‘In the absence of my mobile phone, I’ll have to use your landline to make contact with...my father.’
Cordelia blinked. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t find any contact numbers in your wallet,’ she said in a rush. ‘It must feel like an invasion of your privacy, but, like I said, I only wanted to find out who you were and who I might be able to contact to let them know about the boating accident. Your dad must be worried sick.’
‘That’s not entirely how my life works.’
They stared at one another for a few long, silent seconds.
She was quite stunning, Luca thought absently, and what was almost impossible to credit was the fact that she seemed so unaware of her attributes. She was tall and athletic, her body, from what he could see, sinewy and strong. It should have put him off because he had always been drawn to slight, ultra-feminine women, but it didn’t. Her legs, encased in faded jeans, were long and he could detect the fullness of her rounded breasts beneath the drab jumper. Never had he seen any woman so successfully conceal every single womanly trait she might possess. Was that deliberate, he wondered, or did the fashion police patrol the streets of the village, clamping down on anything that wasn’t functional?
His eyes drifted up to her oval-shaped face. Her lips were full, her nose short and straight and her eyes a shade of violet he had never seen before. But her hair...
Luca thought of the highly groomed, sophisticated women who flitted in and out of his life. The woman in front of him couldn’t have been more different and her hair said it all. She had yanked it back into a ponytail that couldn’t seem to quite make its mind up as to which way it should fall, but, even so, the colours were so vibrant that he couldn’t drag his eyes away. Every shade of blonde was there, from platinum blonde to the rich hues of pale honey and deeper toffee. A life spent outdoors, he assumed, doing whatever it was she did out there on the high seas. Fishing and rescuing idiots who went out in boats without first having a look at the weather forecast.
He closed down wayward thoughts that suddenly shot into his head at speed. Thoughts about how she would look underneath the workman-like clothes, what that body would feel like under his exploring hands.
Such options, for a multitude of reasons, were firmly off the table.
‘I will, naturally, pay you for the cost of the phone call.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Cordelia asked, bewildered. Did he think that they intended to charge him for his stay at the house? That they wanted money from him? That he had to pay his way the second he gained full consciousness, right down to the cost of a phone call? She bristled. ‘We’re not the sort of people who would think of charging you for using the telephone,’ she said coolly. ‘I may have rescued you but I didn’t bring you here so that we could start charging you for your stay.’
‘The phone call will be to Italy,’ Luca said drily.
‘Italy?’ He was Italian. She should have worked that out for herself going by his name alone, but she hadn’t because this wasn’t the sort of Cornish village that was invaded by tourists during the height of the summer season. Outsiders were few and far between and yet here was this striking Italian, lying on a bed in her father’s house. She felt a buzz of excitement as her imagination took flight. Italy! Just the taste of it on her tongue felt good.
‘It’s where I live.’ He watched her carefully from under his lashes. He watched to see whether she would make any connections. In Italy, his name would be quickly recognised. Even here, in this country, many people would have heard of the Baresi name, if only because of its association with the wine. The House of Baresi was legendary, as was the formidable wealth of its aristocratic family. Luca Baresi had lived his life in the spotlight of his noble ancestry. His social circle was huge but around it was a protective circle, a dividing line that mere mortals were seldom allowed to cross. It wasn’t of his devising. It was the way it was, and if there were moments when he longed to walk out of that circle and never look back, then he was accustomed to quickly closing them down because he knew where his duties lay.
His friends, the members of his extended family—they were all, to varying degrees, as privileged as he was. To the best of his knowledge, the only commoner to have ever broken through those rigid walls had been his mother and that tale had hardly had a happy ending.
This was an avenue of thought he was, likewise, accustomed to shutting down whenever it happened to make an uninvited appearance and he did so now, with ruthless efficiency.
‘Tuscany,’ he offered. ‘Have you been there?’
‘I don’t often leave Cornwall,’ Cordelia admitted and she grimaced at his expression of incredulity.
She met so few people, she realised. Life was so predictable for her and yet she was still young. Twenty-four years old! She should be enjoying all sorts of new and life-changing experiences. Everyone in the village knew her back story but now, the urge to confide in someone new, someone from a faraway and exotic place that she would probably never visit, at least not in the near future, was overpowering.
‘Why is that?’
He paused to look at her and she stared back at him in silence because suddenly everything, the bits and pieces and nuts and bolts of her life, seemed so overwhelming. She thought about all the things that had happened to her. All the things locking her into this one place. Keeping her there as securely as if she had been trapped in a cage. How on earth could she unpick all those pieces of her past and put them into a few casual sentences? It was crazy anyway. Forget about silly urges! She barely knew the guy. She wouldn’t know where to begin when it came to answering that simple question he had asked.
He stretched and, in one swift movement, flung aside the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘I need to move around,’ he threw over his shoulder, as he headed to the wardrobe and the only place his clothes could be. ‘And change back into my own clothes.’
Cordelia nodded mutely, riveted to him. To start with he had more or less hobbled, hanging onto her father’s arm to make his way to the bathroom, and even when, after day one, his strength had begun to resurface, he had still moved slowly, hesitantly. It was obvious that he was well on the road to rude health because his movements now were assured and graceful and captivating.
She felt that her mouth might be hanging open. Her jaw certainly dropped to the ground when, without warning and with his back still to her, he began stripping off without the slightest hint of inhibition.
She looked away. Her mouth had gone dry and she could feel the hot burn of colour suffusing her face.
‘You can look now.’ There was amusement in his voice a couple of minutes later and she slowly turned round to face him.
Her cheeks were still pink with embarrassment.
Her body language shrieked her discomfort. Luca had seen nothing like it before. Had there ever been a time in his life when he had been with any woman who had seen his semi-naked body and acted as though the ground would be doing her a favour if it opened and swallowed her up? He couldn’t help the spurt of curiosity about her. So beautiful and yet could she possibly be as innocent as she looked?
And what about never leaving this place? How did that begin to make sense?
‘How old are you?’ he asked suddenly.
