As they began the long trek back up the steps, there was no denying that this Luca was very handsome, with his chiselled abs, broad back, and toned strong arms.
She wasn’t blind; she’d noticed this Italian male paragon, too, but right now Colette was their priority.
Annie just laughed. ‘Cut it out,’ she chided, chuckling at her friend’s openly appreciative gaze as they followed along in the hot sunshine behind Luca. ‘You can ogle lovely Luca all you want later. Once we know Colette’s OK and we’ve figured exactly how the hell she knows him.’
Chapter 21
Kim and Annie paced the hallway at the clinic as they waited for news of their friend.
Colette had been struck by a jet-skier on his way out to open water from the beach. This was according to Luca, who’d given them both a lift to the clinic.
‘It is my fault,’ he said, on the journey there. ‘I called out to her from the shore and she strayed into the wrong area on her way back into the beach.’
‘But how do you know her?’ Annie asked. ‘I mean, you said you recognised her – how?’
‘She had lunch at my aunt’s restaurant a while ago – and she is difficult to forget,’ he said, almost to himself, as Kim and Annie exchanged a glance.
As all three waited in the corridor for news of their friend’s prognosis, Kim couldn’t help but wonder how on earth she had ended up in a shabby Italian medical centre with this motley crew of an Irish girl and strange Italian man, worried about an Englishwoman she’d only just met. It was a world apart from her shiny, soulless, former New York life.
And she decided that was no bad thing.
She was jolted out of her thoughts then by the appearance of a guy in a white coat they could only assume was a doctor, and a pale, limping, but smiling Colette by his side.
They all rushed to her at once. ‘Oh my God! Are you OK? Are you hurt?’
‘Please, sit down,’ Luca urged, taking her hand and leading her to a nearby seat, while Colette looked overcome and more than a little embarrassed by all the fuss.
Between them, she and the doctor explained that the jet-ski had managed to swerve away from her just in time, which meant that thankfully her injuries hadn’t been terribly serious: just a slight concussion and a couple of stitches to the head.
‘Are you sure there is no concussion now?’ Luca demanded and Kim was impressed by his insistence that Colette was actually OK before she was signed out.
‘No, she is fine,’ the medic replied curtly, before turning back to Colette. ‘Please, just rest in your accommodation for a few days, and stay out of the hot sun,’ he added, glancing at the English girl’s sunburnt shoulders, which Kim knew Colette had picked up out of complacency about the Med’s UV rays during the early days.
‘I will, thank you.’ Again, she was mortified at being the centre of attention, and gratefully accepted Luca’s offer of a lift for all three of them back to the villa.
Since her return, the Italian had been a regular visitor.
‘Howis he this hot?’ Annie drooled now from a pair of rickety loungers on the pool terrace, as she and Kim watched Luca pass through the courtyard and inside the house, to where the other girl convalesced amid the cool of the rear living room.
‘Dunno, but he sure is burning.’
‘Burning for Colette it seems,’ she replied with some dismay.
Kim chuckled. ‘Clearly there’s a helluva lot more to our girl than meets the eye.’
‘Lucky wagon,’ Annie muttered darkly.
‘But why should it bother you?’ Kim asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you have your very own Romeo in the wings?’ She watched with satisfaction as Annie flushed a bit and a small smile tugged at her lips.
It was apparent that Colette wasn’t the only one being romanced at the moment.
‘Mind your own business.’
‘I am. Believe me,’ Kim said, lifting up her book again.
Annie rolled her eyes. ‘You and that bloody book – you’re always stuck in it. Must be a good one, though in fairness you seem to have been reading it forever.’
‘Maybe I just read slowly,’ Kim countered.
