Free The Truth Behind his Touch by Cathy Williams

Giancarlo about hiswork, to which he received such brief replies that that too was a subject quickly shelved.
    By the time the main course was brought to them—and Alberto had bemoaned the fact that they were to dine on fish rather than something altogether heartier like a slab of red meat—Caroline had frankly had enough of the painfully stilted conversation.
    If they didn’t want to have any kind of meaningful conversation together, then she would fill in the gaps. She talked about her childhood, growing up in Devon. Her parents were both teachers, very much into being ‘green’. She laughed at memories of the chickens they had kept that laid so many eggs at times that her mother would bake cakes a family of three had no possibility of eating just to get rid of some of them. She would contribute them to the church every Sunday and one year was actually awarded a special prize for her efforts.
    She talked about exchange students, some of whom had been most peculiar, and joked about her mother’s experiments in the kitchen with home-grown produce from their small garden. In the end, she and her father had staged a low-level rebellion until normal food was reintroduced. Alberto chuckled but he was not relaxed. It was there in the nervous flickering of his eyes and his subdued, down-turned mouth. The son he had desperately wanted to see didn’t want to see him and he wasn’t even bothering to try to hide the fact.
    All the while she could feel Giancarlo’s dark eyes restively looking at her and she found that she just couldn’t look at him. What was it about him that brought her out in goose bumps and made her feel as though she just wasn’t comfortable in her own skin? The timbre of his low, husky voice sent shivers down her spine, and when he turned tolook at her she was aware of her body in such miniscule detail that she burned with discomfort.
    By the time they adjourned for coffee back in the small sitting-room, Caroline was exhausted and she could see that Alberto was flagging. Giancarlo, on the other hand, was as coldly composed as he had been at the start of the evening.
    ‘How long do you plan on staying, my boy? You should get yourself out on the lake. Beautiful weather. And you were always fond of your sailing. Of course, we no longer have the sailboat. What was the point? After, well, after.’
    ‘After what, Father?’
    ‘I think it’s time you went to bed, Alberto,’ Caroline interjected desperately as the conversation finally threatened to explode. ‘You’re flagging and you know the doctor said that you really need to take it easy. I’ll get hold of Tessa and—’
    ‘After you and your mother left.’
    ‘Ah, so finally you’ve decided to acknowledge that you ever had a wife. One could be forgiven for thinking that you had erased her from your memory completely.’ No mention had been made of Adriana. Not one single word. They had tiptoed around all mention of the past, as though it had never existed. Alberto had been on his best behaviour. Now Giancarlo expected to see his real father, the cold, unforgiving one, the one who, from memory, had never shied away from arguing.
    ‘I’ve done no such thing, my son,’ Alberto surprised Giancarlo by saying quietly.
    ‘It’s time you went to bed, Alberto.’ Caroline stood up and looked pointedly at Giancarlo. ‘I will not allow you to tire your father out any longer,’ she said, and in truth Alberto was showing signs of strain around his eyes. ‘He’sbeen very ill and this conversation is
not
going to help anything at all.’
    ‘Oh, do stop fussing, Caroline.’ But his pocket handkerchief was in his hand and he was patting his forehead wearily.
    ‘
You
—’ she jabbed a finger at Giancarlo ‘—are going to wait
right here
for me while I go to fetch Tessa because I intend to have a little chat with you.’
    ‘The boy wants to talk about his past, Caroline. It’s why he’s come.’
    Caroline snorted without taking her eyes away from