‘A burger joint?’ she said, out of desperation.
He shook his head. ‘We could have stayed in London for that! But, no, I am afraid I have never understood the liking people have for fast-food restaurants,’ he responded.
Neither had Darci—although she had indulged several times while she was in medical school, when she’d been hungry and her time off had been limited.
‘Just tell me where we’re going, Luc,’ she prompted in an impatient tone, knowing that it wasn’t helping her slightly resentful mood that Luc looked so damned gorgeous!
His hair shone in the sunshine, and his already olive-complexioned face—that hard-angled face that was so handsome it was almost beautiful—was tanned a deep bronze.
Darci had told herself this morning that his body couldn’t really be as hard and muscled as her dreams last night had suggested it was. Only to be proved completely wrong when she’d opened the flat door to him earlier, and the sight of his honed body in tight faded denims and a white T-shirt had rendered her breathless.
Perhaps, she decided, with another sideways glance at him now, Luc was short for Lucifer—because this man tempted her more sinfully than she had ever been tempted before!
‘It’s a surprise,’ he answered her cryptically.
‘I don’t like surprises,’ she shot back.
‘Everyone likes surprises, Darci,’ he dismissed with a grin, his teeth very white against his bronzed skin.
Not when Luc Gambrelli was generating that surprise, they didn’t!
Although Darci had a feeling that when it came to Luc, women and surprises, she was in a minority—probably of one!
Because most women wouldn’t care that any relationship with Luc was sure to be of short duration—would simply enjoy the affair while it lasted, enjoy him while it lasted.
Unfortunately Darci simply wasn’t made that way. She had grown up in a loving family, and her parents had been absolutely devoted to each other—they were still. And Darci had promised herself that one day, once she was firmly established in her career, she would have that sort of partnership for herself.
Her plans didn’t include a deviation into a fling with someone like Luc Gambrelli!
‘I don’t,’ she assured him firmly.
Luc had no doubt that it was in just such a voice that Darci advised her less cooperative patients. Unfortunately for Darci, he wasn’t one of them…
‘I’m sure that as a child you must have enjoyed the anticipation of Christmas and birthdays?’ he persisted.
‘Well, of course,’ she retorted. ‘But neither of us are children, Luc. And I really can’t just disappear from London like this for hours on end.’ She looked at the surrounding countryside as it sped past. ‘I may be needed at the hospital—’
‘It is your day off and you’re not on call,’ he pointed out, having no intention of turning back now that he had got Darci all to himself.
‘Well…yes,’ she accepted grudgingly. ‘But I often go in on my days off.’
‘Through choice, or because you are called in?’ he queried.
Darci gave a sigh. ‘Luc, being a doctor isn’t just a nine-’til-five job. People get sick twenty-four hours a day.’
‘In other words, you go in because you want to?’ Luc guessed. ‘And all work and no play makes you a stressed and less-than-efficient Darci.’
She glared at him over the top of her sunglasses. ‘I thought the saying was—“makes Jack a dull boy”?’
A glare Luc chose to ignore. ‘So I used a little poetic licence.’ He grinned. ‘My point being,’ he continued firmly, when he could see she was about to protest again, ‘that you and your patients will benefit from your taking time off away from the hospital to have some fun.’
‘Luc—’
‘This will do,’ he decided imperiously, and he turned the car off into a wooded parkland area, hoping Cesare would forgive him for the effect the uneven dirt road was having on the suspension of the Porsche, but knowing, once he had explained the situation to his cousin, that Cesare would understand.
And if, in his newly respectable married state, Cesare didn’t understand, then Luc would simply replace the Porsche!