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Alice frowned. ‘Well, she was upset.’
‘Yes.’ Gio’s voice was soft. ‘She was. And you coped well with it. Emotions, Alice. Emotions.’
‘What exactly are you implying?’
‘That you’re getting used to touching and being touched.’ He strolled to the door. ‘All I have to do now is persuade you to admit that you love me. Tomorrow I’m taking you out to dinner. Prepare yourself.’
‘That’s nice.’ Her breath caught at the look in his eyes. She didn’t love him. She had absolutely nothing to worry about because she didn’t love him. ‘Where are we going?’
‘My favourite place to eat in the whole world.’
‘Oh.’ She felt a flicker of surprise. Knowing Gio’s tastes for the spectacular, she was surprised that there was anywhere locally that would satisfy him. Perhaps he’d discovered somewhere new. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
It took a considerable amount of planning and a certain amount of deviousness on his part, but finally he had it all arranged.
He was gambling everything on a hunch.
The hunch that she loved him but wasn’t even aware of it herself.
She’d lived her whole life convinced that love didn’t exist, so persuading her to change her mind at this stage wouldn’t be easy.
Words alone had failed and so had sexual intimacy, so for days he’d racked his brains for another way of proving to her that love existed. That she could let herself feel what he already knew that she felt.
And finally he’d come up with a plan.
A plan that had involved a considerable number of other people.
And now all he could do was wait. Wait and hope.
Alice had just finished morning surgery the following day when Gio strolled into the room.
‘Fancy a quick lunch?’ His tone was casual and she gave a nod, surprised by how eager she was to leave work and spend time with him.
‘Why not?’ It was just because she enjoyed his company and was making the most of it while he was here. What was wrong with that?
She followed him out of the surgery, expecting him to turn and walk up the street to the coffee-shop. Instead, he turned left, round the back of the building and towards the surgery car park.
‘You’re taking the car?’ She frowned. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Wait and see.’ He held the door of his car open and she slipped into the passenger seat, a question in her eyes.
‘We can’t go far. We have to be back for two o’clock.’
He covered his eyes with a pair of sunglasses and gave her a smile. ‘Stop thinking about work for five minutes.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she hardly thought about work at all these days, but something stopped her. If she made a comment like that, he’d read something into it that wasn’t there.
Wondering where he could possibly be taking her and thinking that he was acting very strangely, Alice sat back in her seat and pondered some of the problems that she’d seen that morning. And found she couldn’t concentrate on any of them.
It was Gio’s fault, she thought crossly. Going out for lunch with him was too distracting. She should have said no.
The wind played with her hair and she caught it and swept it out of her eyes. And noticed where they were.
‘This is the airport.’ She glanced behind her to check that she wasn’t mistaken. ‘Gio, this is the road to the airport. Why are we going to the airport?’
He kept driving, his hands steady on the wheel. ‘Because I want to.’
‘You want to eat plastic sandwiches in an airport?’
