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‘Just the one that matters.’
‘Which one’s that?’ She reached forward, running her finger up the buttons on his shirt until she got to the top one.
‘The one that has a box on the bed. Gift-wrapped.’
‘Gift-wrapped?’
‘Yeah.’ His hands slid to her hips, pulling her against him. ‘I like a bit of gift-wrapping.’
The nightdress lay spilled on the carpet where he’d tossed it in a heap of lace and silk. Jess had never had anything so luxurious and had loved the way it had felt on her body. Loved even more the way it had felt when he’d slowly peeled it off. Since they’d found out about the pregnancy, their lovemaking had changed. It had become more tender and sensual. As if all the things that they couldn’t say might be encapsulated in a caress. Jess sighed. There were quite a lot of things that they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say at the moment.
He was still asleep, and when she shook him he growled and rolled over. Fair enough. How he managed to function on the amount of sleep he’d had in the last few weeks was a mystery to Jess anyway. She poked him in the ribs and he protested groggily.
‘I’m getting up. Just going to have a look around. I won’t go far. Be back in an hour.’
‘Uh. Okay.’
‘You stay here.’ He didn’t answer and Jess supposed he’d gone back to sleep. Just in case, she wrote him a note and propped it up on the nightstand.
The house wasn’t the largest in the small square but it was the prettiest. Not ostentatious but oozing quiet class. Jess put the key that Gr
eg had left in the hallway into her pocket, and looped the strap of her handbag across her body.
It was cool, but not as cold as London, and Jess left her gloves in her coat pocket. She looked around to get her bearings and fix the position of the house in her mind before she started out. Five minutes took her out of the quiet, sleepy streets and onto the main road.
Suddenly she knew she wasn’t in London. The sound of Italian, spoken in the street. Different smells, different sounds. A teeming city, so like her own and yet so different.
‘Breakfast.’ Jess grinned to herself. ‘I’ll go for breakfast.’
She found a café. It was too cold to sit on the pavement but there was a seat by the window, where she could watch the world go by. The waiter’s English and her Italian were more than enough to get her what she wanted from the menu.
She’d been to Italy before, when she’d been a student. Had slept on the train, her head on her rucksack, and shared a small cottage with three friends, far enough from anywhere to be affordable. This might just as well be another country, it was so different.
‘Ciao, bella.’ A man sat down opposite her at her table and Jess looked around. There were plenty of free tables.
All the same, he seemed intent on conversation. Jess couldn’t understand much of what he was saying but his general drift was pretty obvious. She wondered whether a polite but firm rebuff would be better delivered in her shaky Italian or in English.
‘Scusi… ’ A young, fair-haired man, dressed in a dark jacket and jeans, was towering over them both. ‘The lady’s with me.’ He smiled amiably at the man opposite Jess, who gave a shrug and left.
‘Who are you?’ Now this second man had sat down at her table. At least he spoke English, so it was going to be more straightforward to send him packing.
He’d already reached into his jacket and pulled out a wallet, opening it to display an ID. The photo was unmistakeably of him and the card bore the logo of Shaw Industries. ‘Joe Callaghan, ma’am. Security.’
Jess scanned the card and raised her eyebrows. ‘Senior Security Officer, no less.’ She leaned across the table towards him and whispered, ‘So Shaw Industries is interested in the security of this café? What is it? A drop point for industrial secrets?’
‘Nothing so exciting. Our only interest in this place is that currently you happen to be sitting in it.’ Joe seemed quite unflappable. So far, anyway.
‘So if I go somewhere else… ’ There really wasn’t any point in asking, she knew the answer to that one. ‘Have you been following me all the way from London?’
‘No, I work for the Italian branch of Shaw Industries. My wife worked for the British Embassy over here and when we started a family we decided to stay.’
Nice touch. ‘Which might lead me to believe that you’re a trustworthy kind of fellow?’
Joe laughed. ‘It appears that Mr Shaw thought so.’
‘Dr Shaw? Or his father?’
‘The younger Mr Shaw. He doesn’t use his title in the company.’
