‘You enjoyed your time there?’
Still he held one corner of the notebook and she looked up to see his gaze fixed on her. It wasn’t just his sculpted features that made him attractive. It was the arresting combination of golden olive skin, dark as night hair and eyes like bright pewter.
Was he an actor? He was certainly used to women staring. First the little boy’s mother, now her. Hurriedly Stella retreated a step and the notebook fell to the floor.
‘Clumsy of me. Sorry.’ He scooped it up and handed it to her with an apologetic smile.
‘No, no, not at all. It was my fault. Thank you.’
She closed her eyes. Was she babbling? She never babbled!
‘So perhaps not a good stay at the Nautilus?’
Her eyes snapped open and she read something in his, something more than idle curiosity, that made her survey him more closely.
If she didn’t know better she’d think he was pumping her for information, as so many had tried to before, thinking Alfredo Barbieri’s daughter had more hair than wit. As if she’d spill her father’s plans for the asking.
But then any public praise she received from her father was more likely to be about the way she looked rather than her business acumen. No wonder people often thought her a cosseted trust-fund baby, living off her family’s wealth.
As if! The irony never failed to amaze her.
She dropped her gaze to the notebook in the man’s open palm. Her fingers tingled at the idea of touching him again, but she steeled herself as her fingertips scraped his warm flesh. That little ripple of awareness was back but she pretended not to notice.
Stella shoved the notebook into her bag. ‘Actually, it’s a lovely hotel in a spectacular position. I can particularly recommend the seafood restaurant.’
‘That sounds like an advertisement. You don’t have shares in the place, do you?’
Her head shot up. No, she didn’t have shares. By rights she should havesomestake in the family company, but her father had been slow awarding her any of the inheritance he’d shared with her half-brothers.
And now he demanded she marry—marry!—before he’d consider even letting her run a hotel.
The stranger put up his hands as if in surrender. ‘It was a joke.’
His expression was easy, unshuttered. She’d grown used to second-guessing her father’s thoughts, trying to glean his intentions when he kept so much to himself. Except when he was in a rage. Even her half-brothers and their wives were adept at hiding their real opinions behind expressions of polite interest or amusement.
Was that why she found it so hard to take this stranger’s smile at face value? Was that niggle of warning because she’d conditioned herself not to expect honesty?
How tired she was of that! How wonderful it would be to trust and take people at face value.
‘Sorry. I’m a bit distracted.’
‘Nothing bad, I hope.’
She shook her head, amazed at the sudden urge to unburden herself to a stranger. Probably because she had no other confidant she could trust.
‘Nevertheless, I think a remedy is in order.’
‘Remedy?’ She felt slow-witted this morning with so much playing on her mind.
‘Absolutely.’ His expression was grave but his eyes laughed and she felt the urge to get closer and bask in that glow. ‘You’re probably in shock after that collision. Fortunately I know the best treatment.’ That serious expression disappeared, replaced by a grin she felt all the way to her bones. ‘Sunshine and a gelato. There’s nothing like it. And Rome’s best gelateria is across the square. What do you say? Can you spare ten minutes?’
Ten minutes for sunshine and a gelato? And the warmth of this man’s company?
He was charming but not sleazy. If anything he stood a little further away from her than necessary, as if not wanting to crowd her.
Stella wasn’t in the habit of trusting strange men. She’d had too many encounters with people drawn to her because of her family, interested in her connections or her supposed wealth rather than in her personally.
But hadn’t she come to Rome for a break from that world?
