The Italian's Love-Child

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘And does that make you jealous, tesora?’

  Eve stared at him. Her heart was thumping in her chest. Yes. Yes, it did. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’

  He smiled. ‘I slept alone.’

  ‘You have my commiserations.’

  ‘Did you?’ he drawled.

  ‘Are you in the habit of asking people you don’t know their most intimate secrets?’

  ‘I asked you a straight question.’ He paused. ‘Unlike you, who merely hinted at it.’

  ‘Who you sleep with doesn’t interest me in the slightest and I’m certainly not going to tell you my bedtime secrets!’ she bit back angrily, and wished that she could have disappeared in a puff of smoke as Lizzy chose just that moment to walk back into the room, carrying a bottle of champagne and four glasses.

  ‘Wow!’ she exclaimed, her eyes widening like saucers. ‘Shall I walk right out and then walk back in again?’

  Luca took the bottle from her and began to remove the foil. ‘Eve and I were just discovering that we like to get straight to the heart of the matter, weren’t we, Eve?’

  Eve glared at him, feeling the heat in her cheeks. What could she say? What possible explanation could she give to her friend for the conversation they had been having? None. She couldn’t even work it out for herself.

  ‘Well, that’s what she does for a living, of course,’ giggled Lizzy.

  He poured the champagne and handed both women a glass, his eyes lingering with amusement on the furious look Eve was directing at him. ‘And what exactly is that?’ he questioned idly.

  ‘Go on, guess!’ put in Lizzy mischievously.

  It gave him the opportunity to imprison her in a mocking look of question. ‘Barrister?’

  In spite of herself, Eve was flattered. Barrister implied intelligence and eloquence, didn’t it? But she hated talking about her job. People were far too interested in it and sometimes she felt that they didn’t see her as a person, but what she represented. And television was sexy. Disproportionately prized in a society where the media ruled. Inevitably, it had made her distrust men and their motives, wondering whether their attentions were due to what she did, rather than who she was.

  But she wasn’t going to play coy, or coquettish, or let Luca Cardelli run through a whole range of options.

  ‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘I work in television.’

  ‘Eve’s a presenter on Wake Up!, every weekday morning from six until nine!’ confided Lizzy proudly. ‘I’ve got her on video—would you like to see?’

  ‘Oh, Lizzy, please,’ begged Eve. ‘Don’t.’

  Luca heard the genuine appeal in her voice and his eyes narrowed. So that would explain why people were watching her at the party last night. Would that explain some of her defences, too? The guarded way she looked at him and the prickly attitude? He shook his head. ‘It will be boring for Eve. I’ll pass.’

  Eve should have been relieved. She hated watching herself, and especially when there was an audience of friends; it made her feel somehow different, when she wanted to be just like everyone else. But, perversely, the fact that Luca wasn’t interested in watching her niggled her. How contrary was that?

  ‘Well, thank heavens for small mercies.’ She sighed, and the sound of the front door slamming and the bouncing footsteps of Kesi were like a blessed reprieve. She put her glass down and turned as a small bundle of energy and a mop of blonde curls shot into the room, straight for Eve, and she scooped the little girl up in her arms and hugged her.

  ‘Arnie Eve!’ squealed the little girl.

  ‘Hello, darling. How’s my best girl?’

  ‘I hurted my knee.’

  ‘Did you?’ Eve sat down on the sofa with Kesi on her lap. ‘Show me where.’

  ‘Here.’ Kesi pointed at a microscopic spot on her leg as Michael walked into the room, beaming widely.

  ‘Champagne?’ he murmured. ‘Jolly good. You must come more often, Luca—if Lizzy has taken to opening bubbly at lunch-time!’

  ‘It was only because it was left over from last night!’ protested his wife.

  ‘How very flattering,’ murmured Luca, and they all laughed.

  ‘I’m starving,’ said Michael. ‘Some of us have been chasing after toddlers in the sea air and working up an appetite!’

  ‘Well, Eve’s been up since half-past three,’ commented Lizzy.

  Luca raised his eyes. ‘When you said early, I didn’t realise you meant that early. Still night-time, in fact.’ He looked at her, where only her grey-green eyes were visible over the platinum mop-top of the child. ‘Must be restricting, working those kind of hours,’ he observed. ‘Socially, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, Eve’s a career woman,’ said Michael. ‘She wouldn’t worry about a little thing like that!’

  Eve twisted one of Kesi’s curls around her finger. ‘Am I allowed to speak for myself? I hate the term “career woman”—it implies ambition to the exclusion of everything else. As far as I’m concerned—I just do a job which means I have to work antisocial hours.’

  ‘Like a nurse?’ interjected Luca, his dark eyes sparking mischief.

  ‘Mmm.’ She sparked the mischief right back. ‘Or a dairy farmer.’

  Their gazes locked and held in what was essentially a private joke, and Eve felt suddenly unsafe. Shared jokes felt close, too close, but that was just another illusion—and a dangerously seductive one, too.

  Lizzy blinked. ‘Come and wash your hands before lunch, poppet,’ she said to Kesi.

  Kesi immediately snuggled closer to Eve.

  ‘Want to stay with Arnie Eve!’

  It gave Eve the out she both wanted and needed—anything to give her a momentary reprieve from the effect that Luca was managing to have on her, simply by being in the same room.

  ‘Shall I come, too?’ she suggested. ‘And we can wash your hurt knee and put a plaster on it—how does that sound?’

  Kesi nodded and wound her chubby little arms around Eve’s neck and Eve carried her from the room, aware of Luca’s eyes watching her and the effect of that making her feel self-conscious in a way she thought she had grown out of long ago.

  But when she returned, lunch was set out on the table by one of the windows which overlooked the water, and Luca was chatting to Michael and barely gave her a glance as she carried the child back into the room and, of course, that made her even more interested in him!

  She settled Kesi into her seat and frowned at Lizzy, who was raising her eyebrows at her in silent question. Just let me get through this lunch and I need never see him again, she thought. And the way to get through it was to treat him just as she would anyone else she was having a one-off lunch with. Chat normally.

  But she spent most of the meal talking to Kesi, whom she loved fiercely, almost possessively. Being asked to stand as her godmother had been like a gift, and it was a responsibility which Eve had taken on with great joy.

  Lots of women in her field didn’t get around to having children and Eve was achingly aware that this might be the case for her. She told herself that with her god-daughter she had all the best bits of a child, without all the ties.

  She had just fed Kesi an olive when she reluctantly raised her head to find Luca watching her, and knew that she couldn’t use her as an escape route for the entire meal.

  ‘So whereabouts are you living now, Luca?’

  He regarded her, a touch of amusement playing around the corners of his mouth. She had barely eaten a thing. And neither had he. And she had been playing with the child in a sweet and enchanting way, almost completely ignoring him, in a way he was not used to.

  He wondered if she knew just how attractive it was to see a woman who genuinely liked children. But perhaps he had been guilty of stereotyping—by being surprised at seeing this cool, sophisticated Englishwoman being so openly demonstrative and affectionate. He pushed his plate away. ‘I live in Rome—though I also have a little place on the coast.’

  ‘For sailing?’

  ‘When I can. Not too
much these days, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why not? Michael said you were a brilliant sailor.’

  He didn’t deny it; false modesty was in its way a kind of dishonesty, wasn’t it? Sailing had been a passion and an all-consuming one for a while, but passions tended to dominate your life, and inevitably their appeal faded. ‘Oh, pressure of work. An inability to commit to it properly. The usual story.’

  The words inability to commit hovered in the air like a warning. ‘What kind of work do you do?’

  ‘Guess,’ he murmured.

  He had the looks which could have made him a sure-fire hit on celluloid, but he didn’t have the self-conscious vanity which usually accompanied an actor. Though he certainly had the ego. And the indefinable air that said he was definitely a leader. ‘I’d say you’re a successful businessman.’

  ‘Nearly.’ He let his eyes rove over her parted lips, wishing he could push the tip of his tongue inside them. ‘I’m a banker.’ ‘Oh.’

  ‘Boring, huh?’ he mocked.

  She met the piercing black stare with a cool look. ‘Not for you, I presume—otherwise you wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Luca!’ protested Lizzy. ‘Stop selling yourself short!’ She leaned across the table towards Eve and gave the champagne-softened, slightly delighted smile of someone who had landed a lunch guest of some consequence. ‘Luca isn’t your usual kind of banker. He owns the bank!’

  Eve felt faint. He owned a bank? Which didn’t just put him into the league of the rich—it put him spinning way off in the orbit of the super-rich and all the exclusivity which went with that. And there she had been thinking that he might have been impressed with her small-town media status!

  She knew he was watching her, wanting to see what her reaction would be. That type of position would be isolating, she realised. People would react differently to him because of it, just as they did with her—only on a much larger scale, of course. On camera she had learned not to react, a skill which came in very useful now.

  ‘I didn’t realise that individuals could own banks,’ she said interestedly. ‘Isn’t that rare?’

  He felt as if she was interviewing him! ‘It’s unusual,’ he corrected. ‘Not exactly rare.’

  ‘It must be heady stuff—having that amount of power?’

  He met her eyes. ‘It turns women on, yes.’

  She didn’t react. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

  He ran a finger idly around the rim of his glass. ‘It is like everything else—there are good bits and bad bits, exciting bits and boring bits. Life is the same for everyone, essentially—whether you clean the bank or own the bank.’

  ‘Hardly!’

  The black eyes gleamed. ‘But yes,’ he corrected softly. ‘We all eat and sleep and play and make love, do we not?’

  She willed herself not to blush. Only an Italian could come out and talk about making love at a respectable family lunch! ‘That’s certainly something to consider,’ she mused. ‘How long are you staying?’

  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

  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 b
reasts 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?’