‘What if it’s a good kiss? What then?’ he challenged.
‘You think you’re a great kisser? I should tell you I’ve had some amazing kisses in my life.’
Toni had loved someone, only to have them wrenched away. It wasn’t fair. That lucky man should have lived to see the woman she was today.
When she stared out to sea, at the rocky headlands protecting the sandy bay, he knew exactly who she was thinking about and it stole his breath for a moment. ‘What was the best? Your wedding day? The first?’
Her expression dimmed and grew distant.
‘I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer?—’
‘It’s okay,’ she said in a tone that suggested she meant it. ‘People usually ask about the end, rather than the start.’
‘I can’t imagine,’ he mumbled, knowing it was a platitude but hoping it was the right one.
‘Our first kiss wasn’t the best one,’ she answered with a chuckle. ‘I was nineteen and we were drunk. He was my ski instructor – and a little bit more by the time I left Austria.’ She glanced at him.
She didn’t say anything further and he was tempted to ask more questions, but he couldn’t be sure she wanted to talk. ‘Perhaps I’d be able to match that one – in technical skills and sobriety, if not the emotional… impact.’
She laughed and he’d rarely been so relieved to hear it. ‘Shall we go home, Don Juan?’
‘You’re so keen for a kiss?’
The way she rolled her eyes, her shoulders loose, gave him that thrill of satisfaction again. ‘Kiss or not, your bed is calling.’ She stood with a wink.
He didn’t want to analyse what this was – friendship, certainly. An intense, glowing sort of friendship. He wanted to look after her, understand what was behind every nuance of her expressions.
Thank God she was only here for a week.
He didn’t want to kiss her. Toni was fairly certain of it. He’d papered over her embarrassment with some teasing banter that had restored more than her pride, because Gabriele Orzati was kind.
She could almost hear him denying it, as though she’d spoken her thoughts out loud. He was too kind.
He dawdled up the steps behind her, his hands in his pockets. It was still light, the sky an ombré from the palestyellow in the west to powder blue, all the way to metallic cobalt in the east.
It was the same sky that existed in Weymouth; she needed to take more note of it. But the view when her gaze travelled back to earth was quite different. Gabri, his forehead creased to a concertina, his shirt unbuttoned and flapping in the refreshing breeze.
Damn, she still wanted to kiss him.
She turned the handle of the wooden door – unlocked, as always – but he pointedly cleared his throat.
‘I thought we were going to kiss.’
As romance went, it was underwhelming, but those words shot to her toes in an instant. Romance was not for her anyway, but kissing… His resting expression was a little pout that tempted her to smile and brush her thumb over the lower lip.
‘I thought you didn’t want to,’ she replied evenly.
‘That’s not what I said, was it? It’s certainly not what I meant.’
Miro had been gangly, tall even compared to Toni, but Gabri was compact, the same height as her, or maybe an inch taller – nothing more – and broader than Miro had been. Her well-meaning friends and family had always assumed she’d want a tall man like Miro, but the contrast was comforting in this moment, when she was studying his face framed by the setting sun.
He took a step closer, his expression grave, and lifted a hand, the fingers slipping into her hair, thumb on her cheek. ‘Keep talking to me,’ he urged her softly as he came close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin.
‘That might be difficult while we’re kissing,’ she quipped. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? Breathing was the one thing that hadn’t stopped when she’d lost Miro. Why would she struggle now?
A quirk of a smile on his lips, his gaze lifted to her eyes as his other hand joined the first. It was a wonderful touch, just firm enough to know he meant it, but restrained, gentle. It didn’t mean the kiss would be anything more than proving a point, clearing the tension.
There was no reason for everything to feel tight in her throat.
