Free Kindred Intentions by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli Page A

well
aware she was nagging.
    “I walked around the hunting lodge, to make
sure there was nobody waiting in ambush.”
    “Have we arrived?” Her joy wiped away any
rage.
    “Come,” he said, standing up and helping her
to rise.
    Not even ten steps further the trees made room
for a little clearing, where a big dark shape stood out. They reached it in a
moment.
    “Careful, there are three steps here.”
    Amelia climbed them easily. She felt carefree,
close to salvation. She heard him messing about with some keys. Creaking
hinges. Mike took her by the hand and led her inside. Then hinges again, and
the door closing.
    “I’m turning on the light.”
    For a split second she wondered why he’d told
her, then a light burst on in the room, forcing her to cover her eyes in pain.
It took some minutes for her to get accustomed, but then, once her pupils had
contracted enough to bring her sight back, she was blinded again, though not
literally.
    “This is a hunting lodge?” She couldn’t
prevent herself from voicing that exclamation.
    The place was somehow rustic, but it was just
a matter of style. If that was a hunting lodge, her flat right in the middle of
the city, the rent of which would have cost twice her salary if she didn’t
already own it, was a hovel, at best, if compared to it.
    The floor was covered by the most polished of
parquets. It looked like nobody had ever walked on it since it’d been
installed, which could have been the day before. The wooden walls, or perhaps
only veneered with wood, were of a darker colour. The place had the hearth of a
fireplace right in the middle; it was open on all four sides, save for the fact
that tempered glass panels separated it from the rest of the room and they
merged to an enormous hood coming down from the ceiling. Inside it there were
already some logs ready to be lit. On the opposite side, a sofa was placed
against a wall. It was so inviting that it made her want to collapse on it at
once. On the left there was a kitchen nook. A large nook, to tell the truth.
Before it, a table and four chairs. More of them were placed in the room, in
anything but a casual way. The available space on the right was smaller. There
were no pieces of furniture there, but in compensation a large picture with an
expensive appearance occupied most of it. Beside it was a door. A second door
was on the adjacent wall, not far from the sofa.
    “It’s small, but quite comfortable.” Mike had
said it with nonchalance, as if he really thought that, then Amelia noticed his
sneer.
    “Yeah, it should be okay,” she commented in
the same tone, under which however she couldn’t conceal a surge of amazement.
She turned to him. “You make me feel deeply inadequate, do you know that?”
    He addressed her with one of those smiles that
would knock out most women, and even a few men. Then he started crossing the
room whilst Amelia, concentrating on recovering from the initial astonishment,
turned around to catch as many details as she could about that fantastic place.
It seemed so absurd to her that in such a godforsaken spot there existed
something like this. It seemed even more absurd that she was there. Her police
officer’s life of stress was a thousand miles away. The lodge was the
antithesis of stress.
    “Amelia.”
    As she heard Mike calling her, she turned to
him; he had reached the door near the sofa and opened it. As she moved to
follow him, he walked in. Amelia peeked shyly into the bedroom, which vied with
the rest of the house for splendour. She was afraid to soil it with her filthy
shoes and clothes, but then she noticed that he, who certainly was no better
than her, didn’t have any such scruples.
    Mike opened the door of the built-in wardrobe.
“Here are some clothes. They’re mine, so they’ll be a bit large for you, but you’re
tall. They should fit.” He pointed at the piece of furniture beside it. “There
are more trainers. You can throw those ones away.” She looked at her own