The Italian's Love-Child

She loved the way he curled his tongue around the word ‘cara’ and found herself, bizarrely, wishing that he would speak to her in Italian, even though she barely knew more than a few words of the language. ‘I did a degree in meteorology at university. The weather had always fascinated me, but when you grow up in a place where so much is determined by it, it seemed kind of natural. Then the local station was looking for a weathergirl, and I applied for the job, without really thinking I’d get it.’

‘Because?’

‘Oh, because I wasn’t blonde and busty—and most of the other candidates were!’

‘Yet they chose you,’ he observed softly.

‘Yes, they did—it seemed that they weren’t looking for a pneumatic blonde, but someone who actually knew what they were talking about, and the viewers seemed to like me. Then the regular presenter left to have a baby, and the next thing I knew they were asking me to fill in for her—temporarily, at first. But they asked me to stay on, and I did, and that was nearly three years ago, which is actually quite a long time in television.’

‘And you like it?’

She hesitated. ‘Yes, I do—though sometimes it doesn’t really seem a serious job, something that matters, like being a brain surgeon. But I’m aware that I’m lucky to have it—and realistic to know that it won’t last for ever. Television jobs rarely do.’

‘And when it ends?’

She met his eyes, and shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘So you have no other ambitions, other than what you do now?’

Eve twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers, wary of how much to tell him. But why be a closed book? What would be the point? ‘Oh, well, one day I hope to have children, of course.’

He nodded, noting the ‘of course’, but also her omission of the normal progression of falling in love with a man and marrying him first, but he knew that women were shy of talking of such things, for fear that men would think them needy.

Eve felt exposed. She had done all the talking, and he very little. ‘What about you? Did you set out to become the owner of a bank?’

‘I don’t think anyone does that.’ He shrugged. ‘I set out to become successful, and somehow it never seemed successful enough. There was always a new challenge, a new obstacle to be overcome and, once I had overcome it, something else to move on to.’

‘So now you own a bank, does that mean you’ve stopped moving on?’

‘Oh, no. There’s always something else to achieve.

’

He stopped speaking abruptly and something about the suddenly wary look in his eyes told her that he had already said more than he was comfortable with.

‘I see,’ she said slowly, but she thought how restless and nomadic it made him sound. It should have had the effect of distancing her but she found that she wanted to reach her fingertips out and play them along the silken surface of his skin.

He could feel the tension surrounding them as palpably as if it had been a third person sitting with them at the table. Would she play games with him tonight? he wondered.

‘Shall I get the bill?’

Something about the way he was looking at her was making her heart pound so loudly that it was as if an entire percussion section had taken up residence in her head. Mutely, she nodded, excusing herself to make her way to the bathroom where she splashed cold water on her wrists, as if hoping that the icy temperature might dull the fevered glitter of her eyes, but to no avail.

They walked out into the darkened street and he turned to her as her hair gleamed like liquid gold beneath the street-lamp. ‘Do you want to catch that train?’

She heard a taxi pass them, and she thought of this passing her by. She looked up at him, aware of what hinged on her answer. She looked up into his face and in that moment her heart turned over. ‘No.’

He smiled as he bent his head and kissed her in the street. He told himself that he would not have done the same in Rome, where curious eyes would have registered that Luca Cardelli was behaving in a way which would have distorted the image of his cool persona for ever. But that here in London, it was anonymous. And yet it was more than that. She had captivated him, with her cool, intelligent eyes, the way she had made him wait. For a man used to having whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it, it had proved a powerful aphrodisiac. And he could not wait any longer to kiss her again.

‘Eve,’ he groaned against her moist, sweet lips.

She threaded her fingers into his thick, dark hair as his lips worked a kind of magic, allowing him to pull her closer into his body until she began to tremble uncontrollably, almost relieved when he pulled away, his eyes as black as the night.

‘Come,’ he said shortly.

He took her hand and they walked in expectant silence back to the hotel, where she saw the receptionist staring at them, and as the lift doors closed on them it occurred to her that it must have been pretty obvious where they were going and what they were doing.

But who cared?