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Never! Not as long as there were planets edging around the skies! But Giovanni expected playful teasing, she knew that. Just as she knew how much the truth would send him spinning out of her orbit.
‘I’ll tell you when I see you,’ she teased back.
‘I can’t wait.’
And normally, neither could she. Normally she would be counting the hours and then the minutes until he would be back in her arms again.
Only this time she did so for a different reason entirely.
Kate shivered as she heard his peremptory ring on the doorbell, and walked to answer it from the kitchen, where she had been making supper—even though eating was the very last thing she felt like doing.
She opened the door to him, as always unprepared for the glorious shock to her senses which his presence always seemed to invoke. But this time the sensation was all too fleeting. This time…
She bit her lip. ‘Hello, Giovanni,’ she said slowly. ‘Come in.’
He frowned as he dropped his bags on the floor of the hall and shut the front door behind him.
‘No kiss?’ he accused softly.
‘Let’s go into the sitting room,’ she said nervously. ‘It’s warmer in there.’
His eyes were watchful as he followed her. There was something different about her tonight. What was it? She seemed tense. Not herself at all. And pale, he thought—much paler than usual.
‘Come to Giovanni, Kate,’ he instructed softly.
How could she resist him? she wondered helplessly. How could she ever resist him? She went into the circle of his arms, raising her head so that he could kiss her.
Her body melted into his, and he felt the first heavy pulse of desire. ‘That’s better,’ he purred when he eventually lifted his head. ‘You seemed a little tense back there, cara.’ He drifted the palm of his hand around the curve of her chin, a question in his eyes. ‘What’s the matter, Kate? Hmm? Busy week at work?’
Kate hoped that her bright smile did not look like a ghastly grimace. ‘Er, yes. It was pretty hectic.’
‘So now you relax. With me.’
Oh, God—she couldn’t let him make love to her. Not now! Not yet! ‘I’ve been preparing supper,’ she told him wildly.
Supper? His obdurate expression hid his surprise. Usually food was remembered halfway through the evening as something of an afterthought. He surveyed her again, even though he went through the action of sniffing the air, in a parody of a hungry man returning home. ‘I can tell,’ he said indulgently. ‘Smells good.’ And then he frowned. More than smelling good, it smelt familiar. He frowned again. ‘What is it, cara?’
She forced herself to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. After all, hadn’t she spent hours preparing for what was supposed to be the surprise to end all surprises? Until…
‘Can’t you tell?’ she asked him, her heart beating very fast with fear and foreboding.
He strode straight through into the kitchen, where it quickly became clear what she had done—the ingredients gave it away. He saw a pile of pasta and he peered at what lay within the simmering pot. Fresh sardines. And wild fennel. Currants and pine nuts and saffron. A slow smile dissolved his frown.
And very nearly dissolved her, too.
‘Pasta con le sarde,’ he murmured. ‘Sicily’s most typical dish. Oh, Kate, cara mia Kate—do you do this because you know that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?’
Fear gripped her. If only he hadn’t said that! As if she was trying to manipulate some kind of permanence with him. It was just a teasing, throwaway comment, but in view of the bombshell she was shortly to drop…
‘Shall we eat?’ she questioned hoarsely.
He told himself that she was nervous because she had obviously gone to a lot of trouble preparing this dish. He told himself that the timing was important—it could not be left to sit and spoil; its beauty was in its freshness and crispness.
But somewhere deep inside him there remained the disquiet that something was not quite as it should be.
She had laid the table carefully, as if her life depended on it. With napkins and candles and fresh flowers.
‘This looks very welcoming,’ he observed as she struck a match and lit the candles. ‘The perfect supper.’
