Josie Metcalfe - The Italian Effect

The two of them were so similar that she would have known that they were father and son without being told. They both had the same dark brown eyes fringed by impossibly long lashes and the same dark hair prone to unruly curls.

Their skin was the same dark golden colour, and Taddeo would probably one day sport the same dark shadow of an emerging beard that she could see on his father’s jaw.

Even the shape of the jaw was similar, lean and slightly angular for all that the child was so much younger, and they both possessed the same knack of smiling with their eyes as well as their mouths.

Her eyes were travelling from one to the other, silently comparing and contrasting while she watched the interaction between father and son. Finally, one set of dark lashes drooped for the last time and a gentle kiss was pressed to a tousled head.

The sight of the man’s lean tanned fingers sent a shaft of something close to jealousy through Lissa when she saw how tenderly they cupped the curve of Taddeo’s little cheek, and she was startled by the unexpected feeling.

This isn’t what you want, she reminded herself sharply as she took a step backwards from the loving scene. Don’t let your guard down if you want to protect your heart. Don’t get involved, no matter how enticing the temptation.

‘Have you lived in Italy very long?’ he asked when they were finally on their way.

Lissa gave a silent sigh of relief at the thought that she wasn’t going to have to try to start a conversation. At least he was willing to make the effort.

‘Actually, it’s my first visit,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve been wanting to come for years…all my life, in fact.’

‘So this is why you have learned to speak Italian?’ he demanded, reverting to his own tongue but speaking rather slower than usual to accommodate her. ‘In the hope that one day you would be able to visit?’

Lissa laughed and took his lead, switching to her slightly rusty Italian. ‘Not quite. I learned to speak Italian so that I could talk to my grandmother. When I was small, I thought Nonna couldn’t understand English. It was years before I realised that she didn’t miss a thing in either language!’

He laughed with her. ‘So this is just a brief holiday, to get a taste of Italy?’ he suggested.

She’d given him the name of her hotel before they’d set off, so Lissa could see how he would have come to that conclusion.

‘Partly,’ she agreed, ‘but also to explore this part of the country because it was the area Nonna’s family came from.’

‘So, you’re going to have a very busy week sightseeing. It was lucky for Taddeo that you had a few minutes spare to visit the beach. If you hadn’t been there…’

‘Then someone else would have taken care of him,’ she said, slightly uncomfortable with the open emotion in his voice at the thought of his son’s accident. ‘You know how much Italian people love children. Those people offered to help me get him off the beach and transport him to hospital without hesitation, lending towels, belts and even that surfboard to protect his back.’

‘Even so, I thank you…’ He paused with a frown and concentrated for a second on parking his car in front of the hotel then turned to face her. ‘How can I thank you properly if I can’t even remember the name in your passport?’ He held out his hand. ‘I am Matteo Aldarini, at your service and for ever in your debt.’

‘Melissa Swift,’ Lissa supplied, along with her hand, disappointed but not surprised that her name hadn’t registered in the heat of the moment.

‘Melissa. Sweet as honey,’ he murmured as he wrapped long fingers around hers.

Suddenly she was aware that the two of them were alone in the intimacy of the darkened car and all she could think of was the contact between their palms and his dark eyes looking down into hers.

MATTEO’S hand felt warm and strong, but the strength was carefully tempered…unlike some men Lissa knew who took a delight in grinding her bones together in a show of masculine power.

She’d only met the man a short while ago under the most stressful of conditions but she had a feeling that he would never need to resort to such petty tricks to prove his masculinity.

But it was his eyes that held her captivated, their dark brown depths almost black in the shadowed interior of the car as he gazed at her.

‘Today was a dreadful day after a dreadful night,’ he murmured, his words taking on a distracted air. ‘You might have heard that one of the local hotels has apparently had an outbreak of food poisoning. Some patients were coming to us so sick that they were already dehydrated, but as fast as we found beds for them and put fluids into them, more people arrived.’

He shook his head with a soft groan and dropped it back against the headrest but instead of releasing her hand, he tightened his fingers around hers, almost as if he needed the contact.

‘I was still trying to organise the last group and waiting for the victims of a car crash to arrive,’ he continued with the suspicion of a smile at the corner of his mouth, ‘when a bossy woman in a swimming costume carried my unconscious son into the hospital and started to tell me my job.’

‘I didn’t!’ she objected automatically, not sure that she liked the idea that he thought she was bossy.

The fact that he’d noticed what she’d been wearing was a different matter and his mention of it brought a swift wash of heat to her cheeks.

At least he couldn’t still see her costume. It was well hidden under the oversized white coat he’d found for her. For all that it was summer in Italy, by this time of night she could have been feeling rather chilly, not to say embarrassed, running around in beachwear.

‘Well…thank you for giving me a lift.’ She hurried into speech, suddenly realising that he was probably waiting for her to remember her manners. She tried to pull her hand away but he was apparently as reluctant to release her as she was to be released.

‘I would like to see you again,’ he said in a husky voice, and her heart gave a silly skip. Had he been affected by the same feeling of attraction, unwelcome though it was?

‘Of course, it will depend on the situation at the hospital,’ he continued apologetically. ‘We are really far too small to deal with large outbreaks of anything major. In spite of the holidaymakers, for half of the year this is just a quiet little town, but I would like the chance to thank you for taking care of Taddeo.’

She was still lecturing herself for her presumption as she let herself into her room.

‘Of course he was only suggesting taking you out as a thank you for helping his son,’ she scolded as she stripped off the baggy white coat and made her way to the shower. ‘Do you really think a man like that would be hard up for company? He’s hardly the type to be interested in short-term relationships with summer visitors—not like those lads on the beach.’

She’d tried to save face by telling him that thanks weren’t necessary but he’d been adamant. In the end, they’d left it that he would contact her when his work permitted.

Silently, she had decided that she would be ‘too busy’ to take him up on the invitation. He was an attractive and clearly very intelligent man and she would probably have thoroughly enjoyed spending an evening with him. Except…her reaction to the idea that he might be interested in her was ringing warning bells inside her head, reminding her that the last thing she wanted while she was in Italy was to get involved in a relationship…even a very short-term one.

She’d intended staying under the shower until she was utterly waterlogged but a few minutes later she was out and towelling her hair dry, too restless to unwind even under the steaming spray.