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It gave him the opportunity to imprison her in a mocking look of question. ‘Barrister?’
In spite of herself, Eve was flattered. Barrister implied intelligence and eloquence, didn’t it? But she hated talking about her job. People were far too interested in it and sometimes she felt that they didn’t see her as a person, but what she represented. And television was sexy. Disproportionately prized in a society where the media ruled. Inevitably, it had made her distrust men and their motives, wondering whether their attentions were due to what she did, rather than who she was.
But she wasn’t going to play coy, or coquettish, or let Luca Cardelli run through a whole range of options.
‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘I work in television.’
‘Eve’s a presenter on Wake Up!, every weekday morning from six until nine!’ confided Lizzy proudly. ‘I’ve got her on video—would you like to see?’
‘Oh, Lizzy, please,’ begged Eve. ‘Don’t.’
Luca heard the genuine appeal in her voice and his eyes narrowed. So that would explain why people were watching her at the party last night. Would that explain some of her defences, too? The guarded way she looked at him and the prickly attitude? He shook his head. ‘It will be boring for Eve. I’ll pass.’
Eve should have been relieved. She hated watching herself, and especially when there was an audience of friends; it made her feel somehow different, when she wanted to be just like everyone else. But, perversely, the fact that Luca wasn’t interested in watching her niggled her. How contrary was that?
‘Well, thank heavens for small mercies.’ She sighed, and the sound of the front door slamming and the bouncing footsteps of Kesi were like a blessed reprieve. She put her glass down and turned as a small bundle of energy and a mop of blonde curls shot into the room, straight for Eve, and she scooped the little girl up in her arms and hugged her.
‘Arnie Eve!’ squealed the little girl.
‘Hello, darling. How’s my best girl?’
‘I hurted my knee.’
‘Did you?’ Eve sat down on the sofa with Kesi on her lap. ‘Show me where.’
‘Here.’ Kesi pointed at a microscopic spot on her leg as Michael walked into the room, beaming widely.
‘Champagne?’ he murmured. ‘Jolly good. You must come more often, Luca—if Lizzy has taken to opening bubbly at lunch-time!’
‘It was only because it was left over from last night!’ protested his wife.
‘How very flattering,’ murmured Luca, and they all laughed.
‘I’m starving,’ said Michael. ‘Some of us have been chasing after toddlers in the sea air and working up an appetite!’
‘Well, Eve’s been up since half-past three,’ commented Lizzy.
Luca raised his eyes. ‘When you said early, I didn’t realise you meant that early. Still night-time, in fact.’ He looked at her, where only her grey-green eyes were visible over the platinum mop-top of the child. ‘Must be restricting, working those kind of hours,’ he observed. ‘Socially, I mean.’
‘Oh, Eve’s a career woman,’ said Michael. ‘She wouldn’t worry about a little thing like that!’
Eve twisted one of Kesi’s curls around her finger. ‘Am I allowed to speak for myself? I hate the term “career woman”—it implies ambition to the exclusion of everything else. As far as I’m concerned—I just do a job which means I have to work antisocial hours.’
‘Like a nurse?’ interjected Luca, his dark eyes sparking mischief.
‘Mmm.’ She sparked the mischief right back. ‘Or a dairy farmer.’
Their gazes locked and held in what was essentially a private joke, and Eve felt suddenly unsafe. Shared jokes felt close, too close, but that was just another illusion—and a dangerously seductive one, too.
Lizzy blinked. ‘Come and wash your hands before lunch, poppet,’ she said to Kesi.
Kesi immediately snuggled closer to Eve.
‘Want to stay with Arnie Eve!’
It gave Eve the out she both wanted and needed—anything to give her a momentary reprieve from the effect that Luca was managing to have on her, simply by being in the same room.
‘Shall I come, too?’ she suggested. ‘And we can wash your hurt knee and put a plaster on it—how does that sound?’
