She had no real place here, she realised. Only a temporary one. Just as she had no real place in Salvatore’s life. He had seduced her on the plane and she’d let him. Actually, she’d felt herself powerless to do anything else. It had been like a river she’d once seen after the rains, when the water had swollen and banks had burst—flooding everything in its path. And that was what it had been like with Salvatore. That sweet tide of desire had been overwhelming and maybe she needed to think how best to defend herself from feeling that way in the future.
She unpacked her case, then enjoyed a long shower in a bathroom of unspeakable luxury, and, after she’d untangled her curls and dressed, decided to email her mother. They might have parted on bitter terms, but she needed to know that her only child had arrived safely. She switched on her old computer, the glow from the screen dominating her line of vision so that for a while Lina forgot all about Salvatore di Luca and the Californian sky outside her window.
* * *
Salvatore walked out onto the wide sweep of terrace and at first he didn’t notice her. The light had almost faded from the day and he was preoccupied, as he’d been from the moment he’d arrived at the office, where the staff had seemed surprised to see him working so soon after a long flight. He couldn’t blame them because usually he would have spent the afternoon relaxing. He might have swum in the pool or worked out in the gym. But not today—and he knew why. He’d been afraid of running into Lina. Afraid of reliving the way she’d made him feel during the journey from Sicily, when he had felt himself being sucked into that sensual maelstrom despite his determination to resist her. But he hadn’t resisted her, had he? He’d allowed her uncomplicated Sicilian beauty to lure him into an unforgettable mile-high encounter—the memory of which he suspected would never leave him.
He’d come home just an hour ago but even a long, icy shower had failed to cool the heat in his blood, and now his attention was caught by the woman sitting on the terrace in front of him, her profile etched starkly against the fiery glow of the setting sun. She was leaning back against a bank of cushions on a low divan, her posture outwardly relaxed as she gazed out at the city view, but her shoulders were hunched with that expectant air of someone who was waiting.
Waiting for him, he thought, and that realisation filled him with an instinctive shiver of disquiet.
She must have heard him for she turned, unable to hide the quick flash of pleasure in her eyes, which she instantly tried to disguise with a look of polite interest.
‘Salvatore! You’re back.’ She was speaking softly in Sicilian dialect, which itself was disorientating. Was that because it made him think of the past—and of a homeland from which he had been so keen to distance himself? He wanted to tell her to speak only in English, which he knew was unreasonable, yet their spoken bond only added another unsettling layer to his dealings with her. And he wondered yet again what strange sorcery she possessed which was capable of cutting through his habitual iron-hard control.
She scrambled to her feet, the skirt of her cotton dress whispering like a summer breeze, and Salvatore felt a sensation of something unfamiliar as her black curls rippled down around her shoulders. Lust, yes—there was definitely plenty of that, along with an instinctive appreciation for her natural beauty, but there was another flicker of apprehension, too. Don’t let her get used to this, he found himself thinking. Don’t let her think he wanted this kind of cloying homecoming every night.
‘Yes, I’m back,’ he said smoothly as he ran his finger around the collar of his shirt. ‘Did you settle in okay? Did Henry give you the full guided tour?’
‘Yes, he did. The tour was amazing and the cottage is lovely.’
Heaven save him from sustained small talk, he thought acidly as he lifted his hand to summon the portly figure of a woman who had silently appeared in the shadows, switching rapidly to English as he spoke to her. ‘We’ll eat as soon as you’re ready, Shirley.’
‘Very good, Signor di Luca.’
He half filled two glasses of Gavi and handed one to Lina, but he noticed that she barely tasted the drink, cupping it in her hands as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. It was probably completely unconscious, but in that moment she looked so...fragile as she sat there, so clearly out of her depth that Salvatore felt a sudden wave of compassion—and empathy. Because hadn’t he once been exactly where she was now? Hadn’t he once gazed around at the sumptuous surrounding
s of billionaire homes and felt as if he’d fallen onto an alien planet?
‘So.’ He put his glass down on one of the low tables and fixed her with an encouraging smile. ‘Did you manage to amuse yourself while I was out?’
Lina nodded as she wrapped her fingers around the cold glass of wine. ‘I wrote to my mother and let her know I’d arrived safely and then I started looking online to see what kind of jobs I might be able to find. Soft furnishing companies which need people to sew cushions, or drapes—that kind of thing.’
‘And is that what you want to do?’ He frowned. ‘What about all those dreams you talked about?’
She shrugged. ‘They don’t just happen.’
‘Couldn’t you make them happen?’
Lina swirled her wine around in her glass. It was so easy for him to talk. What would he say if she confessed she was terrified her ambitions might wither under the brightness of the Californian sun? ‘I have to have some money coming in first,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll see. I have savings, but I’m going to be very careful about how I spend them.’
‘Well, that sounds like a very sensible plan.’ His voice was grave but she could see the faint upward curve of his lips. Was he inwardly laughing at her? she wondered.
But Lina pushed aside her concerns as she sat down at the table, determined to enjoy her dinner. The meal began with a creamy fish soup, which Salvatore called chowder, followed by a fillet of perfect fish, served with its own little jug of sauce. She tucked into every course with a keen appetite, putting her dessert spoon down at the end to find Salvatore studying her, with what looked like amusement sparking from his narrowed eyes. ‘It’s good to see a woman who enjoys her food,’ he observed.
‘I was hungry.’
‘I could see that. Don’t look so defensive. I meant it. Most women order a plate of rabbit food and then just pick at it.’
‘That’s why they stay so slim.’
‘Don’t ever think you don’t have the perfect body, Lina,’ he said softly. ‘Because you do.’
It was like a rock being dropped into a still stretch of water—the relative calmness of the meal disrupted by the sudden violent splash of memory. Powerful and erotic memory. Silhouetted against the glittering backdrop of the city, Lina thought how unbelievably virile the tycoon looked in a shirt the colour of an oyster shell—the silky material emphasising his broad shoulders. It was weird to think they had been eating their meal so primly when just hours ago he had been deep inside her body. Yet his words were unexpected and they changed the atmosphere completely. His quiet praise made her feel almost confident. Was it that which made her ask the question she’d been longing to ask him all day?
‘Do you think you’ll ever go back to Sicily?’
His voice was repressive, his powerful body tense as he put his coffee cup down. ‘I doubt it.’