Second-Time Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

up the breakfast dishes. The whole time Alessio was with her the older woman hovered, staring at Alessio as if she couldn’t quite believe he was real.
    â€˜I’ll pick you up at seven...OK?’ he said levelly, quite unconcerned by his audience. ‘We’ll go for a meal somewhere.’
    â€˜OK...’
    â€˜Smile,’ he said, cheerfully ruffling the hair of the two-year-old girl clinging to his leg. ‘She can smile at me...why can’t you?’
    â€˜I wasn’t expecting you.’
    His mouth quirked. ‘You’re not supposed to admit things like that.’
    Liz cornered her the instant he departed. ‘Daisy, if I acted a little weird, put it down to me being shocked at the sight of a Leopardi entering my humble home.’
    â€˜Why?’ Daisy frowned.
    â€˜We’ve been coming here every summer for ten years and I still can’t get as much as nod of acknowledgement from the Leopardis! His parents are mega-rich—as well as their villa here they’ve got a huge mansion in Rome, where they live most of the time—and they are very exclusive in their friendships,’ she explained uncomfortably. ‘And Alessio has a reputation with girls that would turn any mother’s hair white overnight. But he usually sticks with his own set. Please don’t take this the wrong way, Daisy...but do you really think you can handle a young man like that? He’s seen a lot more of life than you have.’
    But Daisy didn’t listen. Alessio did not seem remotely snobbish. And Alessio’s unknown parents interested her not at all.
    He rolled up in a low-slung scarlet sports car to take her out that evening. Daisy was impressed to death but Liz grabbed her husband in horror as she peered out from behind the curtains. ‘I don’t believe it! They’ve bought a teenager a Ferrari! Are the Leopardis out of their minds?’
    All the trappings of fantasy were there—the gorgeous guy who had miraculously picked her out of a wealth of beautiful, far more sophisticated girls, the fabulous car. That night they dined in a ritzy restaurant in Florence. Daisy was overpowered by her surroundings until Alessio reached across the table and twined her tense fingers soothingly in his, and then she quite happily surrendered to being overpowered by him instead.
    On the drive back, he stopped the car, drew her confidently into his arms and kissed her. About ten seconds into that wildly exciting experience, he started teaching her how to kiss, laughing when she got embarrassed, laughing even harder when she tried to excuse her inexpert technique by pleading cultural differences. But surprisingly he didn’t attempt to do anything more than kiss her. He was so different away from his friends. Romantic, tender, unexpectedly serious.
    â€˜Do you know I still haven’t asked you what you’re studying at college?’ Alessio remarked carelessly at one point.
    â€˜History and English. I want to be an infant teacher,’ she said shyly, and if he hadn’t kissed her again she might have told him that she was already worrying that in a year’s time she mightn’t get good enough grades to make it onto the particular teacher-training course which her aunt had advised her to set her sights on.
    â€˜You wouldn’t believe how relieved I am to hear that you’re studying for your degree,’ Alessio confided lazily. ‘I was afraid you might still be at school.’
    And she realised then that there had been a misunderstanding. She attended a sixth-form college for sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds, not a college of further education which would equip her with a degree. ‘Would it have made a difference... if I had been?’ she prompted uneasily.
    â€˜Of course it would have made a difference.’ Alessio frowned down at her in surprise. ‘I don’t date schoolgirls. It may be only a matter of a couple of years but