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“Preserved behind museum quality glass,” he assured her. “I’m conscious of being a caretaker of something utterly irreplaceable.”
Her heart trembled. Any man who could speak of art with such reverence went up several notches in her estimation. “My grandfather was a painter, you know.”
“Was he?”
“Richard Barry,” she said. “He did—,”
“Still-life paintings, yes, I know.” He stopped walking, scanned her face. “His work is remarkable.”
Pride shifted inside Portia. “Yes.”
“Do you have many of his paintings?”
She laughed. “Want to make me an offer?”
He grinned. “Sure. I’ll buy the whole lot.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t. He wasn’t really appreciated in his own lifetime by anyone outside the art community. He sold what he could to get by. My mother has a small sketch he did of her, when she was a girl. That’s it.”
Marco let out a low whistle. “What a shame.”
“Your collection is pretty healthy, even without a heap of Barry paintings.”
He was quiet, continued walking, a hand now in the small of her back. She liked it. She liked being nestled into his side, close enough to feel his warmth. Sipping coffee, walking in step with Marco, surveying this place that was so important to him.
They reached the top of the hill as the sun began to fly out of the sea, and Portia’s eyes clung to the view, her heart lifting with the sheer beauty and hedonism of this moment.
“Oh, Marco,” she said, shaking her head a little, failing to find the words required to express what she was feeling. “It’s…”
But when she looked up at him, she saw the reverence in the set of his own features and she just knew he understood. He got it. It was the first moment she’d started to worry that walking away from Marco might be harder than she’d anticipated. It was the first moment she openly acknowledged to herself just how much she loved having him in her life.
“It smells so good,”she groaned, looking at the risotto with obvious lust.
Marco smiled. “You’ll love it.”
“And why are you making it now if it’s something we’re sharing for dinner?”
“Because the rice needs to cool before we can shape it intoarancini.”
“But the risotto smells so good,” she repeated, coming full circle.
He laughed. “You’re hungry?”
“I wasn’t,” she grumbled. “Until you started cooking.”
“Keep going,” he nodded to the newspaper—an English language paper that was, apparently, delivered to the villa whenever he was in residence. The quiz inside had been occupying them for the last twenty minutes, whilst Marco sauteed onion and garlic, added saffron and rice, white wine and stock and let it all simmer and reduce, filling the kitchen with the most intensely aromatic fragrance that caused Portia’s stomach to clench.
While she read out the next question, Marco turned to the fridge and removed a plate, carrying it towards Portia and placing it on the bench. It was filled withantipasti.Olives, prosciutto, cheese, breads, nuts. She reached for a piece of cheese and bread while tapping her pen against the counter, waiting for Marco to answer.
It was a pop culture question and she’d discovered that for all Marco was a genius, when it came to music and television shows of the twenty first century, he was definitely an amateur.
“Any ideas?” He asked with a frown.
“Yep.”
“You know everything,” he said on a heavy sigh, smiling though.
“Actually, we make a good team,” she responded, then wished she could swallow the words right back up. “I mean because I know these questions and you know the science ones.”
