The Italian's Love-Child

Well, here it came, in a fanfare, with a drum roll! ‘I was a waitress,’ she said baldly, but smiled. ‘At the yacht club.’

He shook his head. ‘Forgive me, but—’

‘You bought me a ticket for a dance.’

Something stirred on the outskirts of his mind. A hazy recollection of a sweet, clumsy girl who was trying to look too old for her age. His eyes widened ever so slightly. How little girls grew up! He nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I remember now.’

‘And I never got the chance to thank you. So thank you.’ She smiled, the brisk, charming smile she used to such great effect in her professional life.

‘You’re welcome,’ he murmured, thinking how time could transform. Was this sleek, confident woman really one and the same person?

His dark eyes gleamed and suddenly Eve felt vulnerable. And tired. She didn’t want to flirt or make small talk with him—for there was still something about him which spelt danger and unobtainability. A gorgeous man who was passing through, that was all, same as last time. Stifling a yawn, she glanced at her watch. ‘Time I was going.’

Luca’s eyes narrowed in surprise. This was usually his line and never, ever had a woman yawned when he had been talking to her—not unless he had spent the previous night making love to her. ‘But it’s only nine o’clock.’ He frowned. ‘Why so early?’

‘Because I have to work in the morning.’

‘I am not sure that I believe you.’

‘That, of course, is your prerogative, Mr Cardelli,’ she returned sweetly

He stilled. ‘So you remember my surname, too?’

‘I have a good memory for names.’

‘Unlike me.’ He glittered her a smile. ‘So you had better remind me of yours.’

‘It’s Eve. Eve Peters.’

Eve. It conjured up a vision of the first woman; the only woman. It was a small, simple and yet powerful name. It spoke of things lush and coiling. Of a fallen woman, driven by lust and the forbidden. He wanted to make a mocking joke about serpents, but something in those intelligent eyes stopped him. ‘So what kind of job gets you up so early, Miss Peters? You’re a nurse?’ he guessed. ‘Either that, or you milk cows?’

Eve laughed in spite of herself. ‘Wrong!’ She didn’t want to be charmed by him, or made to laugh by him. She wanted to get away and she wanted it now. He unsettled her, made her feel like the woman she wasn’t. She liked to be in control. She was calm, and considered and logical, and yet right now she was having the kind of fantasy which was more suited to the naïve adolescent she had abandoned that night along with the borrowed dress. Wondering what it would be like to be in Luca Cardelli’s arms and to be made love to by him.

The filmy cream shirt meant that she could faintly see the whorls of hair which darkened the tight, hard chest and for one wild and crazy moment she imagined herself pressed against him, the strong arms enfolding her in a magic circle from which no woman would ever want to escape.

Luca saw her green-grey eyes momentarily darken and he felt an unexpected answering ache. ‘Don’t go,’ he urged softly. ‘Stay a little while and talk to me.’

His body had tensed and a drift of raw, feral male scent began to intoxicate her. ‘I can’t,’ she said, with a smile she hoped wasn’t weak or uncertain. She put her glass down on the window-ledge. ‘I really must go.’

‘That, of course, is your prerogative,’ he said mockingly.

Her resolve was beginning to fail her. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘It was nice to see you again.’

‘Arrivederci, cara.’ He stood and watched her weave her way through the room, his face giving nothing away. And maybe the blonde had been watching, for she reappeared by his side, looking like a tiny, overstuffed cushion in comparison to Eve’s slender height and suddenly her simpering presence was cloying and not to be endured.

‘I thought you were going to make a phone call, Luca,’ she pouted.

Did she spend her whole life pouting? he wondered with a faint air of irritation.

‘I was distracted,’ he drawled. ‘But thank you for reminding me.’

It hadn’t been what she had meant to happen at all, and the blonde’s mouth fell open in protest, but Luca had gone, pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket, and he went to stand outside, for privacy and for a better signal.

And better to watch the shadowy figure of Eve Peters as she walked down the path with the moonlit water dappling in the soft night air behind her.

CHAPTER TWO (#u4e89638f-2cb8-5c9e-9ca6-2e212e8b0b6f)

EVE knew that people thought that working in television was glamorous, but people were wrong. Waking up at three-thirty had never been easy and the following morning was no exception, made worse by a foul, chill wind blowing in, which had the kind of drizzle which could turn the straightest hair into a frizzy cloud.

On automatic pilot, she showered and drank strong black coffee, and when the car arrived to collect her to take her to the studio she sat in the back with the newspapers as usual, only for once it was hard to concentrate on the day’s news.

The truth was that she had had a disturbed night and that it had been disturbed by Luca Cardelli. He had burst into her dreams like a bright, dazzling meteorite, his brilliant black eyes mocking her and tantalising her and making her feel that she had missed an opportunity by leaving the party early.

But dreams were curious and capricious things, and unlike life you had no control over them. All he had done was to awake something in her subconscious, some forgotten teenage longing which had never quite gone away.

And dreams were soon forgotten. They weren’t real. Neither was the ridiculous fluttery feeling she felt at the base of her stomach when she thought of him and there was a simple solution to that. She tried her best not to think of him but he stubbornly stayed on her mind.

She wished now that she had asked Michael how long he was here for—but surely it would be a flying visit? His life wasn’t here, was it? His life was in Italy—a different, unknown life in a country as foreign to her as he was.

That morning’s show contained the usual mix of items, including a dog which was supposedly able to howl in time to the national anthem. Unfortunately, the animal refused to perform to order—the poor thing cowered and was terrified and then was sick in a corner of the studio. Johnny, her co-host, threw a complete wobbly afterwards, and Eve was relieved to get away after the post-show breakdown.

The car dropped her off just after eleven and she closed the door of her tiny cottage with a sigh of relief. She went upstairs, wiped off all her heavy studio make-up, stripped off her clothes and took a long, hot shower, blasted her hair dry and knotted it into one thick plait.

Feeling something close to human again, she put on a pair of black jeans and a charcoal-grey sweater, aware that she would have grubby little fingers crawling all over her, then set off for Michael and Lizzy’s, stopping off on the way to buy a colouring book and some crayons for Kesi.

She rang the bell and Lizzy answered it, a look of repressed excitement on her face, as though the party were just about to happen, rather than having taken place the night before.

‘Eve! You look gorgeous!’

‘No, I don’t. No make-up and slouchy old jeans.’

‘Well, you looked pretty amazing on the box this morning!’

‘Ah, but that’s the magic of the make-up artist. Did you see the sick dog?’

‘Did I? Michael recorded it for me. Poor thing! Come on up. He’s taken Kesi out, but he shouldn’t be too long.’

‘And how is my gorgeous little god-daughter?’ asked Eve as they walked into the bright, first-floor sitting room. ‘I thought—’ But what she had been thinking flew completely out of her mind, for sprawled on one of the long sofas, reading a newspaper, was Luca Cardelli.

He glanced up as they entered and his dark eyes glittered with what looked like mischief, but underpinned with something else, something which Eve couldn’t quite work out. Something which made her wary and excited all at the same time. She found herself wondering whether he looked at every woman that way, and whether it had the same disconcerting effect on them. Probably.

But even so, tiny goose-bumps still prickled at the back of her neck.

‘We thought we’d invite Luca, too,’ smiled Lizzy.

Luca rose to his feet, observing the startled look on Eve’s face change into one of suspicion. Was she so prickly with all men, he wondered, or just him? He smiled, her frozen face presenting him with a challenge which stimulated him. He threw her a lazy look. ‘You didn’t mind me gatecrashing your lunch?’

What could she say? That she did? And that wouldn’t be entirely truthful, would it? Because her heart was racing with something which felt very close to elation. For here he was, only this time without the hoardes of people there had been last night.