The Italian's Love-Child

Clearly Signor Cardelli would.

‘Luca?’ said Eve tentatively, wishing that she could rewind the time clock and never have dialled the wretched number.

Luca felt his body instinctively tense. So the strega had made him wait, had she? He couldn’t remember ever having had to wait for anything in his life.

‘Eve?’

‘Yes, it’s me! I got your message.’

‘Good.’ He waited. Now let her see how it felt.

Eve clutched the telephone tightly. Damn him! ‘About dinner.’

‘Mmm.’

She felt like slamming the phone down, and realised that might be overacting by just a tad. Did she want to have dinner with him, or not? Well, yes and no.

Luca’s eyes narrowed. Did she always make it this difficult for men? And then he remembered the way she had been in his arms. They had been so close to going up to her bedroom, and… The tension increased. ‘Would you like to have dinner with me, Eve?’ he questioned silkily.

Yet another defining moment. Her life seemed to be full of them, and Luca Cardelli always seemed to have something to do with them. Eve swallowed. Pretend you’re live on camera. Give him a briskly pleasant, take-it-or-leave-it attitude. It would be so much easier if she could just leave it, if the thought of not seeing him again didn’t seem as if her world would then take on a rather dull and monochrome appearance.

‘That would be lovely. When?’

She was making it sound as though she had been invited to tea with a maiden aunt!

‘I arrive on Friday evening,’ he said coolly. ‘So how about Saturday?’

She supposed that she could pretend to be busy—but what would be the point in playing games if the outcome would only make her miserable?

‘Saturday sounds good,’ she said evenly, but her heart had started racing.

‘Excellent. I’ll ring you when I’m in England. Ciao, bella.’

Eve found herself staring at the handset, to realise that he had hung up. Her mouth had dried with pure excitement, which quickly changed into another emotion she didn’t quite recognise and wasn’t up to analysing because there was only one thought dominating her mind right then.

Dinner on Saturday. An early dinner so that she could get back in plenty of time for the early night necessary for her early start.

But she didn’t work on Sundays. She knew that and he knew that.

Sunday was her lie-in day.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE hotel was one of those modern, quietly expensive places which often seemed to be featured in glossy magazines and were a million miles away from the featureless anonymity of the large chains.

Eve walked into a foyer painted a deep, dark navy with shiny wood floors and expensive-looking rugs. She had to look hard for the reception desk, which was clearly designed not to look like a reception

desk. It was half hidden by vases of clashing scarlet and violet flowers and the sleek blonde who eventually gave her a smile looked as if she should be modelling in a glossy magazine herself.

She guessed that this was one of those exclusive places, so hip and cool that it was almost icy, and she shivered at the thought of what she was about to do. Although, as she reminded herself fiercely—she didn’t have to do anything. Not if she didn’t want to.

‘Can I help you?’ said the blonde.

‘Um…’ Oh, for heaven’s sake—when did she last preface a question with the word, ‘um’? ‘I’m meeting Mr Luca Cardelli here at six.’

The blonde’s cool face didn’t flicker. ‘Signor Cardelli,’ she corrected, ‘should be here—’

‘Any minute now,’ came the honeyed tumble of his words and Eve’s mouth dried as she turned round to see him emerging from the lift. ‘Hello, Eve.’