Cordelia thought that this was how awkward moments were navigated. Was this a prelude of things to come? Small, emotional inroads always taken under cover? Her love hidden away for fear that if he sensed it, he would back off? There was no point dwelling on it, she decided. She would go and have an enjoyable day. When she smiled this time, it was genuine.
‘Sure. No rush. If I don’t hear from you, I have the address and I can make my way back. Everything feels pretty close so I’m sure I’ll be able to walk where I want to go. See you later!’
She headed for the door and knew that he was following her through the villa to the imposing front door overlooking the lake. She didn’t want to do anything silly and tempting like spin round and fling her arms around him because she hated the way things had suddenly and inexplicably gone frosty, but instead she slipped on her boat shoes, glanced over her shoulder without making eye contact and gave a little wave.
She had her map.
She’d spent a lifetime longing to leave the Cornish coastline, to see the world. She was seeing it now and she couldn’t afford to live off her nerves, letting her imagination get the better of her and letting all the considerable wonders at her fingertips pass her by.
She would have to obey the rules of the game and if that meant keeping her love hidden away like a shameful secret, then she would do that.
Luca wanted to go to one of the windows to follow her progress to the shore.
Perhaps he had allowed that temporary blip in his good humour to show through, but wasn’t the occasional mood allowed? She’d also laughed off his concerns about her safety but, hey, wasn’t a little paranoia allowed on his part? She was carrying his child and accidents happened!
Luca was not accustomed to worrying about a woman. He wasn’t accustomed to imaginary scenarios about unlikely things that might or might not happen on a simple walk by a lake.
He repeated the mantra about this not being a normal situation because she was the mother of his baby. It worked for a while but when he discovered that he had been staring at the same page of the report he had been reading on his email for fifteen minutes, he was forced to concede that the mantra, while it made sense, wasn’t having the desired effect.
Like it or not, his head was crammed with a variety of possible dangers she might encounter because she felt she needed some exercise and fresh air.
He couldn’t squash his fears even though there was nowhere on earth safer than the shores of this stunning lake. For a start, there were endless tourists around. It wasn’t one of the smaller, quieter lakes. If she slipped or fell or fainted or urgently needed to lie down, there would be people around to help and she’d call him, but none of those things would happen anyway because all she would do was stroll and maybe stop and have something to drink at one of the cafés. You couldn’t walk five metres without colliding into a packed café.
Not that she was going to slip. Or fall. Or faint. Or urgently need to lie down.
But what if she did?
He would never forgive himself. Protecting her was his duty. The place for him right now wasn’t in front of his computer trying to focus. It was by her side...making sure she didn’t slip.
Mind made up, he left his villa at speed. He hadn’t been to the villa for a hundred years, or so it seemed, but he knew this lake like the back of his hand. Just one of the many exotic destinations he had frequented in his early days. It was muggy outside. Grey skies and the lake wearing an angry look, as though thinking about getting choppy.
Luca ignored the crowds. How far had she walked? He was approaching at pace by the time he spotted her, laughing on one of the rental boats, of which there were many. This one was a small, sleek, mahogany little number, your basic speedboat made for two.
And she was with a guy, which made him pull up short.
Blond hair in a ponytail, tanned, wearing a shirt that was stupidly unbuttoned all the way down and surfer shorts.
Something wild and primitive ripped through Luca and he had to take a few seconds to gather himself.
They were laughing.
He thought back to that tight smile she had given him before stalking out of the villa earlier and he saw red. Fists bunched, he breathed in deep and by the time he made it to the boat, he was in control.
‘Having fun?’
In the midst of trying to make herself understood, in Italian, to the very pleasant guy from whom she was trying to rent the boat, Cordelia took a few seconds to register that Luca had shown up, far earlier than she had expected.
She turned around and, smile fading as she took in his glowering expression, she tentatively said, ‘You’re early. I didn’t think you’d be here for a couple of hours.’
She was standing on the deck of the small outboard motorboat, and she leapt off with the surety of a gazelle.
She knew boats as well as she knew the changing moods of the ocean.
Shading her eyes with one hand, she turned around and offered a very poor goodbye in Italian to Elias, the young guy who was now not going to get the rental he wanted.
‘What are you doing?’
