The Italian's Love-Child

This was interesting. So what had made her soften? The mention of sex or the fact that he was in a position of power? ‘I haven’t decided.’ His eyes sparked out pure provocation. ‘Why? Are you going to offer to show me round?’

‘Of course I’m not! You already know the Hamble, don’t you?’ she reminded him sweetly. ‘No, I just thought that maybe you might like to come into the studio one morning—I’m sure our viewers would be interested to hear what life as a bank-owner is like!’

The jet eyes iced over. So she was inviting him onto her show, was she? As if he were some second-rate soap star! ‘I don’t think so,’ he said coldly.

She had offended him when she had only meant to distance herself, and suddenly Eve knew that she had to get out of there. He didn’t live here. He owned a bank, for heaven’s sake—and he had the irresistibly attractive air of the seasoned seducer about him. Achievable goal, he most definitely was not!

‘Pity,’ she murmured. ‘Well, any time you change your mind, be sure and let me know.’ She pushed her chair back. ‘Lizzy, Michael—thank you for a delicious lunch. Kesi,—do I get a hug and a kiss?’ She enveloped her god-daughter, then took a deep breath. ‘I’ll say goodbye then, Luca.’

He rose to his feet and caught her hand, raising it slowly to his lips, his eyes capturing hers as he brushed his lips against her fingertips in a very continental kiss.

Eve’s heart leapt. It felt like the most romantic gesture she had ever experienced and she wondered if he was mocking her again, with this courtly, almost old-fashioned farewell. But that didn’t stop her reacting to it, wishing that she hadn’t said she would leave, wishing that she could stay, and…then what?

He’s passing through, she reminded herself and took her hand away, hoping that the smile on her face didn’t look too regretful.

‘Goodbye, everyone,’ she said, slightly unsteadily.

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

ONCE outside, Eve felt a sense of relief as the cool air hit her heated cheeks. Her pulse was racing and her stomach felt as churned as if she had been riding a roller coaster at the fairground. Though maybe that was because she had only picked at the delicious lunch at Lizzy and Michael’s.

But deep down she knew that wasn’t true. It was simply a physical reaction to Luca, and in a way it was a great leveller. She wasn’t any different from any other woman and she defied any other woman not to react in that way, especially if he had been flirting with you. And he had, she was acutely aware of that. She might not be the most experienced cookie in the tin, but she wasn’t completely stupid.

She walked over the rain-slicked cobblestones towards her cottage, listening to the sound of the masts creaking in the wind and thinking how naked they looked without their sails. It wasn’t that she didn’t meet men—she did—she just rarely, no, never met men like that. Which wasn’t altogether surprising. Outrageously rich, sexy Italians weren’t exactly turning up in the quiet streets of Hamble in their hundreds—or even in the TV studio.

She would go home and do something hard and physical—something to bring her back down to earth and take her mind off him. What did her mother always used to say? That hard work left little room for neurotic thoughts!

She changed into her oldest clothes—paint-spattered old khaki trousers and an ancient, washed-out T-shirt with ‘Hello, Sailor!’ splashed across the front. Then she put on a pair of pink rubber gloves, filled up a bucket with hot, soapy water and got down on her hands and knees to wash the quarry tiles in the kitchen.

She had just wrung out the cloth for the last time when the doorbell rang, and she frowned.

Unexpected callers weren’t her favourite thing. She liked her own space, and her privacy she guarded jealously, but that came with the job. One of the reasons she had never moved away from the tiny village she had grown up in was because here everyone knew her as Eve. True, local television wasn’t on the same scale as national—she had never been pestered by the stalkers who sometimes threatened young female presenters—but she was still aware that if your face was on television then people felt a strange sense of ownership. As if they actually knew you, when of course they didn’t.

She opened the door and her breath dried her mouth to sawdust. For Luca was standing there, sea breeze ruffling the dark hair, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his jeans, stretching the faded fabric over the hard, muscular thighs.

‘Luca,’ she said. ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Is it?’

The question threw her. Helplessly she gestured to her paint-spattered clothes, the garish pink gloves, which she hastily peeled from her hands. ‘Well, as you can see—obviously I wouldn’t have dressed like this if I was expecting someone.’

The black eyes strayed and lingered on the message on her T-shirt and he expelled an instinctive little rush of breath. ‘And there was me, thinking that you had worn that especially for me,’ he murmured.

‘But you don’t sail much, any more, do you?’ she fired back, even though her breasts were tingling and tightening in response to his leisurely appraisal. ‘And strangely enough—the shop was right out of T-shirts bearing the legend: “Hello, Banker!”’ She wanted to tell him to stop staring at her like that and she wanted him to carry on doing it for ever.

He laughed, even though he had not been expecting to, but it was only a momentary relief. His body felt taut with tension and he ached in a way which was as surprising as it was unwelcome. He did not want to feel like some inexperienced youth, so aroused by a woman that he could barely walk. And yet, when she had left the lunch party, she had left a great, gaping hole behind.

‘Are you going to invite me inside?’ he asked softly.

She kept her face composed, only through a sheer effort of will. ‘For?’

There was a pause. ‘For coffee.’

It was another one of those defining moments in her life. She knew and he knew that coffee was not on top of his agenda, which made her wonder what was. No. That wasn’t true. She knew exactly what was on his mind; the flare of heat which darkened his high, aristocratic cheekbones gave it away, just as did the tell-tale glitter of his eyes.

She could say that she was busy. Which was true. That she needed a bath. Which was also true. And then what would he do?

‘I need a bath.’

‘Right now?’ he drawled. ‘This very second?’

‘Well, obviously not right now.’

He looked at her curiously. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Scrubbing the kitchen floor,’ she answered and felt a sudden flare of triumph to see curiosity change to astonishment.

‘Scrubbing the kitchen floor?’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Of course. People do, you know.’

‘You don’t have a cleaner?’

‘A cleaner, yes—but not a full-time servant. And I’ve always liked hard, physical work—it concentrates the mind beautifully.’

The hard, physical work bit renewed the ache and Luca realised that Eve Peters would be no walkover. He decided to revise his strategy. ‘Well, then—will you have dinner with me tonight?’

She opened her mouth to say, Only if I’m in bed by nine, but, in light of the tension which seemed to be shimmering between them, she thought better of it. And why the hell was she automatically going to refuse? Had she let her career become so dominating that it threatened to kill off pleasure completely?

‘Dinner is tricky because of the hours I work, I’m afraid, unless it’s a very early dinner and, as we’ve only just finished lunch, I don’t imagine we’d be hungry enough for dinner.’ She opened the door wider. She was only doing this because he had once been kind to her, she told herself. And then smiled to herself as she thought what an utter waste of time self-delusion was. Why not just admit it? She didn’t want him to go.

‘So you’d better come in and I’ll make you some coffee instead.’

The innocent invitation caught him unawares and something erratic began to happen to his heart-rate even though he was registering—rather incredulously—that she had actually turned down his invitation to dinner.

Her eyes glittered him a warning. ‘But I don’t have long.’

‘Just throw me out when you want to,’ he drawled, in the arrogant manner of someone who had never been thrown out of anywhere in their lives.

He closed the door behind him with a certain sense of triumph, though he could never remember having to fight so hard to get a simple cup of coffee. ‘These houses were not built for tall men,’ he commented wryly as he followed her along a low, dark corridor through into the kitchen.

‘That’s why a woman of average height lives in it! And people were shorter in those days.’

The kitchen was clean and the room smelt fresh. An old-fashioned dresser was crammed with quirky pieces of coloured china and a jug of copper-coloured chrysanthemums glowed on the scrubbed table. From the French doors he could see the sea—grey and angry today and topped with white foam. ‘I love the Hamble,’ he said softly.

‘Yes, it’s gorgeous, isn’t it? The view is never the same twice, but then the sea is never constant.’ She studied him. ‘What’s it like, coming back here?’

He stared out at the water, remembering what it had been like when he had first sailed into this sleepy English harbour, young and free, unencumbered by responsibility. It had been a heady feeling.