Free Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance) by Sally-Ann Jones Page A

square, farmers were already setting up the stalls from which they would sell their wares. Tonia led Annabella to a quaint yellow house overlooking the square and opened the unlocked door.
         “Wait here while I go and see how Tomasina is,” Tonia whispered, showing the younger woman into a small sitting room in which a big porcelain doll dressed in a wedding gown occupied pride of place on the red sofa.
         Seeing Annabella looking at the doll, Tonia told her quietly that her sister’s beloved fiancé had been killed in a motorcycle accident on the eve of their wedding and that she ’d never really recovered from the tragedy.
         Annabella waited while Tonia climbed the steep stairs. She emerged several minutes later, looking relieved. “She ’s not as bad as I feared, thank God. A little cough coupled with her usual complaint – a bad migraine. She suffers from headaches two or three times a year. I’m certain the cough can be relieved and then her head will be better too.  I told her you were here and she sends you her love.”
          “Thank you. Now, Tonia, I’m going to walk back to Casa dei Fiori and leave you here for as long as you want to stay. Have some fun with your sister when she is better. Don’t rush back, si?”
         Tonia smiled and took both Annabella’s hands in hers. She nodded. “ Arriverderci, Goodbye, Bella. Don’t work too hard. Your great-grandpapa didn’t expect you to restore the villa and the estate to their former glory in just a few days, you know.”
         They embraced and Annabella walked out into the morning sunshine. By now, the stalls were laden with mushrooms, tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, zucchini flowers, pastas of all colours and shapes, and fresh eggs, cheeses and cured meats. She wandered from stall to stall, unaware of the stir she was causing with her flame-red hair, milk-white skin and young, ripe body.
         At last, one of the young men who had been weighing salami, plucked up the courage to ask her if she were the heiress up at the villa. He remembered seeing her with the old man, years ago, and she had grown very beautiful since then.
         “ Si, ” she answered, flashing him a radiant smile. She wasn’t surprised people knew that Alessandro hadn’t been made the heir – that sort of news travelled rapidly in small communities. It was certainly the kind of thing she and her friends would natter over on a Friday evening at the pub.
         “You need men to work the fields, no?” he asked, optimistically. He had plenty of brothers who could help their father in the family butcher shop.
         “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “ Domani. Tomorrow. If you like, you can meet me there in the morning and I’ll give you plenty of work. I am Annabella,” she added, holding her hand out to him.
         He took it readily and, smiling broadly, said, “And I am Carlo. I will be there alle otto. At eight o’clock.”           
           Heartened by his enthusiasm, Annabella grinned back and hiked back to the estate, where she spent the whole day shovelling manure. The back-breaking work certainly took her mind off her cousin – to a certain extent.
          Still sitting on the kitchen table, Annabella sighed contentedly and took another sip of her wine before leaving the kitchen and walking up the stairs to her bath.
     
    The little hussy!, Alessandro fumed. He’d cooked his pasta and taken it outside, to watch the stars come out as he ate. There was a low stone wall from which he could see the valley below, the Silvestro villa as well as Casa dei Fiori. Totally inexperienced in cooking, he boiled his spaghetti for too long and it had lost its wheaty flavour and texture. It was barely edible, and his former hunger all but evaporated as he ate, looking longingly up at his former home. When he’d almost finished, he glimpsed a human shape through the square, uncurtained windows of the