I have—things to do.’‘Then Poco and I will both be disappointed.’ He walked round the table, took her hand and raised it to his lips.
‘And as I am now convinced you are married,’ he said softly, ‘what can you possibly have to fear?’And that, thought Ellie as she gave him a taut smile before heading for the door, was the six-million-dollar question.
She lay for a long time that night staring into the darkness, her mind endlessly reviewing every word that had been spoken between them, her inner vision possessed by images of him in almost frightening detail—the turn of his head, the length of the black eyelashes, the shape of his mouth.
As if, she thought, she’d been gazing at him all evening, committing him to some private corner of her memory, instead of trying to avoid glancing at him at all.
Under her nightshirt, her body was tingling, her nipples hard against the thin fabric, scalding heat between her thighs.
Oh God, this is so wrong, she told herself, turning over to bury her flushed face in the pillow.
Wrong and crazy.
I don’t recognise myself any more, or know what I’m doing, and that scares me.
Because there are so many reasons why I shouldn’t be thinking about him—ever, and the fact that I’m still technically a married woman is probably the least of them.
‘Luca,’ she whispered under her breath.
‘Luca—why did I have to meet you now? Why couldn’t it have been long ago when everything was different? When I was different?’She fell asleep at last, but woke again at sunrise.
She showered, put on her robe, then worked doggedly for several hours, drinking cups of black coffee and not allowing herself to think of anything else while she caught up with her schedule.
This was her real life, she thought, as she finally closed down her laptop, and she must never forget that.
Must take care to ignore any temptation to wonder if it could ever have been otherwise.
She did some washing and hung it in the small courtyard at the back of the house.
It was going to be the warmest day yet, she realised, looking up at the sun, high in an almost cloudless sky.
A foretaste of summer heat, and there was little breeze so the sea would be like a millpond.
She fought with herself as she tidied an already tidy house, repeating over and over again that she would be a fool and worse than a fool to go anywhere near the beach today whatever the weather.
But, as she’d known from the first, it was a losing battle, so she changed into a bikini, covered it with shorts and a cheesecloth shirt, put sun lotion, a towel, some bottled water and an apple in a canvas bag and headed for the shore.
She had just reached the steps when Luca’s hand descended lightly on her shoulder.
‘Buon giorno,’ he said.
‘Where is your little friend today?’She said stiltedly, ‘The Signora’s niece is taking her out for the day, and Poco is going too.
The children adore him.’‘Ah.’ His brows lifted.
‘So, is it possible for you to tolerate my company alone?’He was wearing khaki shorts, and espadrilles, his sun glasses pushed up on top of his head, and the rest of him was bare bronze skin.
The faint amusement in his dark eyes was also playing round his firm mouth, and every inch of him spelled danger.
She said huskily, ‘I thought I might swim.’‘I thought so too.
I was only waiting for you.’‘And if I’d stayed away?’ As I should have done …He shrugged a shoulder and she tried not to notice the play of muscle under the smooth skin.
‘Then I would have come to find you.’He had already spread a towel in the shelter of a rock, and she arranged hers beside it, fumbling a little as she felt tension building inside her.
He said gently, ‘There is no need to be afraid.’Now how did he know that? she wondered wildly.
Aloud, she said, ‘I—I don’t understand what’s happening.
Why you are doing this, when you know—when I’ve told you the situation.’‘You have told me certain things.’ The dark gaze held hers.
‘But not all of it, I think.’Ellie bit her lip.
‘All that is possible, anyway.’‘At least until you begin to trust me,’ he agreed, unzipping his shorts to reveal black swimming trunks.
Feeling absurdly self-conscious, Ellie discarded her own shorts and shirt, thankful that her dark green bikini was cut on lines more demure than strictly fashionable, but aware, just the same, of the frank appreciation in his expression.
Then he took her hand, and began to walk down the beach, his pace quickening until he was running with Ellie laughing and breathless at his side as they reached the water’s edge, and splashed into the softly curling shallows.
For a moment the sea felt so cold it made her gasp, but Luca’s arm was round her, urging her forward, making her forget her initial recoil as the water deepened.
And when the lean, brown body beside her dived forward into the waves, she followed, the chill suddenly becoming—exhilaration.
It had been months since her last swim, and all the bleak unhappiness and uncertainty she’d experienced during that time seemed to fall away from her, leaving her buoyant as the sunlit air as she cut through the water in her smooth, efficient crawl.
When she began to feel the pull on her muscles, she turned and swam back slowly to where Luca was waiting for her, treading water, his dark hair gleaming in the sun.
‘You swim very well,’ he said.
‘Where did you learn?’‘Here,’ she said.
‘My father taught me when we came to stay with my grandmother.’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘I used to go to the public baths sometimes when I lived in Rome, although they were always so crowded.
Several of my colleagues went to the big hotels to swim in their pools, but I found that too expensive.’‘Che peccato,’ Luca said softly.
‘Because I often did the same.
We might have met much earlier.’‘I think I’d have been lost in the crowd.’ In so many ways … She forced a smile.
‘But that’s why I’m out of practice and out of condition.’‘It is not apparent.
You came here often as a child?’‘Whenever it was possible.
We all loved it.’ She paused.
‘Nonna Vittoria’s other daughter, my aunt and—and her family were never as keen.’Now why, she wondered vexed, did I need to mention that?She added hurriedly, ‘And I love it still.’‘That is evident.
But it is a pity that you come here alone.’‘I don’t see it that way at all.’ She began to swim back to the shore using a sedate breast-stroke.
‘I’m quite happy in my own company.’His voice reached her quietly.
‘And that is an even greater pity.
A woman with such a gift for happiness should not prefer solitude.’Once out of the water, Ellie walked quickly up the beach, aware of Luca keeping pace at her shoulder and the unruly hammering of her heart as she headed for the freshwater shower sited at the edge of the promenade to rinse the salt from her skin.
She stepped into the shallow basin, and reached for the control lever only to find his hand covering hers as he joined her under the shower head, pulling her towards him.
She said in a voice she didn’t recognise, ‘No, please, you mustn’t.
It’s not right …’‘Are you throwing your marriage in my face again, Helen?’ His tone was harsh.
‘The fact that you belong to another man? Do you wish he was here with you now instead of me—this husband?’And this time her whispered ‘No’ was in acceptance, not denial, as Luca turned on the water and stood, holding her close against him so that she breathed the cool, salty fragrance of his skin as the cascade covered them both.