Flirting with Italian

‘Autumn?’ She shook her head, forced herself to concentrate.

‘Are you all right?’ he repeated, eyes narrowed.

‘Yes.’ Pull yourself together … ‘Yes, of course I am.’

He touched a thumb to her cheek, his hand cradling her face as he wiped away a tear. ‘Then why the tears?’

Tears? She swiped her palm across her cheek. ‘Hay fever,’ she said, grabbing for the first answer that came into her head.

‘In autumn?’

Had he actually kissed her?

Her lips still tingled with a lingering taste of the perfect kiss but had it been a fleeting fantasy? A phantom conjured up by the place, by old memories, by her own loss?

She blinked, saw a tiny smear of lipstick on the corner of his mouth. Of course he’d kissed her. She’d practically begged him to. What on earth had possessed her?

There were no answers, but her brain finally picked up, answered her call for help. Speak. Move. Get out of here …

‘I’m allergic to chrysanthemums,’ she said, sliding down from the wall, forcing him to step back. ‘It’s hereditary.’ Her knees buckled slightly as she hit the ground, her legs unexpectedly shaky beneath her and he caught her elbow to steady her. ‘Great interview, by the way.’ She took a breath, reached for her bag. She really needed to get out of here, but he was blocking her way. And he still had her phone. ‘Leave your number with my secretary and I’ll let you know.’

She’d made a stab for crispness but her voice could have done with longer in the salad drawer.

He continued to look at her for a moment, as if half expecting her to crumple at his feet.

She lifted a brow. The one guaranteed to bring a sassy fifth year into line.

Apparently reassured that she wasn’t about to collapse, he said, ‘Don’t wait too long. I’m not short of offers.’ But his voice, too, had lost its edge and the accent seemed more pronounced, as if he was having a chocolate fudge moment of his own.

‘My phone.’ She held out her hand, praying that it wouldn’t shake. ‘If you please.’

‘When I’m done.’ Then, ignoring her huff of outrage, he turned away, propped his elbows on the wall beside her and began to flip through her photographs.

They were mostly typical tourist shots. A few pictures of the school, her apartment. The kind of things she’d taken to send home or for her blog.

‘You’ve come from Rome?’ he asked.

She didn’t bother to answer, instead leaned back against the wall to give her wobbly knees a break. Vowed to have more than an espresso and pastry for breakfast in future.

‘You’ve been busy sightseeing.’

He glanced at her when she didn’t bother to answer.

‘I’m new in town. I’ll soon run out of things to photograph.’

‘Don’t count on it.’ Then, as he continued, found the photographs she’d taken of the wall, the house, ‘What’s your interest in my house? It’s not an ancient monument.’

It was his house?

He didn’t fit the image she had of a middle-aged businessman setting himself up in a weekend retreat. At all.

‘It’s a lovely house. A lovely view. Have I done something wrong?’ As he glanced at her, the sleeve of his shirt brushed against her bare arm and the soft linen raised goosebumps on her flesh. ‘I thought taking photographs from a public footpath was okay.’

‘And I thought I’d made it clear that this isn’t a public footpath. It’s part of the Serrone estate.’

‘You need a sign,’ she advised him. ‘“Trespassers will be Prosecuted” is usual. Not that I’d have understood it. Maybe a “No Entry” symbol, the kind they use on roads would be better, or a picture of a slavering dog.’ She should stop babbling right now. ‘Give it to me. I’ll delete them.’

‘No need. I’ll do it for you.’ Beep, beep, beep. He still didn’t return the phone. ‘We don’t get many visitors to Isola del Serrone. Especially not from England.’

‘No? I can’t say I’m surprised.’ It was quite possible that she was the first English person to visit the village since her great-grandfather left. ‘Maybe you’d do better if you were a little more welcoming.’

His eyes were now safely hidden behind those dark lenses, but the corner of his mouth tucked up in what might, at a stretch, have been a smile.

‘How much more friendly do you want?’

And she discovered that, classroom hardened as she was, she could still, given sufficient provocation, blush.

‘I’m good, thanks.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s your call.’ Then, clearly unconvinced by her ‘walk in the country’ story, ‘We’re not on the tourist map.’

‘That’s okay. I’m not a tourist.’

‘No?’ He didn’t sound entirely surprised. Which was surprising. Italy was, after all, chock-full of tourists and some of them must occasionally wander off the beaten track. Take photographs of views that hadn’t made it into the guidebooks. ‘So what are you really doing here?’ he asked.

Until now he’d been in the shadows, a voice, a pair of dark eyes, a mouth so tender that his kiss could bring a tear to her eyes …

Now that she was back on the path, out of the sun’s dazzle, she could see his face. It was hard to judge his age but his jet-black hair curled tightly in a thick mat against his scalp, his skin was golden, his cheekbones chiselled and his nose was so damn Roman that it should have been on a statue.

He was good to look at, but there was something about his manner, the arrogant way he’d kissed her, had gone through her emails, making quite unnecessary comments that—the blush notwithstanding—brought out what her mother would, in her teenage years, have described as ‘a touch of the awkwards’.

It would have been easy enough to tell him exactly what she was doing but Lucia’s secret was not hers to share. And, anyway, it was none of his business.

‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ she said.

That raised the shadow of a smile. ‘Undoubtedly.’

She was right about his mouth. Definitely made for it …

‘Having read my messages,’ she said, making an effort to concentrate on reality, ‘you know my name. I don’t know yours.’

‘No?’ He responded with a slight bow. ‘Mi spiace, Signora Sarah Gratton. Io sono Matteo di Serrone.’

‘Di Serrone?’ About to say, Like the racingdriver?, she realised that would betray a deeper interest in the area than mere sightseeing and, back-pedalling madly, she said, ‘You’re a local boy, then.’

‘I was born in the north of Italy, but my family are from this village.’

Turin was in the north. Was he the young son, orphaned when his father was killed on the racetrack? He had to be about the right age.