Lucy Gordon - Italian Attraction

After washing the bowls thoroughly she put them away and went upstairs to her room to shower and change before dinner. Dumping her jeans and shirt—which still smelt vaguely of horse—in the linen basket in a corner of her bathroom, she stepped under the cool cleansing flow of water in the shower. It was heavenly. Although she had used lashings of sun-lotion and had been careful not to burn, her skin had felt hot and irritated by the end of the day. The velvet-soft water was just what she needed. After standing for some minutes just letting the water take all the aches and pains of a physically tiring day out of her limbs, she washed her hair before wrapping a bath sheet round her and walking through to the bedroom.

She creamed her face and body, noticing the slight golden tint to her skin with some delight, and then dried her hair, letting it fall in soft waves about her shoulders. She had insisted she wanted to eat with Liliana in the kitchen while Jenny was away and now she slipped on a light linen shift dress without bothering with any make-up or jewellery. No need to dress up, she told herself as she yawned at her reflection in the mirror. She was so tired that she doubted she’d last till pudding anyway.

As she walked downstairs she noticed Liliana exiting the formal dining room, however. ‘Liliana?’ She frowned at the housekeeper. ‘I thought I was eating in the kitchen with you?’

‘My fault, I’m afraid.’ As Blaine appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, a glass of wine in his hand, Maisie felt her heart actually jump. ‘I said we’d all sit in the kitchen but Liliana wouldn’t have it, neither will she join us. Stubborn.’ His eyes left Maisie as he smiled at the little housekeeper, and Maisie used the time to compose herself and catch her breath. By the time she joined him in the hall she hoped the hot flood of colour she knew had stained her cheeks bright red had died down somewhat.

‘I didn’t know you were eating here tonight,’ she managed quite casually as she followed him into the sitting room, accepting the glass of red wine he handed her in the next moment with a nod of thanks.

‘Neither did I.’ He smiled and her heart did that funny little hop thing again. ‘I came by mainly to reassure Liliana that my father is definitely holding his own and she insisted I stay for dinner. I think she feels I don’t cook for myself well enough.’

He came by to reassure Liliana. Maisie took a big sip of wine, hoping it would begin to soothe her frazzled nerve-endings by the time she had to sit facing him over the dining table. The two of them. By themselves. ‘And do you?’ she said as the wine warmed the little cold bit in her stomach his words about Liliana had caused. ‘Cook for yourself, I mean?’

‘Of course; I’m Italian.’ He sat down on one of the sofas, one knee over the other and one arm along the back of the seat as he surveyed her with laughing eyes. ‘We’re all wonderful chefs from birth; didn’t you know?’

She tried to enter into the spirit of the thing but it was hard because he looked so darn fanciable. Now she had acknowledged this strange effect he had on her, it seemed to have multiplied alarmingly and she had goose-pimples on her goose-pimples. ‘Do you even do barbecues?’ she asked, smiling back. And then hoped he didn’t think she was poking fun at poor Roberto.

‘Now and again, but I prefer to think of them as meals eaten alfresco rather than your English version of taking a piece of unprepared meat and cooking it until it resembles coal.’

‘Excuse me!’ She couldn’t work out if he was teasing her or not but she wasn’t going to let him get away with that. ‘I know loads of English people who marinate their meat beforehand and produce wonderful results.’

‘This is good.’ He nodded gravely. ‘You are restoring my faith in the nation’s culinary expertise after my experience at Roberto’s.’

‘Ah, but Roberto is Italian,’ Maisie pointed out triumphantly. ‘So, if you’re basing your judgement of our barbecues on him, that’s flawed reasoning. It should be me that’s saying I have my doubts about Italian barbecues, surely? Not that I think Jackie’s father is a bad cook, far from it,’ she added hastily. ‘He’s great, as it happens.’

‘But not at the English barbecue.’ His face was unsmiling but the greeny-blue eyes were wicked.

‘Not at any barbecue,’ she corrected severely, trying to ignore how sexy he looked and how the fluttering action in the pit of her stomach was gathering steam.

‘Right. Point taken.’

‘Anyway, how is your father, exactly?’ said Maisie. ‘You mentioned it was a bigger operation than expected.’

Blaine nodded. ‘He was lucky they brought the operation forward,’ he said quietly. ‘Too many years of rich eating and no exercise had clogged up his veins, arteries, valves.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d been telling him for years to get checked out. Hell, he has enough money to get the best medical care for the rest of his life and not worry about it. To cut a long story short, the blood circulation to and from the heart had clogged up to the point where it had almost stopped. He could have had a major heart attack at any moment. But perhaps this was meant to reunite my father and Roberto? Who knows? Certainly, hearing them talk before the operation, I realised for the first time my father was as much to blame for the quarrel as Roberto. More so, probably.’

Maisie nodded, relieved he had come to that conclusion.

‘And you? Can you manage the animals without assistance?’

‘There’s not really anything to manage. To be honest, I feel an absolute fraud that I’m being paid for this. I would much prefer we forget about that. Your mother has paid for my tickets and everything’s settled in England; this is like a holiday to me.’

He frowned. ‘We had an arrangement, did we not?’

‘But that was before I came here, before I met your mother and everything. I don’t want any more money.’

The beautiful eyes had narrowed on her face and Maisie was finding it extremely uncomfortable. If she had known he was going to be here she would have made a little effort—put on some mascara at least. It didn’t help that he was as immaculately turned out as usual and looked good enough to eat. He was wearing a thin pale coffee-coloured shirt today and she could see a dark shadow over his chest denoting black body hair. It did something peculiar to her own body she could well have done without with that piercing gaze fixed on her.

‘You are a very unusual young woman. I thought this when we first met, but on further acquaintance I find you more so.’

His voice had been soft but Maisie stared at him warily. Unusual as in nice, or unusual as in weird? she wanted to ask. She didn’t, though—he might give the wrong answer.

‘And you do not realise this, do you? You do not understand your own worth. This, of course, is part of your charm but also your undoing, I feel.’

Maisie’s train of thought had become so tangled she didn’t know what to say. She stared at him dumbly as he stood up and came to kneel in front of her, his eyes on a level with her wide brown ones.

‘It is this quality in you that draws weak characters like this Jeff person to your strength. Do you know what I mean?’

Maisie shook her head. At this moment she wasn’t even sure who Jeff was, not with Blaine so close she could smell that delicious aftershave again, and, very faintly, hospitals.

Blaine smiled, a sexy quirk of his slightly uneven mouth. It was a fabulous mouth, Maisie thought feverishly. Magnificent. It was coming closer …

She gave herself up to the utterly mindless thrill of his kiss. His mouth was firm and warm and he kissed her slowly and deeply, taking his time. It was the sort of kiss she had dreamed about when she was a spotty schoolgirl, before she had grown up and realised you couldn’t believe everything you read in lurid novels under the bedclothes by the light of a torch.