The Italian's Love-Child by Sharon Kendrick Read Free Book Online Page B

she was playing hard to get. He smiled as he reached for the shampoo. Give her until the end of the week, and she would be bound to ring.
    Eve was just setting off for her car when one of the production assistants stopped her. ‘Eve—a man rang for you.’
    ‘Did he say who he was?’
    The production assistant assumed the expression of someone who had been dieting successfully all week, only to be offered a large cream cake minutesbefore she was due to be weighed. She was getting married in a month, Eve remembered. ‘No.’
    ‘Oh, well—thanks, anyway. If it was important, I expect he’ll ring again.’
    ‘He was…’ the assistant gulped ‘… foreign .’
    Annoyingly, Eve’s heart went pat-a-pat, then missed a beat completely. ‘Oh?’ she said, with just the right amount of studied casualness.
    ‘Italian, I think,’ the assistant continued. ‘He sounded absolutely gorgeous ! All deep and accented and sexy. You know what they say about a come-to-bed voice? Well, he must have been the man who invented it! Who is he?’
    ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ replied Eve airily, feeling a brief pang of sympathy for the girl’s fiancé. ‘And it irritates the hell out of me, when someone doesn’t bother to leave their name!’
    Which wasn’t quite true. What was irritating the hell out of her was her irrational response to the fact that it had undoubtedly been Luca. What was he doing, ringing her? Ringing her at work, too!
    And would he ring again? At home? Until she reminded herself that he didn’t have her number. But she was in no doubt that someone like Luca could always get hold of a woman’s number…
    It had been many years since Eve had made excuses to hang around the house, hoping that someone might call her, and she hated it almost as much as she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing it. Every time the phone rang she jumped like a startled rabbit, but it was never him.
    Finally, frustrated with herself—and with him , though she wasn’t quite sure why—she went roundto see Kesi and ended up staying for afternoon tea. And it was predictably typical that when she arrived home the red light on her answering machine was winking at her provocatively.
    With trembling fingers, she clicked the button and his deep, dark, rich Italian voice began to speak. Just like him, she thought as she listened. Deep and dark and rich.
    ‘Eve? I find that business brings me to London next week. How would you like to meet for dinner?’ A tinge of amusement entered the voice. ‘An early dinner, of course—leaving you plenty of time to get home for your allotted hours of sleep. Ring me.’
    She was appalled to find herself replaying it four times, while silently wondering whether or not to return his call, even while, deep down, she knew with unerring certainty that she would be unable to resist.
    But she left it for three days, even though the self-restraint it took nearly killed her. And when she finally got round to it, she had to field her way past a very aloof-sounding secretary who, once she had switched from Italian to perfect, seamless English, sounded very doubtful as to whether Signor Cardelli would wish to be disturbed.
    Clearly Signor Cardelli would.
    ‘Luca?’ said Eve tentatively, wishing that she could rewind the time clock and never have dialled the wretched number.
    Luca felt his body instinctively tense. So the strega had made him wait, had she? He couldn’t remember ever having had to wait for anything in his life.
    ‘Eve?’
    ‘Yes, it’s me! I got your message.’
    ‘Good.’ He waited. Now let her see how it felt.
    Eve clutched the telephone tightly. Damn him! ‘About dinner.’
    ‘Mmm.’
    She felt like slamming the phone down, and realised that might be overacting by just a tad. Did she want to have dinner with him, or not? Well, yes and no.
    Luca’s eyes narrowed. Did she always make it this difficult for men? And then he remembered the way she had been in his arms. They had been so