The Italian's Love-Child Read Online Free PDF Page A

Kesi an olive when she reluctantly raised her head to find Luca watching her, and knew that she couldn’t use her as an escape route for the entire meal.
    ‘So whereabouts are you living now, Luca?’
    He regarded her, a touch of amusement playing around the corners of his mouth. She had barely eaten a thing. And neither had he. And she had been playing with the child in a sweet and enchanting way, almost completely ignoring him, in a way he was not used to.
    He wondered if she knew just how attractive it was to see a woman who genuinely liked children. But perhaps he had been guilty of stereotyping—by being surprised at seeing this cool, sophisticated Englishwoman being so openly demonstrative and affectionate. He pushed his plate away. ‘I live in Rome—though I also have a little place on the coast.’
    ‘For sailing?’
    ‘When I can. Not too much these days, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Why not? Michael said you were a brilliant sailor.’
    He didn’t deny it; false modesty was in its way a kind of dishonesty, wasn’t it? Sailing had been a passion and an all-consuming one for a while, but passions tended to dominate your life, and inevitablytheir appeal faded. ‘Oh, pressure of work. An inability to commit to it properly. The usual story.’
    The words inability to commit hovered in the air like a warning. ‘What kind of work do you do?’
    ‘Guess,’ he murmured.
    He had the looks which could have made him a sure-fire hit on celluloid, but he didn’t have the self-conscious vanity which usually accompanied an actor. Though he certainly had the ego. And the indefinable air that said he was definitely a leader. ‘I’d say you’re a successful businessman.’
    ‘Nearly.’ He let his eyes rove over her parted lips, wishing he could push the tip of his tongue inside them. ‘I’m a banker.’ ‘Oh.’
    ‘Boring, huh?’ he mocked.
    She met the piercing black stare with a cool look. ‘Not for you, I presume—otherwise you wouldn’t do it.’
    ‘Luca!’ protested Lizzy. ‘Stop selling yourself short!’ She leaned across the table towards Eve and gave the champagne-softened, slightly delighted smile of someone who had landed a lunch guest of some consequence. ‘Luca isn’t your usual kind of banker. He owns the bank!’
    Eve felt faint. He owned a bank ? Which didn’t just put him into the league of the rich—it put him spinning way off in the orbit of the super-rich and all the exclusivity which went with that. And there she had been thinking that he might have been impressed with her small-town media status!
    She knew he was watching her, wanting to see what her reaction would be. That type of position would be isolating, she realised. People would reactdifferently to him because of it, just as they did with her—only on a much larger scale, of course. On camera she had learned not to react, a skill which came in very useful now.
    ‘I didn’t realise that individuals could own banks,’ she said interestedly. ‘Isn’t that rare?’
    He felt as if she was interviewing him! ‘It’s unusual,’ he corrected. ‘Not exactly rare.’
    ‘It must be heady stuff—having that amount of power?’
    He met her eyes. ‘It turns women on, yes.’
    She didn’t react. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
    He ran a finger idly around the rim of his glass. ‘It is like everything else—there are good bits and bad bits, exciting bits and boring bits. Life is the same for everyone, essentially—whether you clean the bank or own the bank.’
    ‘Hardly!’
    The black eyes gleamed. ‘But yes,’ he corrected softly. ‘We all eat and sleep and play and make love, do we not?’
    She willed herself not to blush. Only an Italian could come out and talk about making love at a respectable family lunch! ‘That’s certainly something to consider,’ she mused. ‘How long are you staying?’
    This was interesting. So what had made her soften? The mention of sex or the fact that he was in a position of power? ‘I