! She'd known where this might lead as soon as their eyes met on the lagoon the first day.

But the word "fun," signposting the way ahead, had almost caught her unaware.

Yes, he would be fun, she thought, considering him. The whipcord strength of that easy, loose-limbed body, the sensual light in his eyes, his air of devilment.

Fun. But also a great deal more.

"It's early days for the hotel," he said, apparently not seeing her turmoil, or choosing not to see it. "I turn my hand to most things. Tomorrow night I shall be serving food at the Calvani party."

He watched as she sipped the sweet drink he had ordered for her.

"You never really answered my question yesterday," he said. "How long do you mean to stay in Venice?"

"You practically answered it yourself."

"Yes, I told you that you should stay forever. I'm afraid I tend to arrange people's lives for them, like a dictator. But only the ones I like."

"I don't know how long I'll be here," she said, not answering this directly.

"Is there nobody waiting for you at home who will object if you stay away too long?"

"No," she said wryly. "There is nobody who will object if I stay away too long."

"There ought to be. Please excuse me – I told you I was a dictator. To me it is so clear that you are a woman who should not live alone -"

"But perhaps it's my choice, and then you really are being a dictator."

"Is it your choice?"

"I'm divorced," she said abruptly.

"Your wish or his?"

"He slept with someone else. I threw him out. End of story."

"Had he been faithless before?"

"If he had, I'd have thrown him out before."

"You didn't want to try to save your marriage?"

"There was nothing to save," she said tensely. "It was over."

"So quickly? So easily? So ruthlessly?"

The last word was like a dagger.

"I really have to go," she said, rising. "Thank you for the coffee."

"Are you offended with me?"

"Yes. You have no right to – Never mind."

She fled without a backward look.