The Italian's Love-Child

She watched him go with a terrible yearning regret, standing as motionless as a statue as she heard his footsteps echoing over the flagstones in the hall, her body stiff and tense like a statue’s—and when she heard the front door slam behind him she should have felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

So why the hell did she feel like kicking her foot very hard against the wall?

CHAPTER FOUR

ALTHOUGH he wasn’t due to fly back until the following morning, Luca changed his ticket and returned to Rome early that evening and remonstrated with himself for the whole two-hour journey. What in the name of God had come over him? What had he been playing at? Coming onto her with all the finesse of some boy just out of high school, acting like some hormonally crazed adolescent.

He stared out of the window, the dull ache in his groin still nagging at him, perplexed by the intensity of need she had aroused in him.

He could have clicked his fingers and had any number of beautiful women and—far more importantly—she was most definitely not his type. So why her?

Because she had at first been chilly and offhand with him—studying him calmly with those intelligent grey-green eyes? Because she had answered him back? And then resisted him? Had all these combined to make Eve Peters into a woman he had never before encountered?

Unobtainable.

He was home in time to shower and change, and on impulse he took Chiara out. He hadn’t seen her in a long while and she was eager to tell him about her new film. It was late, but she agreed instantly to have dinner with him, and yet her suppressed excitement acted like a cold shower to his senses and he began to regret the invitation the moment he had made it.

Her black hair fell like a sultry night to a waist encased in silver sequins and he thought of Eve in her paint-spattered T-shirt, and glowered at his menu. She flirted outrageously with him all night and laughed at all his jokes and gazed at him as if he were the reason that man had been invented.

The paparazzi were waiting when they left the restaurant and in the darkened light of the taxi Luca narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

‘Did you tell them where we were eating?’ he demanded.

She shook her head. ‘No, caro—I promise you!’

He didn’t believe her. Women said one thing and meant another. They plotted and they schemed to get what they wanted. She tried to drape her arms around his neck. He could smell expensive scent and he found it cloying.

Gently, he pushed her away.

‘I will drop you off at your apartment,’ he said tersely.

‘Oh, Luca!’ Her voice was sulky. ‘Must you?’

He thought of Eve. Of the melting taste of her lips and the way she had exploded into life in his arms. Th

e cool, composed exterior masking the surprisingly hot and sensual nature which lay beneath, of which he had seen only a tantalising glimpse. He sighed as he stared out at the bright lights of night-time Rome and realised that he must have her.

Should he send flowers? Few women could resist flowers. But then her job probably provided her with plenty of bouquets, so that they would be nothing out of the ordinary.

No, definitely not flowers.

‘Goodnight, Chiara,’ he said gently.

The car drew to a halt, and the actress flounced out.

‘Take me home—and quickly!’ he shot out, and the car pulled away again.

Eve tried not to think about Luca at all, though it took a bit of effort.

She never underestimated the cruelly dissecting power of the camera for it picked up on just about everything and then magnified it tenfold. A kilo gained made you look like a candidate for the fat camp and a spot seemed to dominate your face like a planet. And not just the external stuff, either. Doubt and insecurities became glaringly obvious under the lens. If you lost your nerve and your confidence, the audience stopped believing in you and started switching off, and once that happened, you didn’t have a job for long.

So she tried to put Luca Cardelli out of her mind by analysing it and putting it into context. It wasn’t as if it was anything major, after all. She had simply met a man she had once been mad about, and she was mad about him still. It just happened that he was living in another country, was the wrong kind of man to fall for, and had made a pass at her, clearly expecting her to fall into bed with him at the drop of a hat.

Thank heavens she hadn’t.

She decided that she needed to get out more. Meet more people. Spread her wings a little.

She signed up for an afternoon course in French and decided that the next time the crew went out for lunch on Friday, she would join them. And she would take Kesi out for the day on Sunday.