‘I think… perhaps we should get something to eat and discuss this.’
She whirled to face him. ‘“This”? You mean the fact that I thought you were a woman and you thought I was a man? And now I’m supposed to stay—’ She couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘You don’t have to do anything.’
‘Why are you called Gabri anyway? What man is called Gabrielle?’
With a muffled sigh, he tugged his wallet out of his back pocket and produced a business card: Gabriele Orzati, the owner of Fioraio Orzati on the island of Elba. Toni could only kick herself for her own stupidity. She had heard once or twice that names like Michele and Andrea – and Gabriele, withonel – were masculine in Italy, but she’d never connected that abstract information with her friend. She’d just assumed.
‘No one ever calls me Antonia, but I spell Toni with an “i”,’ she continued, losing steam.
‘Yes, I realise what that means in Englishnow,’ he responded gruffly, stuffing his wallet back into his pocket, leaving the business card in her limp hand. ‘You didn’t mention you had achild.’
Something in his tone made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. ‘What difference does it make?’
‘I thought we were… friends.’ He seemed to realise how odd that sounded.
‘I thought you were a woman. You ended every email with kisses and hugs!’ An instant flush right to her hairline made her regret that sentence immediately.
‘I am Italian! It’s normal.’
‘And you’re a florist.’
‘I was very happy to find someone who didn’t comment on the fact that I am a florist and aman,’ he grumbled. ‘There is no law against it. I did not hide a child and a dead husband.’
Toni had been a second away from feeling guilt, but his last sentence banished any possibility of that. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Her voice shook.
He released a tight breath and eyed her warily. ‘Obviously not.’
She tried to remember if Gabri had ever said anything about her –his– marital status. He’d mentioned having no partner, but Toni couldn’t remember if he’d mentioned any history. Appearances could be deceiving, but he had to be in his thirties, far enough into that decade that he would carry some baggage.
Did it even matter? The relaxing week she’d pictured chatting and drinking wine now seemed embarrassingly naïve. She didn’t know how she’d ever managed to believe it would work out. Instead of ease and friendship, there was only awkwardness and that misplaced spark she felt when he watched her under his thick, dark lashes.
He had blue eyes, striking with his dark-brown hair, and a cleft in his stubbled chin. Her eyes seemed to snag on some new detail every time her gaze drifted to him. Oh, God, she was supposed to stay with him – share a house, possibly abathroom. They might have to stand at the basin together brushing their teeth, pretending they didn’t notice anything about each other.
What if he walked around without a shirt?
‘Toni,’ he said again, his voice a purr this time, ‘come and get something to eat. It is a little early for dinner, but we can sit down like adults and talk about this.’
His choice of words made her raise her chin, sensitive to any hint of a patronising tone. She’d been motherandfather to Cillian for his nine years and if she’d hidden her familial situation from her online friend, then that was her right. He had no idea about her and no business judging her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said suddenly with an eloquent grimace. ‘I didn’t mean to say you weren’t like an adult. It’s my… problem. I did not expect—’ He raked a hand through his hair, which only made her notice his toned forearm, dusted with hair. He had nicks on his fingers – from rose thorns?
Roses were a necessary evil in his job, he’d told her once. Constant, unseasonable demand meant importing thousands of blooms per year for customers who would accept nothing else, and imported blooms often meant pesticides and growing methods that were not climate-friendly.
Toni could suddenly picture this brusque, lively man saying exactly that. The prick of warmth in her stomach was unexpected.
‘—you, Toni,’ he finished, jolting her out of her distraction. ‘I did not expectyou. But that doesn’t excuse my words. Please, let me buy you a meal and we can unravel this together.’
It suddenly occurred to her that he probably wouldn’t want her to stay either. That she wasn’t a man had been an equal shock to him, it seemed. She probably shouldn’t have shrieked at him because of an honest mistake.
He was right. They needed to discuss the week to come.
Dropping money on to the table for the coffees, he gestured her ahead of him with one of those nicked hands, the thumb brown and rough.
‘It’s a long time since I went to a restaurant here, but this way, we go past the car to put your bag in and I’m sure we’ll find something.’
The heavy heat of the early evening, the twisted stone pines and the endless blue sky, wispy with clouds, were a constant reminder of how far from home Toni had travelled since this morning. The ferry trip from the Tuscan coast over the choppy turquoise waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea had buoyed her sprits almost unbearably, her first views of the island, wild and rocky, dotted with terracotta clusters of human settlement, capturing her imagination.
