started moving through the water once more, but the waves continued to tug mercilessly at her legs. She was shaking from the shock of what had happened and it was hard to keep up with the fast pace Marco was setting.
Suddenly he turned and swept her up into his arms.
‘Put me down!’ she protested, automatically fighting his grasp.
‘Lie still!’
His voice shot through her, somehow compelling her to obey, and she stopped struggling immediately. Marco’s arms were strong and his body powerful, and the panic that had filled her when she’d plunged beneath the water gradually subsided.
The waves pushed and pulled around his legs, occasionally making his stride uneven, but Claudia felt secure. It didn’t take long to reach the edge of the water. But, when he didn’t put her down, she realised that he planned to carry her right across the beach to the meadow beyond. The dark grey shingle crunched and shifted beneath his feet and she felt him instinctively tighten his hold on her.
As his powerful muscles flexed, she suddenly became completely aware of his body. She was no longer distracted by the sea swirling around them, and she noticed every movement he made as he walked. She could sense the muscular strength of his chest and feel the resilient power in his legs as he carried her over the unstable shingle. She could feel the heat radiating off him, passing straight through the cold sea water that had soaked them both. It was as if a physical, sensual connection was growing between them.
Her heart started to beat faster and, despite the cold, she felt a flush rise to her cheeks. The next moment they reached solid ground and Marco dumped her unceremoniously on to her feet.
‘What the hell were you doing?’ He launched straight into her, gripping her upper arms and looking at her in a way that demanded an instant response.
She stared at his furious expression in shock and pushed her dripping hair back from her face with a small, jerky gesture that was restricted by the way he was holding her so tightly. His brows were drawn low, making his eyes appear almost black with anger, and his lips were pulled into a fierce line.
A flash of irritation whipped through her. What did he have to be so angry about? What made him think he could sweep in and start manhandling her, acting as if she had to answer to him for something that was none of his business?
‘What was I doing?’ she asked incredulously, trying in vain to shrug her arms out of his iron grip. ‘What about you—what are you doing here? Why did you follow me to Wales?’
‘Didn’t you realise it was nearly high tide?’ he demanded, totally ignoring her questions and giving her a little shake that sent droplets of water flying from her hair.
‘I knew the sea was coming in—but I was working,’ she said, trying to sound as if she’d known exactly what she was doing when in fact she’d been shocked to see just how high the water had risen. ‘You get better photos that way. The splashes are bigger. There’s more dynamic energy in the water.’
She pulled back again but he tightened his grip, suddenly making her ultra-aware of his hands on her arms. The rest of her body was still cold and wet but, where his hands touched, a fiery heat was burning through her sodden clothes and penetrating the flesh beneath.
‘For God’s sake!’ Marco exclaimed. ‘You were cut off.’
‘You didn’t need to come out to get me,’ she said crossly, pulling her arms sharply out of his grip and stepping away from him.
She wobbled slightly, but she held her head high. She did not need to explain herself to him—and she wasn’t going to let herself be distracted by the feel of his hands.
‘You could have been swept away,’ he said harshly. ‘What would have happened if I hadn’t been here?’
‘I’m a good swimmer. And I can clamber over rocks just like anyone else,’ she said. ‘I didn’t ask you to come out to get me. And I didn’t need you to carry me!’
‘Swimming doesn’t come into it—not with those white horses pounding you!’ he exclaimed, gesturing fiercely towards the huge white crested waves that were breaking over the rocks.
Claudia turned and stared at the wild sea with startled eyes. Suddenly her head was spinning and her legs felt weak. But it wasn’t the power of the waves that was roaring in her ears and making her dizzy. It was hearing Marco describe them as ‘white horses’.
She had taught him that phrase.
Four years ago when she’d brought him to Pembrokeshire—to the tiny village where her real mother had grown up—she had told him how much she loved to photograph a stormy sea. The weather had been beautiful as they’d sat together on the headland, looking out over the mirror-flat surface of the bay. On that day it had been almost impossible to imagine the sea anything other than a tranquil backdrop to a perfect summer’s day.
Claudia had been so happy. So in love. She’d looked deep into Marco’s eyes and he had pulled her close to him. His lips had found hers and they’d tumbled down on to the springy thyme-scented grass, totally lost in each other.
But she had given her heart—and her body—to nothing more than a fantasy. Marco’s feelings for her had not been real. He had used her and discarded her. That exact same night, Marco had walked out while she had been sleeping—without bothering to tell her he was going, or even to leave her a message.
‘Claudia—’ Marco’s voice, hard and insistent, broke into her reverie and brought her hurtling back to the present ‘—you’re shivering!’
She stared at him with wide eyes.
He was right—she was shivering. But whether it was from the cold, or the shock of plunging into the sea, or from the unexpected force of her memories she couldn’t say.
‘Why did you follow me to Wales?’ she demanded—repeating the question he had evaded earlier. Her voice caught in her throat as she spoke, but she needed to know the answer. ‘How did you even know I was here?’
‘Your friend at work told me,’ he said.
‘You mean Rosie?’ Claudia looked up at him in surprise. ‘She shouldn’t have done that. And you had no right to go behind my back, asking questions about where I was.’
‘Why not—I wanted to see you,’ he responded. ‘To talk to you.’
She stared at him, knowing it couldn’t really be that simple. No one followed another person that far just to talk to them. There must be something else. He must want more.
He was standing with his back to the sea and she could hear the waves crashing dramatically on to the rocky beach behind him. It was an unfamiliar, wild and stormy setting for them to be together. Their brief, intense affair had taken place during the summer, mostly in the elegant and stylish northern Italian city of Turin—and that was where she’d usually thought of him.
But somehow Marco’s raw masculine presence seemed to fit the untamed beach in the wilds of Pembrokeshire perfectly. His clothes were soaked through, his black hair was spiky with salt water, and the edgy, slightly dangerous quality that usually characterised his expression seemed to echo their elemental surroundings exactly.
‘If
