tried to speak, but her mouth had suddenly been completely dry.
‘I...’ she croaked. ‘I’m...fine.’
She started to get up, but a pair of strong hands was lifting her to her feet with a strength that made her seem completely weightless. But then, gravity seemed to have disappeared already. She had the strangest feeling that she was floating two inches off the ground.
People were walking and hurrying and talking all around them, but it was as though they didn’t exist. She just went on staring helplessly at the man she had knocked into.
‘Are you sure you are all right? Would you like me to summon medical assistance?’
There was still the same warm concern in his voice, but it had a hint of humour in it, too, as though he were well aware of how she was staring.
And why...
A slanting smile sifted across his face. Eloise felt her insides go hollow. The thickly lashed dark eyes washed over her, and the hollowness increased a thousandfold.
‘I believe this is your bag,’ he said, and stooped to rescue her carry-on.
‘Thank you...’ Eloise answered faintly.
‘My pleasure.’
He smiled again. He didn’t seem to mind that she was still gazing at him, drinking in his dark, expressive eyes, his sable hair, the sculpted mouth with its slanting smile, the cheekbones that seemed to be cut from the finest marble.
She swallowed. Something was happening and she was reeling from it. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with having just tumbled down at his feet, or her luggage slamming into his legs.
Realisation hit. ‘Are you all right?’ she exclaimed, contrition filling her voice. ‘My bag thumped right into you!’
He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Niente—it was nothing,’ he assured her.
With the fragment of her brain that was still functioning Eloise registered that he spoke in Italian—then simultaneously registered that his gaze was as focused on her as hers was on him. She saw his eyes narrow minutely, as though studying her in great detail. Studying her and finding that she was entirely to his liking...
She felt colour run up into her cheeks, and as it did so she saw a glint spark in his gorgeous dark eyes. It was a subtle message between them that only heightened her colour and made her suddenly, piercingly, aware of her body and its reaction to being looked at with such intensity.
Oh, my God, what is happening?
Because never, never had she felt such an immediate overpowering response to a man. She gave a silent gulp of awareness. He was speaking again, and she dragged her fragmenting mind to order.
‘Tell me, which gate are you heading for?’
Belatedly Eloise recalled what had been uppermost in her head until a few moments ago. Her eyes shot to the display by the gate further down the concourse, which now read, ‘Flight Closed’.
‘Oh, no!’ she said with a wail. ‘I’ve missed my flight!’
‘Where were you travelling to?’ he asked her.
‘Paris...’ she answered distractedly.
Something flickered in the man’s eyes. Then, in a smooth voice, he said, ‘What an extraordinary coincidence. I’m on my way to Paris myself.’
Was there the slightest hesitation in his voice as he named his destination? She had no time to think as he continued to speak.
‘Since it was my fault you missed your flight, you must allow me to take you there myself.’
She stared, her mouth opening and then closing like a fish. A fish that was being scooped up, effortlessly, by someone who was—and the fact came to her belatedly—a very, very accomplished fisherman.
‘I couldn’t possibly—’ she began.
The dark, beautifully arched eyebrows above the dark, deep eyes rose. ‘Why not?’ he said.
‘Because—’ She stopped.
‘Because we don’t know each other?’ he challenged, again with that querying lift of his brows. Then his slanting smile slashed across his features. ‘But that is easily remedied.’
His mouth quirked, making her stomach give a little flip.
‘My name is Vito Viscari, and I am entirely at your service, signorina—having caused you to miss your flight.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Eloise protested. ‘I did. I skidded. Crashed my bag into you.’
He lifted his free hand dismissively. ‘We have already agreed that that is of no account,’ he said airily. ‘But what is of account is finding a medic to check your foot. There’s plenty of time before our Paris flight leaves.’
Eloise looked at him dazedly. ‘But I can’t just swap flights—my ticket won’t let me.’
The amused look came again. ‘But mine will. Do not worry.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘I have frequent flyer miles to use up. If I don’t use them they’ll be wasted.’
Eloise looked at him. Whatever else there was about him, he was not someone who looked as if he gave the slightest consideration to something as money-saving as air miles. Everything about him, she registered, from the tailored suit that fitted his lean body like a hand-made glove, to the gleaming black hand-stitched shoes and the monogrammed leather briefcase he was carrying told her that.
But he was talking again as he helped her forward. Looking down at her with that warm, admiring look in his eyes that made her forget everything except the quickening of her pulse, the heady airiness in her head.
‘So,’ he was saying, and his Italian accent was doing wonderful things to her, as well as the effect his warm, admiring eyes was having on her, ‘am I to call you only bella signorina? Though if I do,’ he murmured, his lashes sweeping over his eyes as his gaze dipped to meet hers, ‘it would be nothing but the truth. Bellissima signorina...’
She took a breath. The air seemed to have too much oxygen in it suddenly. ‘It’s Eloise,’ she said. ‘Eloise Dean.’
He smiled again, warm and intimate, and she felt breathless.
‘Come,’ he said again, and there was that low husk in his voice again, ‘lean on me, Signorina Eloise Dean. I’ll take care of you.’
She gazed up at him. He seemed very tall, she realised. And absolutely devastating...
Her breath caught, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide as she just stared up at him, drinking him in. The sculpted mouth quirked again. Long lashes swept down over deep dark eyes.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll take care of you...’
* * *
And Vito Viscari had done just that ever since. It had only
