(2012) Evie Undercover

by Liz Harris

  ‘Just about. But I bet my toe’s going to be one big bruise before the day’s out. And I’ve chipped the varnish.’ She straightened up and treated him to the Brave Little Woman look. No point in summoning the Damsel in Dire Distress effect – she’d used that one before and it had fallen on unfeeling eyes.

  ‘Chipped varnish! Now that is serious. Would it help if I kissed it better?’

  ‘Given a straight choice between that and you switching on the light to prevent any further damage to my body, I’ll take the second of the two, thank you very much, tempted though I am by the thought of you on the floor at my feet.’

  The smile on his face was traced by a line of silvery light. She found herself smiling back at him.

  For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the loud beating of their hearts. Then he got up, went over to the bedside table and put the lamp on it. She heard a click, and light flooded the side of the bed.

  ‘And then there was light. You see, your word is my command, Evie. Is there anything else I can do to compensate for the chipped varnish?’

  She slipped into her sandal and stood up, looking anywhere but at the large bed with its deep mattress.

  ‘You’re OK. I’m all out of commands for the moment.’

  ‘Then if your toe permits, will you be the one to draw the outline of the room?’ He took a notebook and pen out of the pocket in his jeans and handed them to her. ‘We’ll mark on it where the chest of drawers and wardrobe should go.’

  She took the book from him, did a quick sketch of the room and then pointed to the side of the sketch. ‘The wardrobe will go here, won’t it? It’s a no-brainer. And the chest of drawers here.’

  ‘I agree. Mark them in, would you, please?’

  She did as he’d asked, slipped the top back on the pen and glanced around the room. ‘Airhead that I am, I’m wondering what colour you’re going to choose for your sheets and curtains.’

  ‘As your reward for great fortitude in the face of damage to your person, you may choose the colour.’

  ‘White,’ she replied after a moment’s thought. ‘White in every room. The walls are already white and there’s a lot of grey stone around the house. White curtains and white bed linen would be super cool. Or do you think it’d be too much like living in a monastery?’

  ‘That’s a point.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I’m not planning on living like a monk.’

  ‘And very wise, too,’ she said gravely. ‘You’ve already shown how much you like good food and the best of wine – and both of those are forbidden to a monk. No, a life of abstinence would never do for you.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right about there not being a lot of attention paid to food and drink in a monastery, Evie. When I spoke, though, I hadn’t actually been thinking about those two aspects of monastic life. But yes, having to abstain from those, too, would prove an insurmountable obstacle.’

  ‘Nothing’s insurmountable. You’ve just got to want it enough, that’s all.’

  ‘Aha, that all-embracing it. So I’ll succeed if I want it enough, will I? It’s an interesting thought. However, I fear that we ought to put it out of our mind, pleasant though I’m sure such rumination would be. We need to get off to Montefalco pretty soon – my non-monk-like desire for food is getting stronger with every passing minute.’

  Wow, his comment about ‘that all-embracing it’ was pretty near the mark.

  And she hadn’t even intended him to take her comment the way he’d taken it. Or the way he’d pretended to take it. Could it be that Tom was nudging things forward? Urgent mental note to self – conversation along similar lines to be resumed as soon as possible. PS. Said conversation must take place in surroundings conducive to throwing off inhibitions.

  She organised her features into a frown, as if a sudden thought had come into her head.

  ‘How about this for a suggestion? There was more to do here than we realised and it’s taken longer than we thought it would. As you’re hungry now, why don’t we cut out the idea of having lunch in Montefalco and eat in Massa Piccola instead? We could go to the restaurant just back from the main road, which we thought looked rather nice. Then we can go to Montefalco this evening when everything’s open again. We can look round the gallery and maybe have a drink there. Or even dinner? What do you think?’

  His reply was lost in a sudden loud banging that reverberated through the house.

  ‘What’s that?’ She spun round and stared towards the staircase.

  He made a move towards the door. ‘I think we’ve got visitors. Someone’s at the front door and they sound pretty insistent.’ The banging came again, and they heard people moving around outside the house. Voices were talking excitedly. ‘Can you hear what they’re saying?’

  She listened intently. ‘No, not really, the sound’s muffled. Someone mentioned water and someone else said something about the pool, but that’s all I could make out.’

  The banging was followed by the sound of a heavy vehicle being driven past the outside of the house. They heard it come to a stop, and then a second vehicle followed the first.

  A moment later, there was more thumping on the door.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go and see what they want.’ He tucked the plan of the room into his pocket. ‘If necessary, I’ll have to ring Eduardo, or rather you will. It looks as if we may end up having him with us after all today.’ He gave her a wry smile and went out on to the landing.

  They went quickly down the stairs and Tom opened the front door. Three men in overalls stood under the porch, three shapes dark against the bright glare of the midday sun.

  ‘Buon giorno!’ Evie said, stepping forward, and she asked them what they wanted.

  ‘It’s water for the pool,’ she told Tom when she’d finished talking to the men and looking at the papers that they’d shown her. ‘They’ve been filling the pool by bringing up lorry loads of water, and they were short by a couple of loads. Apparently the water is meant to come to the top of the pool and flow over the side into the white grating, but it isn’t yet high enough to do that. They’ve got all the necessary papers. They told Eduardo that they’d be coming today and they thought he’d be here.’

  ‘Is there anything we can do or should we call Eduardo?’

  ‘No, we don’t need him. There’s something to be signed, but you can sign. They don’t need us to be here at all, they just need a signature.’

  ‘Right, then. Show me where to sign and we’ll let them get on with it.’

  He signed on the line that Evie indicated and handed the paper back. The men nodded their thanks, turned and went back to the lorries. Tom closed the door behind them and led the way into the sitting room.

  ‘Your suggestion about leaving Montefalco till this evening is a good one. All the more so because it means we can come back from lunch after the men have gone, just to check that everything’s all right.’ He went over to the arched glass doors and looked out at the pool. ‘It’s a shame we can’t swim today. It would have been nice to have been able to use the pool at least once before we went back to England, but we can’t – the pool man will need to do his stuff first. However, there’s nothing to stop us sitting with our legs in the water, if we felt so inclined.’

  Fantastic! Things were getting better by the minute. Lunch somewhere nice; a hot afternoon by the pool; wine in the evening. And just the two of them together all day. It was beyond brilliant.

  ‘So, let’s get off to Massa now, Evie – we can pick up a couple of towels on the way.’

  Suppressing her inner elation, she forced a concerned expression to her face. ‘What about the room plans? We’ve only done one room so far.’

  ‘We can do the others when we come back. We’ve done more than enough for one morning. We’ll leave the men to do their job and by the time we get back, they’ll have long gone and we’ll have the place to ourselves. So we can go if you’re ready.’

  She beamed at him. She certainly was!

  Chapter Ten
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  A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do …

  Evie leaned back in her seat and stared up at the awning of leaves above her. The hot sun shone through tiny gaps between the leaves and sprinkled the terrace with a shower of gold. She felt blissfully relaxed.

  Sighing with pleasure, she glanced across the table at Tom. He was trying to brush away a fly. He looked up and met her eyes. He sat back in his seat, abandoning his battle with the fly, and smiled at her.

  God, he was absolutely fabulous.

  The cornflower blue of his shirt brought out the deep blue of his eyes and brilliantly set off his light tan. He really was something.

  Not that his dishy appearance and cool sense of fun would get in the way of what she had to do, she thought quickly. It wouldn’t – she’d no choice but to get her story – but it was lovely to let herself imagine for a moment that she was in Italy solely as Evie Shaw, secretary and interpreter. Just that and no more – no digging into his past life; no pretending to be what she wasn’t; above all, no editor behind her.

  ‘We’ll sock it to him when it hurts the most,’ her editor had thundered down the phone on the night before she left for Umbria. ‘The minute that stuck-up bastard stands up in court to start on some poor sucker, our readers are gonna be learning the truth about Mr Squeaky Clean. Squeaky Clean, my arse! You’ve got the two weeks you’re back in London to flesh out the details, Evie – and believe me, I want flesh and lots of it – and then you send me the low-down on his fucking affair, and you make sure it’s fucking good.’

  On the Monday that her story came out – the day that his next big libel case was beginning – she’d be back in the offices of Pure Dirt. It was just as well that she would be. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he would say about her role in the whole thing. Well, she could, but she’d no intention of going there; it would hurt too much.

  She took a deep breath. She was going to have to grow a thicker skin if she wanted to keep her job at Pure Dirt long enough to be able to jump from it into a mainstream magazine. Perhaps it would help if she kept on telling herself that if it hadn’t been for Pure Dirt, she wouldn’t have met Tom.

  ‘I was hungrier than I thought I was,’ she said. ‘That penne with vodka was yummy.’

  ‘It’s a specialty of Umbria. Eduardo introduced me to it on one of my early visits. I’m glad you liked it. How about some pudding now?’

  ‘I really couldn’t, thanks. I’ve had more than enough. What with the hot sun and all that food, I feel just about ready for bed as it is.’

  ‘Tut, tut, Evie. Sexual invitations shouldn’t fall upon the ears of someone at risk of developing monastic aspirations.’

  Yay! He was as keen as she was to get back to the banter they’d had earlier in his bedroom. This was a very promising path, but she’d better decide quickly on where she wanted it to end – getting his confession was her goal, not getting into his bed.

  She straightened up in her chair.

  ‘I’ll be more careful in future,’ she said, a playful, demure lilt to her voice. ‘I can assure you that I wouldn’t want to make you blush, Tom.’

  ‘My sentiments entirely.’

  Their eyes met and they smiled at each other in amusement. Tom moved first. He picked up the bottle of wine and re-filled their glasses. ‘What about a coffee, then?’

  ‘That sounds good. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll have one too.’ He caught the waiter’s eye and beckoned him over.

  ‘Due caffè, per piacere,’ she told the waiter.

  He returned a few minutes later with their coffees and a small dish of amoretti. She poured some milk into her coffee and took one from the dish. She unwrapped the biscuit, and popped it into her mouth. ‘Oh, they’re amoretti morbidi.’

  ‘How can a biscuit be morbid?’

  ‘Morbido means soft. I prefer them hard, though.’

  Ohmigod, did she really say that!

  A wave of heat spread over her chest and up to her neck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. She must have gone scarlet. What must she look like? Her frantic gaze fell on her glass of ice-cold water. Salvation! She hastily wrapped her hands hard around the cold glass, then pressed them against her flushed cheeks.

  Her hands still against her face, she glanced up and met Tom’s eyes. He was grinning broadly.

  ‘I, too, feel somewhat warm,’ he said. Still smiling, he looked around the restaurant. ‘In fact, it’s the perfect afternoon for doing nothing. That was a good idea to leave Montefalco till this evening.’

  She felt the red fading and sat heavily back in her chair in relief.

  ‘Doing nothing sounds pretty OK to me, too. Doing nothing the Mediterranean way would be to sit on the loggia and stare ahead. We could fold up our towels, sit on them, lean back against the wall and let the mountain breeze waft over us. We might even drop off for a bit. Or maybe we could sit on the edge of the pool, like you suggested. Then later on, when we felt more energetic, we could finish the room plans and do the Montefalco thing. What do you think?’

  ‘I think it sounds a really good idea.’

  ‘Which bit of it sounds a really good idea?’

  ‘The bit you didn’t mention.’

  ‘I’m getting us some water to drink,’ Tom called from inside the kitchen. ‘And I’ll bring out one of the bottles of wine we picked up.’

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ Evie asked, turning round as she heard Tom coming out of the kitchen. He was walking towards her, a thick piece of cardboard with two plastic glasses on it in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other. ‘You look pretty laden.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. Well, perhaps you’d better take the wine – I wouldn’t want to drop it.’

  She jumped up and took the bottle from him. He carefully set the makeshift cardboard tray down in the space between the two towels that she’d spread out on the grass, and sat down on one of the towels. She sat down on the other, picked up one of the plastic glasses of water and stared thoughtfully down the slope at the pool.

  Their conversation at the restaurant had sounded as if it might lead to great things, whatever those great things proved to be, but the drive back to the house had broken the mood, and they were back to their normal friendly relationship. She couldn’t see how to get the frisson back that they’d had at the end of their lunch, but she’d have to come up with something, and before long.

  She’d only got one and a half days left in which to find out about him and Zizi, and much of that time was going to be spent with two other people. This was the last afternoon that she’d be alone with him in Italy, and somehow or other, she was going to have to get him talking.

  If only she’d never got into such a shitty situation.

  If only she’d been offered a job on an ordinary magazine, no matter how lowly the job. If only she’d thought for a moment about what she’d have to do if she worked for Pure Dirt. If only she’d never put herself in the position of finding herself in the hot sun, sitting next to a really attractive, fun guy, unable to think of anything else but how to worm out of him something he’d rather not tell her, and that she’d rather not hear.

  She was caught in an unholy mess.

  She absolutely didn’t want to do the job that she’d been sent to do in Italy, but she was going to have to do it. Her editor was the sort of man who carried out the threats he made, and he’d see her blacklisted from every magazine if she jacked in the job at that stage.

  No way could she let that happen.

  She had a stark choice – kissing goodbye to the dream she’d had since she was ten years old or getting Tom to talk. The Tom option was the only possible choice for her, and she had to take it, no matter how much she didn’t want to. Everyone had to follow their dream, and that was that.

  ‘A penny for them, or a euro, if you prefer. You look miles away.’

  ‘I was just thinking how tempting the water looks.’ She gave an audible sigh. ‘I wished I was putting me into the water, instead of putting water into me. It’s
such a shame that we can’t go in the pool.’

  ‘Which reminds me, I need to ask Eduardo about the man who’s going to be looking after the pool and garden. I know he’s found someone – he said so the last time I was here – and the original plan was for me to meet him this week, but he hasn’t said anything about it since we got here so I probably need to remind him. I’ll certainly want to be able to swim when I come back in August.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. If it’s this hot now, it’ll be really hot then. And as you said, your parents will be here, too.’

  ‘That’s the plan. If the case finishes when it’s scheduled to finish, I’ll have a couple of weeks here before they join me. But these things are always unpredictable, so it’s not worth counting any chickens yet. While we’re on the subject, though, it might be an idea if you rang Eduardo now – perhaps he can set up a meeting for this evening, or for early tomorrow evening when we’re back from Perugia. Here, take my phone.’

  ‘With luck, he can sort it out for tomorrow,’ she said, taking the phone from him. ‘Then there won’t be any need for him to come up to the house today.’

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to see Eduardo this afternoon? You and he seemed as thick as thieves last night. Or have I missed something?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘I see. No, actually I don’t see. Not that this entirely surprises me, having spent some time with you this week.’ He leaned back on his elbows and stared at her in amusement. ‘I’m sure that your answer makes perfectly good sense, but as I can’t precisely see how it does, pray do enlighten me.’

  She tucked her legs underneath her and turned slightly towards him. ‘It’s quite simple really. Of course I like him – he’s drop-dead gorgeous, easy to talk to and very romantic.’

  ‘I take it that’s the “yes” bit, then. So where does the “no” bit come in?’

  ‘The “no” bit is that I don’t want to leap on top of him, tear off his clothes and have my evil way with him,’ she giggled.

  ‘I wasn’t really asking you that.’