Free Moth to the Flame by Sara Craven Page A

rather than
    later when she considered some of the self-revelations that had
    come to her during the evening. And she wanted it to be over.
    There was pain and danger waiting on the path she had embarked
    on so recklessly. Her own life might be dull in comparison, but at
    least it was safe and real.
    It was very warm in the car even though the side windows were
    open to admit the evening air. In spite of herself, she could feel an
    almost irresistible urge to yawn taking hold of her, and stifled it
    guiltily, brushing a concealing hand across her mouth. Santino
    Vallone, she thought, would definitely not be accustomed to women
    who yawned in his company.
    Yet it certainly wasn't boredom she was assailed by—she felt too
    keyed up for that—but a sudden and inexplicable drowsiness which
    she found herself fighting with a strange urgency.
    Santino leaned forward and flicked a switch on the dashboard and
    music began to play softly, with a slow sensuous beat which had an
    increasingly soporific effect. She forced her weighted eyelids to
    remain open and pulled herself into a more upright position in the
    seat. There was no way— no way at all in which she was going to
    sleep.
    Now if she had been with Barry she would simply have succumbed,
    putting her head on his shoulder and letting her drowsiness have its
    way with her, but such an action would be unthinkable with a man
    like Santino. Even if they had merely spent a pleasant evening in
    each other's company with no ulterior motives on either side, she
    would still have been chary at putting herself so completely at his
    mercy.
    She found another yawn threatening, and turned her head away to
    hide it, gazing rather desperately out of the window. Darkness
    outside the car, darkness within it, and the soft insistent rhythm of
    the music—all of it lapping her like a warm blanket, infinitely
    comforting, infinitely appealing. And all she had to do was let go
    and slide down into the darkness, closing her weary eyes and not
    even thinking any more because thinking, reasoning was too hard
    when you were so nearly falling asleep.
    Through the mists that were drowning her, smothering her, he heard
    him say softly but with an underlying note of faint amusement,
    'Why fight it, cara? Just close your eyes and enjoy the ride.'
    It was the amusement that told her, and she grasped at it with the
    last remnants of reason. Her mouth felt stiff as if it didn't belong to
    her, and her voice seemed to come from a long way away as she
    heard herself say, 'The coffee —what did you put in the coffee?'
    His laughter, mocking and enigmatic, was the last thing she heard
    as she fell asleep.

CHAPTER FOUR
    She came awake slowly, her hand automatically reaching out to
    grope for the alarm clock that she felt .must have triggered her
    subconscious. But it wasn't the usual clutter of clock, lamp, the
    novel she had been reading that her hand encountered. And as the
    sun began to filter through her still-closed eyelids, she thought,
    'How stupid. Of course, I'm still in Rome at Jan's flat. But I've been
    dreaming about being at home.'
    Then she opened her eyes and her first thought was that she was
    dreaming still. For the room around her bore not the slightest
    resemblance to the streamlined luxury at the flat. It was completely
    and totally unfamiliar.
    She sat up, accepting that there was a slight dull ache across her
    forehead, her eyes questing round the room with increasing alarm.
    It wasn't particularly large, but it had a formidable air which was
    immediately apparent. Stone walls, their austerity unrelieved by any
    kind of hangings or colour wash, massive furniture belonging to a
    previous generation, small-paned windows set in deeply ledged
    recesses. And the bed she was lying in surely belonged more
    properly in a museum, she thought apprehensively as she gazed up
    at the brocaded canopy over her head, and the long curtains that
    swept down on either side of it. She supposed the curtains