The Italian's Love-Child (5 page)

T
HE
hotel was one of those modern, quietly expensive places which often seemed to be featured in glossy magazines and were a million miles away from the featureless anonymity of the large chains.

Eve walked into a foyer painted a deep, dark navy with shiny wood floors and expensive-looking rugs. She had to look hard for the reception desk, which was clearly designed not to
look
like a reception desk. It was half hidden by vases of clashing scarlet and violet flowers and the sleek blonde who eventually gave her a smile looked as if she should be modelling in a glossy magazine herself.

She guessed that this was one of those exclusive places, so hip and cool that it was almost icy, and she shivered at the thought of what she was about to do. Although, as she reminded herself fiercely—she didn’t have to do anything. Not if she didn’t want to.

‘Can I help you?’ said the blonde.

‘Um…’ Oh, for heaven’s
sake
—when did she last preface a question with the word, ‘um’? ‘I’m meeting Mr Luca Cardelli here at six.’

The blonde’s cool face didn’t flicker. ‘
Signor
Cardelli,’ she corrected, ‘should be here—’

‘Any minute now,’ came the honeyed tumble of his words and Eve’s mouth dried as she turned round to see him emerging from the lift. ‘Hello, Eve.’

He looked, she thought rather desperately, utterly
ravishing—in a dark linen suit, and a blue silk shirt which was unbuttoned at the neck, showing a tantalising glimpse of olive skin and the arrowing of dark hair.

‘Luca,’ she said, her voice very low. She forced a smile. ‘Hello.’

He narrowed his eyes. This was not the behaviour of a woman who wanted him to make love to her. In fact, she looked as though she were dancing on pieces of broken glass. Did that mean she was nervous, and if so—wasn’t that rather endearing? At least it showed him a chink in her sophisticated armour.

He smiled and moved forward, kissing her on each cheek, his hands on her shoulders, continental style, and Eve felt herself relax slightly. Anyone would think she was a timid little mouse of a thing, with no experience of men whatsoever!

But as she breathed in some subtle, heavenly aftershave he was wearing, and felt the faint rasp of his chin against her cheek, it struck her that she felt completely naïve and inexperienced. Why, give her a plate of prawns and she would probably drop them all over him!

‘You look wonderful,’ he murmured. More than wonderful—though distinctly understated. Some floaty little silk skirt and a soft, pink sweater, which moulded itself to her perfect breasts. A pair of high suede boots and her hair caught in a plait and tied at the end with a pink ribbon. It was both sexy and yet wholesome and it had the effect of making him want her even more.

‘Thank you.’

‘Shall we go and eat?’ He glanced briefly at his watch. ‘What time do you have to leave?’

‘Oh, well, I can decide later,’ she prevaricated. She met the look of curiosity in his eyes. ‘That is—um, there’s a train at nine-thirty.’ Which wasn’t answering his question at all, and she had said ‘um’
again
!

‘We could eat here, if you like. Or find somewhere local?’

Oh, heavens. Normally sure and decisive, she suddenly felt a quivering mass of uncertainty, until something happened which made her get real. Maybe it was the fleeting side-glance which the sleek blonde at Reception sent her, as if she would give anything to be in Eve’s shoes.

Enjoy this, she told herself. Just enjoy it. ‘What’s the food like here?’

‘I have no idea.’ He glanced around. ‘My secretary booked it for me—it’s a little—antiseptic for my taste. But there’s a sushi bar around the corner—do you like sushi?’

‘I love it.’

‘Come on, then.’

Outside, the whirr of traffic and the people walking made Eve feel more relaxed, and the sushi bar was gorgeous.

‘I think this restaurant might have been designed by a feng shui expert,’ she commented as they were shown to a low table, next to a blurred and restful painting.

‘Because you have to be a contortionist to sit down?’

She smiled. ‘Don’t you think it has a rather restful air about it?’

Restful?

He thought that he could have been given some long sleeping draught and he still would have felt the constant heat of desire, but maybe that was because he had been on a knife-edge of delightful anticipation and uncertainty all week. And uncertainty could be a heady emotion—as if you had discovered some new and delicious food you had not realised existed.

Like a natural predator finding itself in undiscovered terrain, he narrowed his eyes and handed her the menu as the waitress hovered.

‘Shall we order?’

They discussed the menu together, but Eve might as well have been selecting sawdust and treacle for all the notice she took of the food which began to arrive, on stark, square plates, pretty as individual pictures. She did her level best to eat it, determined to act as normally as if she were out with any attractive man, and not one who seemed to have the power to reduce her to a kind of melting jelly with just one hard, brief smile and one glitter of those brilliant, yet unfathomable dark eyes.

She sipped her wine and felt about seventeen, and just hoped to goodness that the face she presented was calm and serene.

Luca leaned back in his seat. ‘So tell me how you came to be a television star.’

‘Presenter,’
she corrected immediately and caught his look of mocking question and smiled. ‘I know I’m a bit defensive, but the job comes with so much baggage that it’s almost instinctive.’

‘People wanting to know you for the wrong reasons?’ he guessed.

‘Something like that.’ She sipped at her wine. ‘I expect you’ve been a victim of it yourself.’

‘Never a victim,
cara
,’ he murmured. ‘And it is not a word I would have associated with you. So tell me about it.’

She loved the way he curled his tongue around the word
‘cara’
and found herself, bizarrely, wishing that he would speak to her in Italian, even though she barely knew more than a few words of the language. ‘I did a degree in meteorology at university. The weather had always fascinated me, but when you grow up in a place where so much is determined by it, it seemed kind of natural. Then the local station was looking for a weathergirl, and I applied for the job, without really thinking I’d get it.’

‘Because?’

‘Oh, because I wasn’t blonde and busty—and most of the other candidates were!’

‘Yet they chose you,’ he observed softly.

‘Yes, they did—it seemed that they weren’t looking for a pneumatic blonde, but someone who actually knew what they were talking about, and the viewers seemed to like me. Then the regular presenter left to have a baby, and the next thing I knew they were asking me to fill in for her—temporarily, at first. But they asked me to stay on, and I did, and that was nearly three years ago, which is actually quite a long time in television.’

‘And you like it?’

She hesitated. ‘Yes, I do—though sometimes it doesn’t really seem a serious job, something that matters, like being a brain surgeon. But I’m aware that I’m lucky to have it—and realistic to know that it won’t last for ever. Television jobs rarely do.’

‘And when it ends?’

She met his eyes, and shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘So you have no other ambitions, other than what you do now?’

Eve twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers, wary of how much to tell him. But why be a closed book? What would be the point? ‘Oh, well, one day I hope to have children, of course.’

He nodded, noting the ‘of course’, but also her omission of the normal progression of falling in love with a man and marrying him first, but he knew that women were shy of talking of such things, for fear that men would think them needy.

Eve felt exposed. She had done all the talking, and he very little. ‘What about you? Did you set out to become the owner of a bank?’

‘I don’t think anyone does that.’ He shrugged. ‘I set out to become successful, and somehow it never seemed successful enough. There was always a new challenge, a new obstacle to be overcome and, once I had overcome it, something else to move on to.’

‘So now you own a bank, does that mean you’ve stopped moving on?’

‘Oh, no. There’s always something else to achieve.’

He stopped speaking abruptly and something about the suddenly wary look in his eyes told her that he had already said more than he was comfortable with.

‘I see,’ she said slowly, but she thought how restless and nomadic it made him sound. It should have had the effect of distancing her but she found that she wanted to reach her fingertips out and play them along the silken surface of his skin.

He could feel the tension surrounding them as palpably as if it had been a third person sitting with them at the table. Would she play games with him tonight? he wondered.

‘Shall I get the bill?’

Something about the way he was looking at her was making her heart pound so loudly that it was as if an entire percussion section had taken up residence in her head. Mutely, she nodded, excusing herself to make her way to the bathroom where she splashed cold water on her wrists, as if hoping that the icy temperature might dull the fevered glitter of her eyes, but to no avail.

They walked out into the darkened street and he turned to her as her hair gleamed like liquid gold beneath the street-lamp. ‘Do you want to catch that train?’

She heard a taxi pass them, and she thought of this passing her by. She looked up at him, aware of what hinged on her answer. She looked up into his face and in that moment her heart turned over. ‘No.’

He smiled as he bent his head and kissed her in the street. He told himself that he would not have done the same in Rome, where curious eyes would have registered that Luca Cardelli was behaving in a way which would have distorted the image of his cool persona for ever. But that here in London, it was anonymous. And yet it was more than that. She had captivated him, with her cool, intelligent eyes, the way she had made him wait. For a man used to having whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it, it had proved a powerful aphrodisiac. And he could not wait any longer to kiss her again.

‘Eve,’ he groaned against her moist, sweet lips.

She threaded her fingers into his thick, dark hair as his lips worked a kind of magic, allowing him to pull her closer into his body until she began to tremble uncontrollably, almost relieved when he pulled away, his eyes as black as the night.

‘Come,’ he said shortly.

He took her hand and they walked in expectant silence back to the hotel, where she saw the receptionist staring at them, and as the lift doors closed on them it occurred to her that it must have been pretty obvious where they were going and what they were doing.

But who cared?

She was a free agent, and so was he. And she wanted him so much that she could barely think, let alone speak, but words were unnecessary because as soon as the lift doors had closed he took her in his arms again, kissing her with an unrestrained passion which took her breath away.

She barely registered the room, except to note that it was heady with the fragrance of flowers and softly lit for seduction. She felt a momentary qualm, half wanting to tell him that this felt slightly out of her league, but wouldn’t that just sound like a woman wanting to safeguard her reputation?

But then he began to stroke her, murmuring softly in Italian, threatening to send her already heightened senses spinning out of control, and all her doubts and fears dissolved. Pulling away from him, she met the distracted question in his eyes, and she stroked the hard jaw, as if to silently reassure him. Did he think she was going to change her mind?

‘What is it?’ he demanded.

‘Luca, I don’t…I don’t have anything.’

He frowned. ‘What are you talking about? What don’t you have?’

This was worse than one of those sex education books they forced you to read at school, graphic and matter-of-fact, but it was precisely because she
had
read them that she found herself blushing, which seemed slightly ridiculous in the circumstances.

‘Contraception. I’m not on the pill. I’m not prepared.’

He gave a slow, sensual smile, her statement appealing to his undeniable machismo. So she was not on the pill—which meant that she did not do this freely with others, and that pleased him more than it had any right to please him.

‘Aren’t you?’ he murmured silkily and moved his hand beneath her skirt, roving it up between her stockinged thighs. He slipped the panel of her panties aside and heard her gasp of pleasure as he pushed a finger into her moist, warm heat. He smiled when she moaned out a protest as he took the finger away and, slowly and deliberately, sucked on it, his eyes capturing hers in a look of erotic promise.

‘On the contrary,
cara
,’ he whispered, ‘it occurs to me that you are very well prepared indeed. And you taste absolutely delicious.’

‘Luca!’ Her voice trembled briefly and she closed her eyes, feeling strangely shy at his blatant and unashamed enjoyment.

‘And fortunately, I am, as you say—prepared.’

Her eyes flew open again to see that he had produced a pack of condoms from his pocket and, while the logical side of her was glad that he had thought of protection, some unrealistic, romantic side of her wished that he hadn’t. For didn’t that make it some
how
clinical
? Or did he always have them with him, just in case? And even if he did, would that be so bad? Wasn’t it better to be careful, and didn’t some of her more liberated girlfriends actually carry them around in their handbags?

He saw the brief, vulnerable look which crumpled her mouth and bent his lips to it, teasing it with tiny kisses until it had softened again.

‘Stop frowning,’ he whispered.

‘Make me.’

‘With pleasure. But first I want to see your body.’

He pulled the pink sweater over her head and sucked in a raw breath of pleasure as he saw what lay beneath. A sheer bra, sprigged with roses, and the pink-dark tips of her nipples looked as though they were a continuation of the flowers themselves.