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Eve had never been to Rome before, and a city was never more beautiful than when you saw it through the eyes of someone who actually lived there. Luca on his home territory.
His penthouse apartment was on the Viale Trinita dei Monti, close to the Spanish Steps and it was to-die-for. Minimalist and modern—all stainless steel and frosted glass. The floors were mahogany and there was Carrara marble in the bathrooms. The rooms were almost all white, but the lights could be adjusted to create different colours and moods and the floor-to-ceiling windows showed the most amazing views over the city.
Outside was a terrace with tall terracotta pots with lemon trees growing and smaller ones with rosemary, sage and lavender plants—so that the warm air was scented with their fragrance.
It was, thought Eve as she stood and looked at Rome, the apartment of a man with no ties, nor room for any.
He showed her colonnades and palaces and churches until she was dizzy with the splendour of it all and so he drove her out of the city to the picturesque town of Tivoli, perched on a steep slope amid pretty woods and streams.
‘This is just so beautiful,’ she murmured as she gazed across at the twisted silvery olive trees of the Sabine Hills.
He touched her hair. ‘So are you,’ he said softly, and took her back to his apartment, where he spent the rest of the afternoon making long, slow love to her.
That evening, in a restaurant off one of the narrow, cobbled streets of Trastevere, they ate the simple, delicious tonnarelli cacio e pepe by candlelight, and drank wine as rich as garnets.
They lingered over coffee and Eve felt utterly relaxed. ‘Tell me about your childhood,’ she said lazily. ‘Where were you born?’
‘I am a Roman,’ he said simply. ‘I was born here.’
‘And you never wanted to live anywhere else?’
He gave her a slightly mystified look and a very Latin shrug of his shoulders. ‘Why should I? Everything I want is here.’
It gave her an insight into his fierce love for his country, his city.
‘And your family? Where are they?’
‘My sister lives in Rome also. My parents are both dead.’
Eve dropped a lump of sugar into her espresso. ‘Mine are, too,’ she said, though she noticed he hadn’t asked.
‘Then we have much in common,’ he murmured, and his eyes glittered a sensual message all of their own. ‘Apart from the very obvious.’
It was a blatant, sexual boast and she supposed it should have pleased her, but oddly enough it made her feel insecure. Because surely sexual attraction was a very ephemeral thing?
‘Come, Eve.’ He signed the bill which the waiter had placed in front of him, and looked at her. ‘I think it is time to go home now, don’t you?’
But once they were back in the apartment, Luca rubbed a finger at the tiny crease between her brows. ‘Frowning, always frowning—ever since we left the restaurant! You know what happens when you frown?’ he teased. ‘Lines appear and there they stay, and no woman likes lines on her face.’
For some reason, the remark rankled. ‘And when lines do appear, then we magic them away with surgery, isn’t that right?’ she questioned acidly. ‘For while lines on a man’s face denote experience—on a woman’s they damn her with age!’
‘Cara, cara—that is your judgment, not mine. You work in an industry which is defined by age.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘And I am certainly not advocating the use of surgery!’
She thought that he wouldn’t have to. She turned to look out over the glittering lights of the city. Men like Luca prized beauty, and wasn’t youth synonymous with beauty? He would always have his pick of young, firm and unlined flesh.
‘Eve?’
His voice was deep and low and beguiling and she closed her eyes as he began to rub his fingertips over her shoulders, pulling her back into the hard, lean contours of his body. Why spoil this? she thought as his hands moved round to cup her breasts? ‘Mmm?’
‘You are angry now? Fiery?’
She laughed and turned to him, smoothing her hand down over the chiselled outline of his jaw. ‘Not angry, no, but fiery, yes.’ Her eyes glittered him a teasing provocation. ‘Always fiery.’
‘Then come here and show me,’ he breathed as he saw her mouth curve in a look of hunger. ‘Show me.’
‘Oh, I’ll show you all right,’ she said unsteadily as she began to unbutton his shirt.
That night she played the dominant role, undressing him and teasing him until he groaned for mercy. She kept her stockings on and straddled him as her hair flailed about her shoulders and she thought that she had never felt quite so uninhibited with a man.
