of a tendency to unruly curls as his son had inherited.
‘The paediatrician said that as he’d been unconscious for so long, he’ll keep Taddeo here overnight under observation. He’ll speak to you when you have time to call, but he was cautiously optimistic…the way doctors always are. Oh, and I have no idea how you’ll get in contact with your wife to let her know what’s happening. She was very upset, but I had to leave her behind at the beach. You’ll need to put her mind at rest about Taddeo.’
She couldn’t help thinking that the young woman she’d left at the beach seemed absurdly young to be married to such a man as this—still dynamic in spite of his exhaustion. And it wasn’t just because he’d made her pulse leap when she’d been determined not to have anything to do with men for the foreseeable future.
‘Taddeo has no mother,’ he announced bluntly, his voice as hard as stone for all his attractive accent. ‘Maddelena is the daughter of a colleague.’
Now, why on earth should his brusque words send a shaft of pleasure through her? she thought crossly. Why should it matter that the man wasn’t married? For all she knew, he might be involved in a relationship with Maddelena, although his tone of voice didn’t make it sound likely.
Anyway, it was none of her business. Her fleeting connection with the man would be over as soon as she found some way of returning to her hotel.
‘Do you have a car, or may I give you a lift somewhere?’ he asked suddenly, almost as if he’d been reading her mind. ‘I will be free as soon as I’ve visited my son.’
She hesitated, torn between the strange feeling that she should get as far away from this man as possible and the equally strong desire to spend just a little longer in his company. In the end, practicality tipped the balance.
‘I would be grateful for a lift,’ she replied, equally politely. ‘I travelled here with Taddeo, so my car is miles away.’
‘After your actions today, it is the least I can do,’ he said sincerely and gestured towards the bank of lifts. She found herself automatically falling into step beside him as he made his way towards the paediatric department.
Taddeo was almost asleep by the time they reached his bedside, and apparently completely unconcerned by the fact that he was in hospital. He seemed far more interested in quizzing his father about a promised outing.
‘Dormire,’ murmured his father patiently as he smoothed a soothing hand over tousled dark hair.
Lissa watched, entranced, as he tried to persuade little Taddeo to go to sleep. He was such a very masculine man and yet he was so gentle with his young son.
The two of them were so similar that she would have known that they were father and son without being told. They both had the same dark brown eyes fringed by impossibly long lashes and the same dark hair prone to unruly curls.
Their skin was the same dark golden colour, and Taddeo would probably one day sport the same dark shadow of an emerging beard that she could see on his father’s jaw.
Even the shape of the jaw was similar, lean and slightly angular for all that the child was so much younger, and they both possessed the same knack of smiling with their eyes as well as their mouths.
Her eyes were travelling from one to the other, silently comparing and contrasting while she watched the interaction between father and son. Finally, one set of dark lashes drooped for the last time and a gentle kiss was pressed to a tousled head.
The sight of the man’s lean tanned fingers sent a shaft of something close to jealousy through Lissa when she saw how tenderly they cupped the curve of Taddeo’s little cheek, and she was startled by the unexpected feeling.
This isn’t what you want, she reminded herself sharply as she took a step backwards from the loving scene. Don’t let your guard down if you want to protect your heart. Don’t get involved, no matter how enticing the temptation.
‘Have you lived in Italy very long?’ he asked when they were finally on their way.
Lissa gave a silent sigh of relief at the thought that she wasn’t going to have to try to start a conversation. At least he was willing to make the effort.
‘Actually, it’s my first visit,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve been wanting to come for years…all my life, in fact.’
‘So this is why you have learned to speak Italian?’ he demanded, reverting to his own tongue but speaking rather slower than usual to accommodate her. ‘In the hope that one day you would be able to visit?’
Lissa laughed and took his lead, switching to her slightly rusty Italian. ‘Not quite. I learned to speak Italian so that I could talk to my grandmother. When I was small, I thought Nonna couldn’t understand English. It was years before I realised that she didn’t miss a thing in either language!’
He laughed with her. ‘So this is just a brief holiday, to get a taste of Italy?’ he suggested.
She’d given him the name of her hotel before they’d set off, so Lissa could see how he would have come to that conclusion.
‘Partly,’ she agreed, ‘but also to explore this part of the country because it was the area Nonna’s family came from.’
‘So, you’re going to have a very busy week sightseeing. It was lucky for Taddeo that you had a few minutes spare to visit the beach. If you hadn’t been there…’
‘Then someone else would have taken care of him,’ she said, slightly uncomfortable with the open emotion in his voice at the thought of his son’s accident. ‘You know how much Italian people love children. Those people offered to help me get him off the beach and transport him to hospital without hesitation, lending towels, belts and even that surfboard to protect his back.’
‘Even so, I thank you…’ He paused with a frown and concentrated for a second on parking his car in front of the hotel then turned to face her. ‘How can I thank you properly if I can’t even remember the name in your passport?’ He held out his hand. ‘I am Matteo Aldarini, at your service and for ever in your debt.’
‘Melissa Swift,’ Lissa supplied, along with her hand, disappointed but not surprised that her name hadn’t registered in the heat of the moment.
‘Melissa. Sweet as honey,’ he murmured as he wrapped long fingers around hers.
Suddenly she was aware that the two of them were alone in the intimacy of the darkened car and all she could think of was the contact between their palms and his dark eyes looking down into hers.
MATTEO’S hand felt warm and strong, but the strength was carefully tempered…unlike some men Lissa knew who took a delight in grinding her bones together in a show of masculine power.
She’d only met the man a short while ago under the most stressful of conditions but she had a feeling that he would never need to resort to such petty tricks to prove his masculinity.
But it was his eyes that held her captivated, their dark brown depths almost black in the shadowed interior of the car as he gazed at her.
