Page 16 of Italy and Forever

Oh, God, she hadn’t imagined it. There was a person there, on the bank of the lake, visible through the trees – and he wasn’t wearing any trousers. She’d accidentally taken a video of him tugging them down and pulling them off over his feet, one by one.

Now he grasped the hem of his sweater and lifted it and she hastily lowered her phone again. She knew someone who had a mop of hair with curls on top, just like the ones she’d glimpsed.

Biting her lip, she slid down on the bench and told herself firmly not to peek, but her heart was pounding at the thought that it might be Rhys. She wasn’t very well hidden and he was alarmingly nearby.

Why was he undressing on the bank of the lake?

She peered over the back of the bench and gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth as she did so. He was down to his tight boxer shorts, skin pale over lean muscle – quite a lot of muscle. She’d always assumed a ‘six-pack’ indicated the number of abs that existed on the human body, but he had a whole spreadsheet down there, waffle-maker abs. He wasn’t bulky, like an overinflated bodybuilder, just perfectly… inflated.

Instead of shivering and suffering – as Ginny would be doing if she stripped off when it was nine degrees out – he was calmly folding his shirt, adding it to the little pile of clothing next to his towel.

Her eyes widened at the towel, then squeezed shut as he whipped down the boxer shorts. Had she thought things between her and Rhys couldn’t get worse? If he saw her⁠—

That didn’t bear thinking about. She sank lower behind the back of the bench.

At a muted splash, she assumed he’d entered the water and peered through the slats in the seat at—yikes. She should look away, but she didn’t. She’d never been one to admire backsides, but the way his shifted as he walked was art in motion. Broad shoulders back, he moved into the water without flinching, then ducked under.

Ginny held her breath, sympathetically freezing just watching the bubbles on the surface and imagining him down there. He came up again after a few seconds, shaking his hair, water droplets streaming down the lean lines of his face.

Then he set off across the water with powerful strokes of front crawl, one pale arm emerging at a time. It was meditative, even just to watch, as the ripples returned slowly to the bank without him, the way the water parted before him. He disrupted the perfect mirror, creating distorted reflections.

It must be deep out there, because he stopped to tread water, his arms sweeping around him, his face tipped up to the sky. The sight was almost enough to make Ginny want to try it – almost.

Transfixed by the sight of him as part of the immense landscape, she realised too late the significance when he headed back to the bank. She should have left already, if she wanted to avoid all chances of him seeing her. But he was still moving, so perhaps it wasn’t too late to slip away unnoticed, go back the way she’d come. It was the only option she could tolerate. Mustering her courage, she extended one foot and attempted an awkward slide off the bench.

She landed heavily on her bottom and bit back a yelp. Scrambling onto all fours, she legged it for the path through the trees like a girl possessed by a demon.

‘Hey!’

Her hair stood on end at his shout.

‘Who’s there?’

He sounded alarmed and she glanced back reflexively to see his camera bag sitting by his clothes. He was splashing loudly now, hurrying for the bank. It was his own damn fault for leaving his valuables unattended, but her concern was enough to cause the moment’s hesitation that brought her escape plan crashing down.

‘Ginny?’

She whirled around but immediately regretted it. He ducked back into the water a second too late. She’d seen it all. She’d seen Rhys entirely naked and dripping with water and now she needed to quietly die, because she wasn’t sure what her life was going to be like with that image in her memory every time she looked at him.

The private bits were already blurry – Ginny was too polite to remember those in high definition – but his wide blue eyes, wet skin, rangy body, as natural as the mountain lake, were seared into her brain.

What she could see now was almost as bad. He was giving her his disdainful look, along with a dose of wariness in those lovely eyes. His broad shoulders were up out of the water and Ginny’s mouth was dry, words impossible.

‘Urgh,’ she gurgled, and slapped a hand belatedly over her eyes – very belatedly.

‘Can you… just stay like that for a minute?’

‘I’m sorry, I—’ She couldn’t think of anything to excuse her actions, distracted by the rustling noises from the bank that suggested he was rubbing himself down with the towel.

‘You can look again.’

She dropped her hand and gave a relieved sigh that stuck immediately in her throat. He hadn’t pulled his shirt on, yet. You can look… Oh boy, she looked. He had a tattoo on one of his biceps, a kind of starburst pattern, and a few words on his right ribcage, written in cursive she couldn’t read at this distance.

When her gaze fell on the pink slash of a scar at his shoulder, it snagged there with curiosity until he lifted his arms and tugged his shirt over his head and down over the grid of abs.

Ginny sucked in an enormous breath. ‘Rug up, before you catch a cold!’ she blurted out, her eyes falling to his bare feet.

He bent to pick up his shoes, pullover and camera bag and made his way gingerly over the pine needles to the bench where she’d been sitting, spinning it back to face the lake before taking a seat and propping one ankle on his knee.