The Italian's Love-Child

‘Oh, Luca is just a frustrated footballer at heart,’ shouted Patricio, and at that moment Luca looked up and met Eve’s eyes and something inside her melted.

He wasn’t just a frustrated footballer, but a frustrated lover, too, she thought. And so was she. And she wanted him. Desperately. All-consumingly. Someone had to put a stop to all this craziness and it might as well be her.

What could be the worst thing that could happen? That he would turn her down? No. That would not happen. She had seen the way he looked at her sometimes—he still wanted her, of that she was as certain as it was possible to be without actually testing it out.

So what was she really afraid of? That her love for him would grow deeper and deeper and never be reciprocated? And if so, wasn’t that a pretty selfish way to view it?

Whatever. She wasn’t going to hide from it any more. She was going to confront it, no matter how hurtful or painful. No matter what the outcome would be.

Livvy brought out a large chocolate cake to cheers from the men and greedy moans from the women, and only Chiara passed on the dessert.

‘Go on—have a little,’ tempted Livvy, but Chiara shook her head.

‘But I have to wear tiny clothes.’ She pouted and shrugged her tiny shoulders. ‘It’s how I earn my living!’

Eve had once read somewhere that men liked to see a woman eat—that it didn’t matter what she did if they weren’t around. Something about associating sex with hunger and that if a woman enjoyed her food, she would enjoy her body. If I were Chiara I would have taken a slice and played around with it, she thought. Until she remembered that she of all people was not in a position to hand out advice to anyone.

‘Who wants to come and see my new horse?’ asked Patricio.

‘Oh, you men go and do your macho stuff,’ said Livvy indulgently. ‘We’ll all just sit here and talk about you!’

‘But we already know how wonderful we are!’ swaggered her husband, and when she threw a cherry at him he caught it, and put it between his lips, biting on it, his eyes on his wife’s mouth as he licked his tongue around the fruit and then slowly and deliberately threw the stone onto the grass.

Eve had to look away. How long since she had been

intimate like that—really intimate? And if the truth were known, their sexual relationship had been so brief and intense that they had never slipped into that blissful state of being really comfortable with intimacy. She watched Luca go with a feeling of longing and suddenly she couldn’t wait for the lunch to end.

‘No more wine, thanks.’ She shook her head. The unaccustomed alcohol and the warmth of the day had made her feel a little sleepy. Any minute now and she would doze off.

But then Oliviero woke and began to cry and Eve blinked and went over to pick him up. The little darling was damp with heat, despite the shade. She dropped a kiss on his head.

‘Okay if I go inside and feed and change him?’ she asked. ‘It’s cooler in there.’

‘Sure.’ Livvy smiled. ‘I’ll show you where.’

Eve settled herself in a shuttered and deliciously dark room. She fed Oliviero, then changed him, still marvelling at the size of his tiny little feet as she stroked her finger up and down the rosy soles.

She was just about to go back and join the others when Chiara came in.

‘Hi!’ Eve looked up and smiled. ‘Too hot for you out there?’

Chiara smiled and shook her head as she ran a palm across her cool, sleek cheek. ‘The sun doesn’t touch me. I guess I’m used to it.’

Eve waited for Chiara to ask to hold the baby, but Chiara did not. Instead, she subjected Eve to a long and faintly puzzled scrutiny.

‘You’re English, aren’t you?’

These were not good vibes, but Eve could cope—she had coped with enough women in the entertainment business to know how to handle women like Chiara.

‘It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’ She laughed politely but Chiara did not laugh back.

‘You know,’ Chiara said thoughtfully, ‘you aren’t really what we all expected—not at all the kind of woman we thought Luca would marry.’

Eve felt her heart begin to race. Suddenly her supposed ability to cope dissolved into a mass of insecurity. Keep it light-hearted, she told herself. Don’t let her know it hurts.

‘I think he rather surprised himself,’ she said, but deep down she knew that this was vaguely dishonest. How triumphant would Chiara be if she knew the truth about their ‘marriage’.

‘You were pregnant, weren’t you?’