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Harriet slipped the paper into her bag and gave a feeble smile. ‘I feel a bit better already, just knowing that this isn’t all my fault.’
‘None of it is your fault.’ Gio rose to his feet and walked her to the door. ‘Go to the meeting and let me know how you get on.’
Alice parked her newly fixed car outside her house and stared at the low black sports car that meant that Gio was already back from his house calls.
Bother. She’d been hoping that he’d work late.
It had been almost a week since the episode on the beach. A week during which she’d virtually lived in the surgery in order to put some distance between her and Gio. A week during which she’d drunk endless cups of black coffee and eaten nothing but sandwiches at her desk. A week during which she’d been cranky and thoroughly unsettled. It was as if her neat, tidy life had been thrown into the air and had landed in a different pattern. And she didn’t know how to put it back together.
What she did know was that it was Gio’s fault for kissing her.
And Mary’s fault for arranging for him to lodge with her.
Pushing open the front door, she was stopped by the smell.
‘Well, well. The wanderer returns. I was beginning to think you’d taken root in the surgery.’ Gio emerged from the kitchen and her heart stumbled and jerked. A pair of old, faded jeans hugged his hard thighs and his black shirt was open at the neck. ‘If you hadn’t returned home at a decent hour, I was coming to find you.’
Even dressed so casually he looked handsome and—she searched for the word—exotic?
‘I had work to do. And now I’m tired.’ She had to escape. Had to get her mind back together. ‘I’m going straight up to bed, if you don’t mind.’
‘Alice.’ His tone was gentle and there was humour in his eyes. ‘It’s not even eight o’clock, tesoro. If you are going to try and avoid me, you’re going to have to think of a better excuse than that. You’ve kept your distance for a week. It’s long enough, I think.’
Something in his tone stung. He made her feel like a coward. ‘Why would I try and avoid you?’
‘Because I make you uncomfortable. I make you talk when you’d rather be silent and I make you feel when you’d rather stay numb.’
‘I don’t—’
‘And because I kissed you and made you want something that you’ve made a point of denying yourself for years.’
‘I don’t—’
‘At least eat with me.’ He held out a hand. ‘And if after that you want to go to bed, I’ll let you go.’
She kept her hands by her sides. ‘You’ve cooked?’
‘I like cooking. I’ve made a Sicilian speciality. It’s too much for one person and, anyway, I need your opinion.’ His hand remained outstretched and there was challenge in his dark eyes.
Muttering under her breath about bullying Italian men, she took his hand and felt his strong fingers close firmly over hers.
Instead of leading her into the kitchen, he took her into the dining room. The dining room at the back of the house that she never used. The dining room that was now transformed.
All the clutter was gone and tiny candles flickered on every available surface. The smells of a warm summer evening drifted in through the open French doors.
The atmosphere was intimate. Romantic.
Something flickered inside her. Panic? She turned to him with a shake of her head. ‘No, Gio. This isn’t what I do, I—’
He covered her lips with his fingers. ‘Relax, tesoro. It’s just dinner. Food is always more enjoyable when the atmosphere is good, and the atmosphere in this room is perfect. Go and take a shower and change. Dinner is in fifteen minutes.’
She stared after him as he strolled back to the kitchen. The guy just couldn’t help himself. He’d obviously decided that she needed rescuing from her past and he thought he was the one to do it. The one to show her that romance existed.
She stared at the candles and rolled her eyes. Well, if he thought that a few lumps of burning wax were going to make her fall in love, he was doomed to disappointment.
Telling herself that she was only doing it because she was hot and uncomfortable, she showered and changed into a simple white strap top and a green silk skirt that hugged her hips softly and then fell to mid-thigh.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she contemplated make-up and decided against it. She didn’t want to look as though she was making an effort. She didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.
