The Italian's Love-Child

Kesi nodded and wound her chubby little arms around Eve’s neck and Eve carried her from the room, aware of Luca’s eyes watching her and the effect of that making her feel self-conscious in a way she thought she had grown out of long ago.

But when she returned, lunch was set out on the table by one of the windows which overlooked the water, and Luca was chatting to Michael and barely gave her a glance as she carried the child back into the room and, of course, that made her even more interested in him!

She settled Kesi into her seat and frowned at Lizzy, who was raising her eyebrows at her in silent question. Just let me get through this lunch and I need never see him again, she thought. And the way to get through it was to treat him just as she would anyone else she was having a one-off lunch with. Chat normally.

But she spent most of the meal talking to Kesi, whom she loved fiercely, almost possessively. Being asked to stand as her godmother had been like a gift, and it was a responsibility which Eve had taken on with great joy.

Lots of women in her field didn’t get around to having children and Eve was achingly aware that this might be the case for her. She told herself that with her god-daughter she had all the best bits of a child, without all the ties.

She had just fed Kesi an olive when she reluctantly raised her head to find Luca watching her, and knew that she couldn’t use her as an escape route for the entire meal.

‘So whereabouts are you living now, Luca?’

He regarded her, a touch of amusement playing around the corners of his mouth. She had barely eaten a thing. And neither had he. And she had been playing with the child in a sweet and enchanting way, almost completely ignoring him, in a way he was not used to.

He wondered if she knew just how attractive it was to see a woman who genuinely liked children. But perhaps he had been guilty of stereotyping—by being surprised at seeing this cool, sophisticated Englishwoman being so openly demonstrative and affectionate. He pushed his plate away. ‘I live in Rome—though I also have a little place on the coast.’

‘For sailing?’

‘When I can. Not too

much these days, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not? Michael said you were a brilliant sailor.’

He didn’t deny it; false modesty was in its way a kind of dishonesty, wasn’t it? Sailing had been a passion and an all-consuming one for a while, but passions tended to dominate your life, and inevitably their appeal faded. ‘Oh, pressure of work. An inability to commit to it properly. The usual story.’

The words inability to commit hovered in the air like a warning. ‘What kind of work do you do?’

‘Guess,’ he murmured.

He had the looks which could have made him a sure-fire hit on celluloid, but he didn’t have the self-conscious vanity which usually accompanied an actor. Though he certainly had the ego. And the indefinable air that said he was definitely a leader. ‘I’d say you’re a successful businessman.’

‘Nearly.’ He let his eyes rove over her parted lips, wishing he could push the tip of his tongue inside them. ‘I’m a banker.’ ‘Oh.’

‘Boring, huh?’ he mocked.

She met the piercing black stare with a cool look. ‘Not for you, I presume—otherwise you wouldn’t do it.’

‘Luca!’ protested Lizzy. ‘Stop selling yourself short!’ She leaned across the table towards Eve and gave the champagne-softened, slightly delighted smile of someone who had landed a lunch guest of some consequence. ‘Luca isn’t your usual kind of banker. He owns the bank!’

Eve felt faint. He owned a bank? Which didn’t just put him into the league of the rich—it put him spinning way off in the orbit of the super-rich and all the exclusivity which went with that. And there she had been thinking that he might have been impressed with her small-town media status!

She knew he was watching her, wanting to see what her reaction would be. That type of position would be isolating, she realised. People would react differently to him because of it, just as they did with her—only on a much larger scale, of course. On camera she had learned not to react, a skill which came in very useful now.

‘I didn’t realise that individuals could own banks,’ she said interestedly. ‘Isn’t that rare?’

He felt as if she was interviewing him! ‘It’s unusual,’ he corrected. ‘Not exactly rare.’

‘It must be heady stuff—having that amount of power?’

He met her eyes. ‘It turns women on, yes.’

She didn’t react. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

He ran a finger idly around the rim of his glass. ‘It is like everything else—there are good bits and bad bits, exciting bits and boring bits. Life is the same for everyone, essentially—whether you clean the bank or own the bank.’

‘Hardly!’