Page 26 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 5-8
‘I’d love that,’ she said, and for the first time since she had arrived in Italy her enthusiasm was genuine.
‘Good.’ He seemed pleased. ‘It’s too far to walk, particularly in those shoes. But if we take one of the ATVs it should be fine.’
We, not you.
Her momentary relief faltered. She’d assumed one of Ettore’s farmhands would take her. But now it appeared that he was planning on going with her.
‘Don’t feel like you have to change your plans. I don’t want to take up your time.’
His gaze travelled over her face, seeing too much, no doubt seeing the mistake she had made and the conflict she was now feeling.
‘My time is your time. And besides, I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to spend an afternoon than showing my wife around her new home. Particularly if it stops her from climbing out of her window and startling my staff.’
A group of estate workers appeared then, stopping to nod deferentially at their boss and the boss’s wife, and, after a moment of silent frustration at having once again been the agent of her own downfall, she followed him numbly to a stone barn. Like all the buildings on the estate, it was old, but unlike the barns she had seen on the drive over, the walls weren’t crumbling and inside the floor was swept, and several ATVs were parked in a neat line.
‘You’ll need one of these.’ He picked up a helmet and handed it to her, then frowned. ‘Given the time of day, it might be quicker to cut through the woods, so I think we’ll use the dirt bikes.’
She was shaking her head. ‘But I don’t know how to ride a bike.’
‘That’s okay. You can ride pillion. Like you did in Paris. Or have you forgotten about Paris?’ he added after a tense, electric moment she didn’t fully understand but felt everywhere anyway.
Paris.
It was the first time that either of them had acknowledged those two weeks. When they had finally emerged from Ettore’s hotel room, the storm had long gone. The city had felt newly born in the pale sunshine that had greeted them, and Ettore had suggested they hire scooters.
How could she have resisted?
What woman wouldn’t have wanted to ride around the city of love, with her arms wrapped around his waist, his heartbeat beating against her ribs, his blood pulsing in time to hers? She had felt both safe and so intensely happy that she had wept when they had had to hand the scooters back.
Now he held out the helmet as if it were a gauntlet. Which it was, she thought, as something gleamed in his eyes that made heat dance over her skin.
Ten minutes later, she was moving through the lines of vines, her hands tight around the bike’s grab rail, her gaze averted from Ettore’s broad back, but it was hard not to watch the flex of his glorious muscles as he changed gears or leaned into a turn.
And then they were at the top of a hill, surrounded by land in every direction, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Ettore stopped the bike and they dismounted. ‘This is it. This is our land. My grandfather used to say, “If you can see it, we own it.”’
‘Is that the sea?’ she asked, pointing to a distant blurred blue between the land and the sky, more to hide her stunned reaction than because she cared.
‘It’s closer than it looks. Hence the pirates I mentioned in the car.’
Her gaze pulled down to a field of trees with pale green leaves. They were silvery with age, and they had an almost architectural stateliness, like tiny cathedrals.
‘I thought you’d only just started growing olives. Those look old to me.’
‘They are. Some are hundreds of years old. But until a few years ago, we only picked and pressed them for ourselves. But then small-batch estate oils became a thing, so we started selling commercially. We average about three hundred bottles a year. Aside from that they help the biodiversity of the vineyard.’
‘Is that why you grow almonds too?’
He nodded. ‘In the past, our estate managers were always wedded to fertilisers and chemicals and my forebears were wedded to maximising profit over the environment. But for the last fifty years, the yield has been dropping incrementally. So about five years ago, I started to look at sustainable viticulture. My aim has been to promote a healthy ecosystem rooted in more historical traditions likevite maritata, training vines to grow on living trees.’
Dulcie nodded. ‘Is it just olives and almonds?’
‘No, we have maples, cherry, plum, fig—’
‘How is that working?’
His face softened a fraction and a tension she hadn’t realised he was holding in his shoulders seemed to lift a little.
