the intricacies of watercolour painting. ‘Is this how you make your living?’
‘No. My day job is in website development. Painting’s an escape from spending all day poring over pages of code.’ He stuck the brush he’d been using into the darker of the two jars of khaki water beside him, turning on her a challenging gaze. ‘And at least nobody here gets me chucked out, making me feel two inches tall in the process.’
Though her face heated up Sofia pinned on her most serene smile as she replied lamely, ‘I can’t help it if customers don’t want to be in your photos.’
‘You can help pointing out to them what I’m doing.’ Evidently he hadn’t been as oblivious to what Sofia had been up to as she’d hoped.
‘True,’ she acknowledged guiltily, wondering why she couldn’t quite get a grip on what kind of man Levi was. Then her eye was drawn to where the early-evening breeze flipped the pages of his pad as if with giant lazy fingers and she caught sight of the view of Il Giardino he must have been working earlier. Centre stage in front of the colourful and busy tables was a slender figure with blonde hair twisted up behind her head and a black dress covered by a white apron. Levi had painted Amy in the act of swooping a tray of drinks down from her shoulder and onto a table. Along with the movement he’d somehow portrayed youth and even Amy’s air of reserve.
Though a part of the scene, the figure stood out, as if he’d focused hard on getting it just right. It made Sofia feel something – not jealousy, surely? No, more like envy, because there seemed to be something like affection in the careful brushstrokes.
Gazing at his painting in silence she struggled with herself. She’d been downright rude to Levi last night and then deliberately caused mischief for him today. It couldn’t be because her nose had been put out of joint that even as Levi had been asking Sofia out he’d so blatantly ‘noticed’ Amy? Could it? She knew herself to be naïve when it came to men. Maybe, if he knew her thoughts, Levi would be incredulous that Sofia would mind?
She cast around for an olive branch to extend, one that might even explain her pissy attitude last night. ‘You know, I feel a bit like Amy’s big sister. If I had a little sister alone in a foreign country I’d want someone to look out for her.’
Levi looked gently mystified by this turn in the conversation. ‘I only have a brother, but likewise.’ He met her gaze unflinchingly and Sofia suddenly felt he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye like that if whatever he felt for Amy was a threat.
Was Sofia justified in setting herself up as judge and jury? Amy seemed quite at ease with Levi, yet she’d recoiled from Davide from the first, which suggested she had perfectly good instincts. So far as Sofia knew, Levi had never made the least move on Amy.
Further, Sofia admitted to herself, her own experience should tell her that Levi understood the meaning of the word ‘no’ and could hear it with good grace. She felt uncomfortably guilty of jumping to conclusions.
‘I’ll leave you to your painting then,’ she said, having not the least idea of how to explain her thoughts and feelings to him without making herself look more of an idiot than he probably already thought her.
He smiled politely. ‘It would be nice to get the last of the light.’
She smothered a sigh, hyper-aware that she was still missing the wild one-night stand from her single woman’s CV. And Levi was so big and firm and golden … but out of bounds, even if she hadn’t killed any interest from him stone dead. Turning away, she headed for the stairs at the side of the terrace resolving to visit a couple of bars down in the town tonight where some of the thirty-something locals hung out. Maybe her English/Montelibertà accent would seem exotic to them and she could have a bit of an adventure with a Stefano or a Marco or a Tonio.
Once she’d let herself into her room she threw off her uniform and stood under the shower for several minutes, letting the cool water wash away her discomfiture along with the heat of the day. When she got out, she promised herself, she’d wriggle into the tight red dress she’d bought from Autograph last autumn because it was reduced. She’d be daring with her makeup, creating smoky eyes and a kissable mouth. She’d stuff thirty euros in her smallest bag and take herself off down into the town. Other women did it. Maybe by midnight she’d have gone home with the greatest talent she could find.
Ignoring the facts that she was having trouble imagining herself behaving that way, particularly when she was on breakfast shift on the terrace tomorrow, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself before stepping into her prettiest underwear.
But before she could start her makeup she heard a tentative knock on her door. ‘Sofia? Are you there? I’ve got the creeps.’
‘Amy?’ Covering up with a thin robe, she opened the door. ‘Are you OK? What’s creeping you out?’
Amy hugged herself, smiling sheepishly as she stepped into Sofia’s room. ‘I’m going to sound pathetic but I keep thinking someone’s tapping on the fly screen on my window.’
Sofia, imagining being eighteen years old, away from home for the first time and building up fearsome scenarios in her mind, replied bracingly. ‘I bet it’s that damned climber that grows like a Triffid all along this so-called staff garden. Shall we grab scissors from the kitchen and hack it back? Then it won’t be able to reach your window.’
Amy’s expression relaxed. ‘Do you think that’s all it is? I feel stupid now. You weren’t going out tonight, were you?’ she asked belatedly, gazing at Sofia’s red dress on its hanger.
Sofia’s hand passed over the red dress in favour of a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. ‘Not tonight. I’ve got to be up for the breakfast service tomorrow,’ she said, blithely abandoning her plans. It wasn’t much of a hardship when her heart hadn’t been in them in the first place.
On Friday, Levi enjoyed a leisurely lunch in Il Giardino. Amy took his order for cold beer and a small portion of pasta, giving him a friendly grin. ‘Having a good day?’
‘Great,’ Levi answered. ‘I plan to paint in the garden this afternoon.’
‘Enjoy!’ And she whisked off, ripping his order from her pad, looking much more confident about her job than when Levi had first met her. Davide was on duty too but Amy seemed to have taken to ignoring him as much as working together allowed, which seemed an excellent tactic.
Levi enjoyed a second beer then vacated his table to allow a young Italian couple to sit down. He went into the hotel to collect his painting kit and then down the many flights of stairs necessary to reach the garden. The sun was blazing when he settled down, the valley spread out before him. Soon he was absorbed in trying to capture the delicate arc of lavender stems in the foreground of the painting he was working on.
A couple of hours drifted by, until his phone rang. ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Wes said as soon as Levi had laid his brush down to answer the call.
‘Oh?’ Holding his phone to his ear with his left hand he picked up his thinnest brush, mixed up the palest grey he could imagine and touched it down one side of a stem, instantly creating light and depth. He cocked his head to one side to admire the effect. ‘What?’
‘It’s something about Octavia.’ Wes sounded as if he
