by Liz Fielding
‘Someone held it open for me. A young man in a hurry.’ Then, ‘Hold on.’ He was speaking in English. Sexily accented as only an Italian could do it, but English nonetheless. ‘How did you know?’
‘That you were here?’
‘That I’m English.’
‘Actually,’ he said, mocking her, ‘the young man, having made his escape, spared a moment of his precious time to warn me that I had an intruder.’
‘Warn you?’ She remembered him reaching for his mobile phone as he’d walked away, how she’d imagined him talking to some girl … ‘What on earth did he think I was going to do?’ she demanded. ‘Shin up the drainpipe and pinch the family silver?’
Torn between annoyance and amusement, she had hoped he’d realise how ridiculous he was being. Maybe laugh. She couldn’t see his eyes, but his generous mouth seemed made for laughter.
He did neither.
She’d left her bag at the foot of the wall and, without so much as a by-your-leave, he picked it up and began to go through it.
‘Hey!’ she protested as he took out her phone. The nerve of the man! ‘Didn’t your mother tell you that you must never, ever, under any circumstances look in a lady’s handbag?’
‘First we have to establish that you are a lady,’ he replied, glancing up from his perusal of her messages, regarding her for a moment as if he was considering whether to search her, too.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she warned.
Maybe the silky scoop-necked designer T-shirt she’d teamed with cropped Maybridge market jeans convinced him that there wasn’t room to hide as much as a teaspoon about her person. Or maybe he was saving that pleasure for later.
It was a thought that should have made her feel a lot more nervous than it did.
Whatever the reason, he returned his attention to her phone, going through her messages, then her emails. Pausing at one, he looked over the top of his glasses at her with a pair of ink-dark eyes.
‘Have you found him yet, Sarah Gratton?’
For a moment she was mesmerized by the way he said her name. The vowels long and slow, like thick cream being poured from a jug. The man exuded sensuality. Every movement, every syllable seemed to stroke her …
‘Him?’ she repeated, before she began to purr. No … That wasn’t right. She was looking for Lucia …
‘The “dark-eyed Italian lover”?’ he prompted.
Oh, great. He’d found Lex’s email. But no one who taught a mixed class of teenagers could afford to betray the slightest sign of embarrassment. The first hint of a blush and you were toast.
You had to look them in the eye, stand your ground, come back with a swift riposte that would make the class laugh with you, not at you.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Are you interested in the job?’
It would have been spot on if it had come out sharp and snappy as intended, but something had gone seriously wrong between her brain and her mouth. Between concept and delivery.
It was his eyes. Dark as night but with the crackle of lightning in their depths …
Under that gaze, sharp had lost its edge, snap had turned to a soft, gooey fudge and, apparently taking it as an invitation, he reached out, slid his fingers through her hair, cradling her head in the palm of his hand. There was a seemingly endless pause while she frantically tried to redial her brain. Send out a call for the cavalry.
Her brain was apparently engaged, busy dealing with a bombardment of signals. The sun hot on her arms, her throat, her breasts. The sensuous sweep of the mouth hovering above her own. The scent of warm skin, leather …
The world seemed to have slowed down and it took forever for his lips to reach hers. Somewhere, deep inside her brain the word no was teetering on the brink. All she had to do was move her lips, say it, but her butter-soft mouth seemed to belong to someone else.
When it parted, it was not to protest and as his mouth found hers a tingle of something like recognition raced like wildfire through her blood, blotting out reason. Her body, with nothing to guide it, softened, melted against him, murmured, ‘Yes …’
It wasn’t enough and she clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into hard flesh as she began to fall back, leaving gravity to take them down into the soft thick grass on the shady side of the wall.
For a moment she could feel it, was breathing in the green, sweet scent of grass, herbs crushed beneath them. The weight of his body, the sweep of his hand beneath the silk, lighting up her skin as it moved over her ribs. Her nipple, achingly hard in anticipation of his touch.
There was a sickening jolt, like that moment when you were on the point of falling asleep and something dragged you back.
‘Lucia …’
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
Sarah opened her eyes. She was still sitting on the wall, not clinging to this stranger but being supported by him, as if he thought that she was about to fall.
‘Are you all right?’ His voice seemed to be coming from under water.
‘What? Yes …’
She was back from wherever she’d been, whoever she’d been—because she wasn’t the kind of woman who invited total strangers to kiss her.
‘This was where they said goodbye …’ she whispered.
Lex had taken her photograph and kissed her and they’d made love there in the soft thick grass of early summer one last time before he’d taken the path down into the village. Flown away.
She turned and looked behind her to where her hat was lying in the grass. Not the sweet and green grass of early summer—
‘Sarah!’ the man said, rather more urgently.
‘It’s dry,’ she said. And a little shiver ran through her. ‘The grass.’
‘It’s autumn.’
‘Autumn?’ She shook her head, forced herself to concentrate.
‘Are you all right?’ he repeated, eyes narrowed.
‘Yes.’ Pull yourself together … ‘Yes, of course I am.’
He touched a thumb to her cheek, his hand cradling her face as he wiped away a tear. ‘Then why the tears?’
Tears? She swiped her palm across her cheek. ‘Hay fever,’ she said, grabbing for the first answer that came into her head.
‘In autumn?’
Had he actually kissed her?
Her lips still tingled with a lingering taste of the perfect kiss but had it been a fleeting fantasy? A phantom conjured up by the place, by old memories, by her own loss?
She blinked, saw a tiny smear of lipstick on the corner of his mouth. Of course he’d kissed her. She’d practically begged him to. What on earth had possessed her?
There were no answers, but her brain finally picked up, answered her call for help. Speak. Move. Get out of here …
‘I’m allergic to chrysanthemums,’ she said, sliding down from the wall, forcing him to step back. ‘It’s hereditary.’ Her knees buckled slightly as she hit the ground, her legs unexpectedly shaky beneath her and he caught her elbow to steady her. ‘Great interview, by the way.’ She took a breath, reached for her bag. She really needed to get out of here, but he was blocking her way. And he still had her phone. ‘Leave your number with my secretary and I’ll let you know.’
She’d made a stab for crispness but her voice could have done with longer in the salad drawer.
He continued to look at her for a moment, as if half expecting her to crumple at his feet.
She lifted a brow. The one guaranteed to bring a sassy fifth year into line.
Apparently reassured that she wasn’t about to collapse, he said, ‘Don’t wait too long. I’m not short of offers.’ But his voice, too, had lost its edge and the accent seemed more pronounced, as if he was having a chocolate fudge moment of his own.
‘My phone.’ She held out her hand, praying that it wouldn’t shake. ‘If you please.’
‘When I’m done.’ Then, ignoring her huff of outrage, he turned away, propped his elbows on the wall beside her and began to flip through her photographs.
They were mostly typical tourist shots. A few pictures of the school, her apartment. The kind of things she’d taken to send home or for her blog.
‘You’ve come from Rome?’ he asked.
She didn’t bother to answer, instead leaned back against the wall to give her wobbly knees a break. Vowed to have more than an espresso and pastry for breakfast in future.
‘You’ve been busy sightseeing.’
He glanced at her when she didn’t bother to answer.
‘I’m new in town. I’ll soon run out of things to photograph.’
‘Don’t count on it.’ Then, as he continued, found the photographs she’d taken of the wall, the house, ‘What’s your interest in my house? It’s not an ancient monument.’
It was his house?
He didn’t fit the image she had of a middle-aged businessman setting himself up in a weekend retreat. At all.
‘It’s a lovely house. A lovely view. Have I done something wrong?’ As he glanced at her, the sleeve of his shirt brushed against her bare arm and the soft linen raised goosebumps on her flesh. ‘I thought taking photographs from a public footpath was okay.’
‘And I thought I’d made it clear that this isn’t a public footpath. It’s part of the Serrone estate.’
‘You need a sign,’ she advised him. ‘“Trespassers will be Prosecuted” is usual. Not that I’d have understood it. Maybe a “No Entry” symbol, the kind they use on roads would be better, or a picture of a slavering dog.’ She should stop babbling right now. ‘Give it to me. I’ll delete them.’
‘No need. I’ll do it for you.’ Beep, beep, beep. He still didn’t return the phone. ‘We don’t get many visitors to Isola del Serrone. Especially not from England.’
‘No? I can’t say I’m surprised.’ It was quite possible that she was the first English person to visit the village since her great-grandfather left. ‘Maybe you’d do better if you were a little more welcoming.’
His eyes were now safely hidden behind those dark lenses, but the corner of his mouth tucked up in what might, at a stretch, have been a smile.
‘How much more friendly do you want?’
And she discovered that, classroom hardened as she was, she could still, given sufficient provocation, blush.
‘I’m good, thanks.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s your call.’ Then, clearly unconvinced by her ‘walk in the country’ story, ‘We’re not on the tourist map.’
‘That’s okay. I’m not a tourist.’
‘No?’ He didn’t sound entirely surprised. Which was surprising. Italy was, after all, chock-full of tourists and some of them must occasionally wander off the beaten track. Take photographs of views that hadn’t made it into the guidebooks. ‘So what are you really doing here?’ he asked.
Until now he’d been in the shadows, a voice, a pair of dark eyes, a mouth so tender that his kiss could bring a tear to her eyes …
Now that she was back on the path, out of the sun’s dazzle, she could see his face. It was hard to judge his age but his jet-black hair curled tightly in a thick mat against his scalp, his skin was golden, his cheekbones chiselled and his nose was so damn Roman that it should have been on a statue.
He was good to look at, but there was something about his manner, the arrogant way he’d kissed her, had gone through her emails, making quite unnecessary comments that—the blush notwithstanding—brought out what her mother would, in her teenage years, have described as ‘a touch of the awkwards’.
It would have been easy enough to tell him exactly what she was doing but Lucia’s secret was not hers to share. And, anyway, it was none of his business.
‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ she said.
That raised the shadow of a smile. ‘Undoubtedly.’
She was right about his mouth. Definitely made for it …
‘Having read my messages,’ she said, making an effort to concentrate on reality, ‘you know my name. I don’t know yours.’
‘No?’ He responded with a slight bow. ‘Mi spiace, Signora Sarah Gratton. Io sono Matteo di Serrone.’
‘Di Serrone?’ About to say, Like the racing
driver?, she realised that would betray a deeper interest in the area than mere sightseeing and, back-pedalling madly, she said, ‘You’re a local boy, then.’
‘I was born in the north of Italy, but my family are from this village.’
Turin was in the north. Was he the young son, orphaned when his father was killed on the racetrack? He had to be about the right age.
‘You have my name. Perhaps you will be good enough to answer my question?’ he said.
‘Of course. Someone I know visited the village a while ago and he was so full of it, the hospitality of the people,’ she added, heavily stressing ‘hospitality’, ‘that I wanted to see it for myself.’ It was as much as she was prepared to tell a perfect stranger. Almost a stranger. Not perfect … ‘Has anyone ever told you that your English is amazing?’
‘He must have been impressed,’ he said. Then, the smile deepening to something that could very easily make a woman’s heart beat faster, with or without the added kiss, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you can change the subject faster than the English weather?’
‘No, really,’ she assured him, doing her best to focus on the view instead of the way her heart was in sync with the pulse beating in his neck. It was a little fast, suggesting that he was not as calm as he would have her believe. ‘It’s not only the idiomatic speech. You’ve got both irony and sarcasm nailed and that’s tough.’
‘I had an English nanny until I was six. She was strong on all three.’
‘That would explain it. What happened when you were six?’ she asked, but rather afraid she knew.
‘She left, and I came home.’
‘Oh.’ Not what she’d expected.
He raised his eyebrows a fraction, inviting her to elaborate on that ‘Oh’, but, while his voice had been even, his lack of expression suggested that his nanny’s departure had not been a happy one. No doubt it had left a painful gap in the life of a small boy. Better not to go there …
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. She did a good job of teaching you English, that’s all. Considering how young you were.’
‘She was well rewarded for her dedication.’
Definitely something—and his ‘I came home’ was now suggesting, to her overactive imagination, that daddy had an affair with the nanny and mummy packed her bag. She really had to stop reading rubbish gossip magazines in the hairdressers.
‘I took a post-graduate degree at Cambridge,’ he offered, as if he, too, would rather change the subject. ‘That was a useful refresher course.’
‘I imagine it would be.’ She’d bet there were any number of girls queueing up to give him English lessons. She sighed. ‘I envy your ability to speak two languages so fluently. I’m doing my best to learn Italian, but without much success. I’m still struggling to order a sandwich.’
‘Then allow me to save you the bother,’ he said.
‘Of ordering a sandwich?’
‘I’d recommend something more substantial. You almost fainted, I think, and I’m not vain enough to believe it had anything to do with the fact that I kissed you.’
She’d almost done something, what or why she couldn’t have said, but he was definitely underestimating himself.
‘I skimped on breakfast,’ she admitted.
‘Always a mistake.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And my rudeness could not have helped.’ He looked down at the phone he was still holding. ‘My cousin is an actress and we have problems with the press. Photographers.’
‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’
‘No?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, Bella hasn’t yet made the leap to Hollywood so your ignorance is forgivable. Perhaps you’ll allow me to restore your faith in our hospitality by joining me for lunch.’
As he spoke, a woman appeared on the terrace below them and began to lay the table beneath the per
gola. Without waiting for her answer, Matteo called down to her in Italian so rapid that she didn’t manage to catch a single word.
The woman waved to show that she’d heard and he said, ‘Graziella is expecting you. You cannot disappoint her.’
She could. She should.
Every atom of sense was telling her that if this was a movie she’d have been yelling at the stupid woman, dithering between going and staying, to beat it.
But she’d come to see the house and she’d never get another chance like this. It wasn’t as if she’d be alone with him.
‘I would hate to disappoint Graziella,’ she said.
‘And if you want to take another photograph,’ he said, ‘please go ahead.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ A gesture assured her that he said nothing that he didn’t mean. ‘Well, to be honest, I was wishing that there was someone to take a photograph of me when you turned up.’
‘Were you? To prove to your friend that you were here?’
He was frowning, as if he couldn’t understand why she would want to take one in this particular spot.
‘Yes. No …’ She put her hands on the wall, using her heel against the rough stonework to boost herself up before he could help. ‘Why wouldn’t he believe me?’
‘I don’t know. But maybe, in future, you should be more careful what you wish for.’
‘I don’t know. This isn’t going so badly.’ She’d wished and Matteo di Serrone had turned up right on cue.
It hadn’t started out well, but things were looking up.
Ignoring her somewhat provocative response, he said, ‘Do you want to take off your dark glasses?’
‘Oh, right.’
She pulled them off, propped herself on her hands, leaning forward, looking straight at her phone.
‘Say … formaggio.’
She looked up at him, laughed, and he took the photograph.
CHAPTER THREE
ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS
I went right off the tourist route and, as I stood in a village square taking these photographs, it felt as if nothing much has changed in a very long time.
Well, apart from the cars, satellite television, the internet and mobile phones …
AND so it begins, Matteo thought, as Sarah Gratton replaced her glasses. Hiding her eyes.