Simple.
Straightforward.
The same rules that had kept them both happy and safe for the last six months were still in place. Even more so now. The more they each got to know the other, the more those rules made sense. The more they both understood why they had to be followed.
‘Ah, young love,’ Allegra agreed, though her disappointment was impossible to miss.
He had been pleasantly surprised by how much his grandmother had taken Charlotte into her heart. By how much she clearly admired and respected the other woman.
She’d loved Jamie, too, but it had been a different kind of love. To Jamie, Allegra had served almost as a second mother. Someone who Jamie could turn to when she needed holding up. This interaction with Charlotte was more mature and level. Almost as though they were friends and equals. In fact, there was a confidence about Charlotte that, now that Dante thought about it, had been one of the things he’d noticed first. He’d watched her from afar, seen the way she was with other people, and he’d felt a shockwave of electricity, pounding towards him.
‘You know,’ Allegra said, slowly, thoughtfully. ‘I’m tired today.’
Dante was immediately watchful. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine, fine,’ she waved a hand through the air. ‘As wonderful as it is having you here, I don’t entertain often these days. I’m a little worn out.’
Dante felt a rush of regret. ‘Of course. I should have known.’
‘Nonsense. I wouldn’t change a thing. The only reason I bring it up is that I thought I might have a quiet night.’
Dante frowned. Something about this seemed almost pre-arranged.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but while you’ve been here, Rosaria has been arranging dinner at the pool house for you.’
Charlotte rolled her eyes with easy affection. ‘Has she?’
‘I get the impression we’re being managed, don’t you,cara?’ he asked Charlotte, eyes glancing to hers and then bouncing away again immediately afterwards, because the bolt of lightning that burst into him seemed almost to sear his skin.
‘I think that might be the case,’ she said with a good-humoured laugh.
‘Oh, you two,’ Allegra said, standing, wagging her finger towards them. ‘You’re being quite unkind to me!’
Dante shook his head.
‘Walk me to my room, Dante. If you’ll excuse us, Charlotte?’
‘Of course,’ Charlotte agreed good-naturedly, a smile still playing about her lips. A smile that, if he’d allowed his gaze to linger on it, might have robbed him completely of breath.
‘Just wait a moment,’ Allegra said, lifting her finger to hold Dante where he was before disappearing into her bedroom. A moment later, she returned, holding a black, velvet pouch.
‘I would like you to give this to Charlotte for me.’
Dante took the pouch, frowning. ‘What is it?’
‘A gift.’
‘I presumed as much. But of what?’
‘It’s a necklace, if you must know.’
‘A necklace? May I?’
She nodded once, her lips pursed as Dante opened the pouch and tipped the contents into his palm. It was like being dragged back in time. He remembered this so vividly from his childhood. On a delicate platinum chain sat a diamond pendant, shaped like a teardrop. He remembered his mother wearing it, often. She’d loved it. And when Dante had, as a little boy, asked her if she wore it because she was sad and it looked like a tear, she’d considered that for a moment before replying that in fact, if you turned it upside down, the pendant looked like half of a love heart. She’d told him that she loved it because it was a reminder that she was one half of so many other people—that for everyone she loved, she was loved back.
He’d always remembered that, as one of the first times he’d been corrected—and happily so.
‘This was my mother’s.’
