(2012) Evie Undercover

by Liz Harris

  He watched as she smiled down at Eduardo, who was bending so low that his nose was almost touching the ground.

  It was true that she didn’t look grasping or devious – on the contrary, she seemed to be good fun and unusually open and honest – but then you wouldn’t expect a successful con man to look like a con man. His defences were going to stay up.

  Not that she seemed the slightest bit interested in making a breach in them – her interest clearly lay elsewhere. That was pretty clear from the way she was staring after Eduardo as he walked towards his car. He couldn’t see her eyes so he didn’t know if she was gazing at the retreating back with longing, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she was. Not that it mattered, anyway.

  He’d seen Eduardo’s eyes, though, as he’d turned away from Evie and given him that silly wave, and what Eduardo thought of Evie was pretty clear from the slobbery expression on his face. It was almost enough to make you throw up. He’d never seen him look like that before.

  Obviously that was a good thing as far as he was concerned, he thought hastily – God forbid that he should ever be the object of his geometra’s soulful gaze – but it strongly suggested that Eduardo had fallen for Evie in a big way from virtually the first moment that he saw her.

  And there was a degree of evidence to suggest that Evie felt the same about Eduardo. In addition to the way she’d been gazing at him, she’d been very quick – unnecessarily quick, he’d thought at the time – to stress that Eduardo should come with them on the furniture expedition the following day, and that could only mean that she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.

  Until the moment he’d suggested that he and Evie go alone to get the furniture, he hadn’t known he was going to say that, but the minute the words had left his mouth he’d realised how much he wanted it to be just the two of them.

  Not for any particular reason. He’d just thought it would be fun to go off on their own. She was easy enough to be with, had a good sense of humour and there’d be no risk of overdosing on Mediterranean gallantry. He’d been quite disappointed when she’d insisted that Eduardo come too; in fact, he was surprised at how disappointed he’d felt. Eduardo and his over-the-top gallantry must be getting to him more than he’d realised.

  But she was right, of course. Eduardo would be a great help at the co-operative. And it wasn’t as if he’d need to join them every day.

  He and Evie might decide to visit some places of interest in the area, and they’d do that by themselves. Thinking about it, he really ought to take her around – it’d be doing her a real favour to show her as much as possible while they were there as she might not get to Italy again for ages. It was the very least he could do, given how ably she was helping him.

  The loud roar of the convertible broke into his reverie. He looked up and saw a cloud of dust where Eduardo’s car had been standing. As the sound of the engine faded away down the side of the mountain, she walked over to the top of the grassy slope.

  His eyes fastened themselves to her as she stood there staring at the view. Her hands were clasped behind her head, and her short cotton dress had lifted slightly with her raised arms. His gaze was drawn to long bare legs that ended in scarlet-tipped toes that peeped from her sandals.

  There was certainly nothing sleek and sophisticated about Evie, he thought wryly, and actually that was quite nice for a change.

  She was coming towards him. He pulled himself upright.

  ‘What’s next?’ She’d come to a stop in front of him, and was smiling up at him. Her deep green eyes were flecked with gold in the bright sunlight.

  Very nice, in fact.

  He pulled his gaze away from her face. ‘You choose. Shall we get the beds first or are you hungry?’

  She bent slightly to look at the watch on his wrist. ‘I doubt if we’ll have enough time to get the beds before the shops close for lunch,’ she said. ‘If you want, we can go to the supermarket, pick up something to eat, come back here and have a picnic on the grass. I love picnics. After that, we can measure up and think about the furniture you need. Then we can go and order the beds at about five, when the shops have opened again.’

  ‘That sounds like a good plan. Right, the supermarket it is. It’s funny, Evie,’ he heard himself say as they started to stroll towards the parking area, ‘but beds seem to have featured a lot in our visit so far, and we’ve not even been here for two days.’

  He opened the passenger door of the four-by-four, stood back and wondered why on earth he’d come out with such a comment. It was a leading remark of the worst sort as it could take them down a very unwise path. Given that he was keen to keep a safe distance, it had been really stupid of him.

  ‘Haven’t they just.’ Her bare arm brushed against his forearm as she climbed up into the car, and he quickly stepped back.

  ‘Which reminds me, Evie. We mustn’t forget to pick-up that scorpion spray.’

  ‘That was fab.’ She pushed the empty food wrappers into a heap at her side. ‘Prosciutto, melon, tomatoes off the vine, pecorino cheese, juicy yellow peaches, and gallons of white wine – everything I like most in the world. What more could anyone want!’

  ‘What more indeed?’ he asked dryly.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him watching her.

  Good.

  She kicked off her sandals, leaned back on her elbows and stretched her legs out in front of her. Just as well that they were sitting down, she thought, staring down the slope at the pool; sprawling on the grass was about all she was good for. That wine had certainly hit the spot. And if it had done that to her, God knows what it had done to Tom. He’d had twice as much as she’d had.

  ‘You can tell me to mind my own business, Evie, but how come you’re working for an agency? I’ve had a lot of agency help over the years and I can say categorically that you’re not the typical agency girl, not even in a severe grey suit, with your hair in a bun and whopping great glasses. Yet you obviously are a temp.’

  Oh, joy! She couldn’t have created a better chance to Move Things On A Bit if she’d written the script for him. But she must tread carefully. If she tried to go too fast, she could lose her story once and for all as he’d never again be able to relax with her.

  ‘It’s complicated. I went to Italy when I left school and got a job in a hotel. After a year, I came home, moved in with my parents and—’ Crap! Probably not a good idea to mention working for a paper … ‘And, um, got a job in a pub. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life and it gave me time to think. Two years passed and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I was bored stiff with the job and with living at home, especially after living on my own for a year.’ Not all lies … She had been bored stiff working at the local paper and was going stir crazy at home. No need to feel guilty, she told herself. ‘My friends suggested I join them in London, so I did. I had to do something for money – there’s a small matter of rent, and all that – and I’d had enough of working evenings and weekends so I joined the agency. Temping’s OK and it’s given me a bit more breathing space.’

  She smiled across at him – a playful smile, suitable for harmless banter. At least, she hoped it was that and not the grimace of a hungry journalist. ‘But I could say the same thing about you, Tom.’

  ‘You could? Well, yes, I suppose you could, and I think you’d be right in a way.’ He sounded as if he was really thinking about what she’d said. ‘Being attached to a set of Chambers isn’t generally likened to working for an agency, but there are certainly similarities between the two. We both have a varied clientele, for example, and we generally perform just one function for the client and move on. Yes, you may well have hit upon something there, Evie. It’s true that in some respects, a barrister’s work has much in common with that of an agency temp.’

  Fuck! She hadn’t meant that at all.

  ‘Maybe so.’ She sat up and started to twirl a piece of grass between her fingers. ‘But what I actually meant was that just
as you don’t think I’m a typical agency girl, well I don’t think you’re a typical lawyer.’

  ‘Is that so? You do intrigue me. What’s a typical lawyer like, then?’

  ‘Stuffier than you.’

  ‘So I’m not stuffy, am I?’

  Thank God he was grinning – she hadn’t gone too far. Not yet anyway. But she must be careful not to push for too much too soon.

  ‘No, not at all. I thought you were stuffy at first, but I was wrong.’

  ‘Aha, there are two lines for exploration here. We’ll start with the negative aspect of your comment. So you thought I was stuffy at first, did you? And your reasons for this?’

  ‘I suppose it was your clothes, and the way you almost ran out of the house as soon as I arrived each morning. And also, all day long I was surrounded by files and by briefs tied up in ribbon – everything looked stuffy and dry so I thought that you must be stuffy and dry, too. As I’d always assumed that lawyers were dull, it was only what I’d expected to find.’ She gave a girlie little laugh.

  Yuk! She sounded totally pathetic, but at least she’d got the conversation back to where she wanted it to go. Now the ball was in his court.

  ‘I see. And now to the more flattering part of your statement – at least, I’m assuming that you consider a lack of stuffiness to be a positive characteristic. May I ask what caused you to revise your opinion?’

  ‘For a start, we wouldn’t be sitting here like this if you were stuffy. After last night, you would have been cold and unfriendly. Instead, you’ve been quite cool about the fact that I wrecked your night and put you in a dead embarrassing position. You’ve let us move on. So whatever you are, you’re not stuffy.’

  ‘I’m flattered. At least, I think I am. I’m now not sure exactly what you mean by “whatever you are”.’

  ‘I just meant that we all have different sides to us – some we show, some we don’t. That’s life. I’m sure there’s another side to you that I can’t see, but the side that I can see isn’t stuffy.’

  Thank you; thank you, God! She’d got them on to the right path, and she’d done it so neatly, too. She was a star.

  ‘I see what you mean, and I think you’re right, Evie. In fact, it’s probably true of both of us. I’ll pick up on something you’ve just said to me. You said that my clothes and behaviour led you to think that I was one sort of person, and then you found out that I was another. I could say the same thing about you – your clothes and behaviour led me to see you in one light, but now I see you in a completely different light.’

  ‘You do? A good-different light or a bad-different light?’

  She sat back. Holy cow! She’d let him take back the lead and turn the spotlight on to her again. She must get the conversation back to him as quickly as possible. He was the specimen on the petri dish, not her.

  ‘Put it this way, Evie – a few minutes ago, you listed pecorino cheese, melon, tomatoes, peaches, and so on, as the things you most liked in the world. I can believe that they topped Santa’s wish list for the Evie of last week, but I doubt that anything gastronomic tops Santa’s wish list for the Evie of this week. Or wouldn’t you agree?’

  Huh. Where was he going with this?

  Her mind raced. She watched him pick up the bottle and pour the last of the wine into their plastic glasses. She took a sip of her drink; she needed time to think. It looked as if he was trying to take their conversation down a very interesting path, one that she hadn’t bargained upon – or certainly not so early in the week – and she needed to play things very, very carefully.

  ‘No, I’m not sure that I do agree,’ she said, after giving herself as long a time to think as she thought she could get away with. ‘I can’t imagine any sort of Evie rating anything above a perfectly ripe, juicy peach. Surely there isn’t anything in the world that could score higher than that. Or is there?’

  She stared at him above the rim of the plastic glass, her face a picture of innocence. Fingers crossed that he was into clichés.

  ‘Are you challenging me to come up with something, Evie?’

  Spot on! And she liked the almost seductive tone of his voice. On second thought, she wasn’t sure there was any ‘almost’ about it.

  ‘Because if you are, you should know there’s nothing I like better than a challenge, as many courtroom opponents have found to their cost.’

  ‘Oh, I do believe you.’

  And she did. She finished her wine in double quick time, lay back on the grass and waited.

  Don’t do it, his inner voice screamed at him.

  He was furious with himself: it was entirely his own fault that he’d got himself into the situation he was in. She’d picked up the baton that he should never have dropped, and now she was teasing him with it. Worse still, he seemed to be letting himself take the bait.

  He glanced across at her. Her skin was creamy smooth in the afternoon sun, and her lips were parted in an inviting sort of way. It would be very easy to lean over and kiss her, and probably quite pleasant – all in all, it could be a diverting way of killing time. And what harm could it do? He found himself turning slightly towards her and lowering his head towards her mouth.

  The inner voice screamed at him again, louder this time, more insistent.

  It was a voice that he’d first heard years before, a voice that he’d then ignored, and had regretted doing so ever since. He’d turned a deaf ear the first time that he’d heard it and he wasn’t going to ignore it a second time. Only fools failed to learn from the lessons that life threw at them. He wasn’t a fool and he wasn’t giving in to temptation. Not this time.

  Abruptly, he straightened up.

  Making a move on Evie was fraught with potential disaster. He didn’t get involved with people like her. To have a casual dalliance with her would be both unprofessional and foolhardy. Theirs was a friendly working relationship, and that was the way it had to stay. He scrambled to his feet.

  ‘We’ll tidy up now, and then get off to Massa. Up you get, Evie.’

  Turning round, he walked away from her.

  Chapter Seven

  Help! There’s a spanner in the works

  From her table in the corner of the piazza in Todi, Evie watched Tom stroll across the square and start to climb the stone steps leading to the cathedral. The weathered marble walls of the cathedral shimmered pink in the light of the dying sun. She helped herself to a handful of nuts from the small bowl in the centre of the table. Why had Tom changed towards her? Because change he certainly had.

  It wasn’t that he was acting coldly towards her or anything like that; it was little things she couldn’t really put her finger on. She’d been certain – absolutely certain – that he’d been about to kiss her the day before when they’d been mucking around on the grass after lunch, but he’d suddenly pulled back and things hadn’t been the same ever since.

  They’d ended the afternoon by ordering the beds and bedside tables as planned and had arranged for them to be delivered to the house on the Thursday morning, and then they’d had a nice dinner at Il Poggio, but at the end of the meal he’d made it clear that he didn’t want to hang around and they’d gone off to their separate rooms as soon as they’d finished their coffee.

  She’d had a burst of hope when there’d been a knock on her door soon after they’d parted. She’d rushed to the door, pulled it open and found him standing there, a can of insect spray in his hand. Her hope had faded fast. The pre-picnic-lunch Tom would have cracked a joke as he’d handed her the can; the post-picnic-lunch Tom had made do with, ‘In case there are any problems. Good night.’

  The day in Città di Castello had gone well and they’d ordered everything Tom needed.

  He’d seemed quite relaxed all day, and hadn’t even appeared to be the least bit put out when he’d learnt that the furniture would be delivered over a period of a couple of weeks – he’d just told Eduardo that he could get someone to stay in the house during that time if it made things easier for him. Nevertheless,
he’d kept firmly to his side of an invisible wall all day.

  This had been even more obvious after Eduardo had returned them to the hotel once all the furniture had been ordered and had gone home to change. True, before Tom had disappeared into his room to have a shower he’d suggested leaving early and stopping for a drink in Todi before they met up with Eduardo at Casigliano for a celebratory dinner, but as she’d stood on the terrace and stared after his departing back, she hadn’t seen any sign of a real thaw.

  This was a mega big headache. If she didn’t know what had caused the change in him, she couldn’t work on getting things back to the way they were. She didn’t have long in which to act – the week was flying by at a scary speed – so she had to come up with something fast.

  Inspiration struck – she’d call Rachel and ask her advice. Rachel always knew what to do in every situation. She pulled her mobile phone out of her bag and flicked it open. It was high time she called her friends, anyway.

  ‘It really is a perfect evening, isn’t it?’

  She looked up. The focus of her frantic concern was standing next to the table. She snapped her phone shut.

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ he said, signalling to the waiter as he sat down on the chair opposite her.

  ‘You’re not. I was only going to phone Rachel and Jess – they’re the girls I share a house with – but it can wait. I wasn’t really in the mood, anyway.’

  ‘Feel free to phone them, if you want to. I promise not to listen.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘As you wish. Ah, here’s the waiter. Una birra, per favore. And what would you like, Evie?’

  ‘Un bellini, per favore,’ she said, and the waiter moved off. ‘I think it’s my favourite drink of all. Sparkling white wine and peach purée is a marriage made in heaven.’

  ‘Aha, something else to add to your list of favourites. And what’s more, it’s made with one of the items already on your list. A double whammy, one might almost say.’ He grinned at her and reached across to the nuts.