The Heat Of Passion

'Like guilty teenagers!' Unselfconsciously, Carlo wiped at his damp eyes, fighting to rein back his laughter. 'I've never done anything like that in my life before.'

All threat of constraint banished, Jessica met his ruefully amused dark eyes and knew she had never loved him more than she loved him at that moment.

Abruptly, Carlo muttered an imprecation. 'I forgot about your poor feet.'

'I wasn't thinking about them,' she murmured shyly.

He took her into his bathroom and produced a medical kit. He made her sit on the edge of the bath and soak her feet. Then he crouched down and patted them dry with a fleecy towel. He was incredibly gentle and she watched him minister to her needs with growing astonishment. What a mixture of opposites he was, she thought painfully. The antiseptic he dabbed on stung tike mad and tears sprang involuntarily to her eyes.

'You shouldn't swim for a couple of days.' 'Fine.1

Carlo swept her up and carried her back to the bedroom to deposit her on the bed. He sank down on the edge of the mattress and lifted the phone. 'Are you

hungry?’

She discovered that she was. He ordered sandwiches.

As she stretched out, Carlo noticed the tear on her dress for the first time. Before she could object, he had peeled her out of it and discovered the angry scratch across her stomach. 'Please... not the antiseptic,’ she begged in total cowardice.

Carlo grinned and pressed his lips tenderly to the abrasion, making her muscles clench suddenly tight with awareness. Lifting his dark head, he scrutinised her with sudden gravity. A tiny muscle pulsing at the corner of his compressed mouth. 'Last night,' he breathed. ‘Last night when I saw that photograph of your late husband, I was insanely jealous.'

Entrapped by his dark eyes, she was shaken by his

honesty. 'You knew,' he saw. Tm surprised you didn't throw

it in my teeth.'

'In the mood you were in, I might just have ended up out in the corridor.'

'You chose him over me.' Carlo had shed his sense of humour and would not allow her to lightly flip the subject. 'That is why I felt jealous. If I had not known you then, he would merely be a part of your past.'

'I didn't choose '

'You did.. .you chose,' he asserted, allowing her no escape from that fact.

A knock on the door announced the arrival of supper. Jessica had rarely been so grateful for an interruption. Carlo collected the tray and settled it on the foot of the

bed.

'I refuse to accept that I am second best,’ Carlo continued tautly in the throbbing silence. 'For that is what you want me to accept... I cannot do it.'

All relaxation banished, Jessica slid upright and reached for her robe.

'You say nothing,' he commented with flaring

impatience.

'Maybe I don't want to fight with you '

'No, you evade my every invitation for you to talk

about your marriage. You close me out of five years of

your life! You slam the door shut in my face ‘

‘I am not about to run Simon down just to please

you,' Jessica muttered shakily.