The Forced Marriage by Sara Craven Page A

hoped you would offer me some coffee.’ He was inside now, accompanying her up the stairs, his hand under her arm, supporting her again. Taking it for granted, she thought furiously, that it was necessary. ‘Isn’t that the conventional thing to do?’ he added.
    ‘You wouldn’t know a convention, Signor Valante, if it jumped out and bit you.’ Not all her words were as clear as she’d have liked, but she thought she’d got the meaning across.
    ‘On the other hand, I could make you some coffee,’ he went on. ‘You seem to need it.’
    ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ Flora returned with dignified imprecision. ‘And our dinner date is over, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But the evening still goes on. And I am curious to see where you live.’
    ‘Why?’ She watched him fit the flat key in the lock.
    He shrugged. ‘Because you can learn a great deal from someone’s surroundings. You of all people should know that,’ he added drily. ‘And there are things I wish to discover about you.’
    She gave him a brilliant smile. ‘Good luck,’ she said, and led the way into the living room.
    Marco Valante halted, looking slowly round him, taking in the plain white walls, the stripped floorboards, the low glass-topped table, and the sofa and single armchair in their tailored smoky blue covers.
    He said softly, ‘A blank canvas. How interesting. And is the bedroom equally neutral?’
    Flora walked back across the narrow passage and flung open the door opposite. ‘Judge for yourself,’ she said, and watched his reaction.
    Here, there were no touches of colour at all. Everything from the walls to the fitted wardrobes which hid her clothes, and the antique lace bedcover and the filmy drapes that hung at the window, was an unremitting white.
    ‘Very virginal,’ Marco said after a pause, his face expressionless. ‘Like the cell of a nun. It explains a great deal.’
    ‘Such as?’ she demanded.
    ‘Why your fidanzato prefers to spend his time elsewhere, perhaps.’
    ‘As it happens, Chris is here all the time. And he likes a—a minimalist look,’ she flung back at him. ‘And now that you’ve seen what you came for, you can leave.’
    ‘Without my coffee?’ He shook his head reproachfully. ‘You are not very hospitable, Flora mia .’
    She said between her teeth, ‘Please stop calling me “your” Flora.’
    ‘You wish me to call you “his” Flora—this Cristoforo’s—when it is quite clear you do not belong to him—and never have?’
    She might not be firing on all cylinders, but she could recognise disdain when she heard it.
    ‘You know nothing about my relationship with my fiancé,’ she threw back at him, discomfited to hear her words slurring. ‘And you’re hardly the person to lecture me on how to conduct my engagement. I think it’s time you went.’
    ‘And I think you’re more in need of coffee than I am, signorina .’ He walked down the passage to the kitchen. Flora, setting off in pursuit with a gasp of indignation, arrived in time to see him filling the kettle and setting it to boil.
    ‘You have no espresso machine?’ He glanced round at her, brows lifted.
    ‘No,’ Flora said with heavy sarcasm. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t realise I’d be entertaining an uninvited guest.’
    ‘If you think you are in the least entertaining, you delude yourself.’ He reached for the cafetière. ‘Where do you keep your coffee?’
    Mute with temper, she opened a cupboard and took down a new pack of a freshly ground Colombian blend.
    She said curtly, ‘I’ll do it.’
    ‘As you wish.’ He shrugged, and took her place in the doorway, leaning a casual shoulder against its frame.
    ‘You give little away,’ he remarked after a pause. ‘No pictures—no ornaments or personal touches. You are an enigma, Signorina Flora. A woman of mystery. What are you trying to conceal, I wonder?’
    ‘Nothing at all,’ Flora denied, spooning coffee into the cafetière. ‘But I work