They’re living with my parents and Andy’s working with Dad at the moment for their keep. My parents have got a farm—well, not really a farm, more of a smallholding, really, but they get by, and they could always have the wedding there. There’s a vegetable packing barn they could dress up for the wedding reception, but—well, my grandmother lived in Italy for a while and Jen’s always dreamed of getting married there, and now they haven’t got enough money even for a glass of cheap bubbly and a few sandwiches. So when I heard about this competition I just jumped at it, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined we’d get this far, never mind get a flight to exactly the right place. I’m just so grateful I don’t know where to start.’
She was gabbling. She stopped, snapped her mouth shut and gave him a rueful grin. ‘Sorry. I always talk a lot when the adrenaline’s running.’
He smiled and leant back, utterly charmed by her. More than charmed …
‘Relax. I have three sisters and two daughters, so I’m quite used to it, I’ve had a lot of practice.’
‘Gosh, it sounds like it. And you’ve got two brothers as well?’
‘Si. Luca’s the doctor and he’s married to an English girl called Isabelle, and Gio’s the lawyer. I also have a son, and two parents, and a million aunts and uncles and cousins.’
‘So what do you do?’ she asked, irresistibly curious, and he gave her a slightly lopsided grin.
‘You could say I’m a farmer, too. We grow grapes and olives and we make cheese.’
She glanced around at the plane. ‘You must make a heck of a lot of cheese,’ she said drily, and he chuckled, soft and low under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.
The slight huff of his breath made an errant curl drift against her cheek, and it was almost as if his fingertips had brushed lightly against her skin.
‘Not that much,’ he said, his eyes still smiling. ‘Mostly we concentrate on our wine and olive oil—Tuscan olive oil is sharper, tangier than the oil from southern Italy because we harvest the olives younger to avoid the frosts, and it gives it a distinctive and rich peppery flavour. But again, we don’t make a huge amount, we concentrate on quality and aim for the boutique market with limited editions of certified, artisan products. That’s what I was doing in England—I’ve been at a trade fair pushing our oil and wine to restaurateurs and gourmet delicatessens.’
She sat up straighter. ‘Really? Did you take samples with you?’
He laughed. ‘Of course. How else can I convince people that our products are the best? But the timing was bad, because we’re about to harvest the grapes and I’m needed at home. That’s why we chartered the plane, to save time.’
Chartered. So it wasn’t his. That made him more approachable, somehow and, if it was possible, even more attractive. As did the fact that he was a farmer. She knew about farming, about aiming for a niche market and going for quality rather than quantity. It was how she’d been brought up. She relaxed, hitched one foot up under her and hugged her knee under the voluminous skirt.
‘So, these samples—do you have any on the plane that I could try?’
‘Sorry, we’re out of wine,’ he said, but then she laughed and shook her head.
‘That’s not what I meant, although I’m sure it’s very good. I was talking about the olive oil. Professional interest.’
‘You grow olives on your farm in England?’ he asked incredulously, and she laughed again, tightening his gut and sending need arrowing south. It shocked him slightly, and he forced himself to concentrate.
‘No. Of course not. I’ve been living in a flat with a pot of basil on the window sill until recently! But I love food.’
‘You mentioned a professional interest.’
She nodded. ‘I’m a—’ She was going to say chef, but could you be a chef if you didn’t have a restaurant? If your kitchen had been taken away from you and you had nothing left of your promising career? ‘I cook,’ she said, and he got up and went to the rear of the plane and returned with a bottle of oil.
‘Here.’
He opened it and held it out to her, and she sniffed it slowly, drawing the sharp, fruity scent down into her lungs. ‘Oh, that’s gorgeous. May I?’
And taking it from him, she tipped a tiny pool into her hand and dipped her finger into it, sucking the tip and making an appreciative noise. Heat slammed through him, and he recorked the bottle and put it away to give him something to do while he reassembled his brain.
He never, never reacted to a woman like this! What on earth was he thinking of? Apart from the obvious, but he didn’t want to think about that. He hadn’t looked at a woman in that way for years, hadn’t thought about sex in he didn’t know how long. So why now, why this woman?
She wiped up the last drop, sucking her finger again and then licking her palm, leaving a fine sheen of oil on her lips that he really, really badly want to kiss away.
‘Oh, that is so good,’ she said, rubbing her hands together to remove the last trace. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have any bread or balsamic vinegar for dunking.’
He pulled a business card out of his top pocket and handed it to her, pulling his mind back into order and his eyes out of her cleavage. ‘Email me your address when you get home, I’ll send you some of our wine and oil, and also a traditional aceto balsamico made by my cousin in Modena. They only make a little, but it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. We took some with us, but I haven’t got any of that left, either.’
‘Wow. Well, if it’s as good as the olive oil, it must be fabulous!’
‘It is. We’re really proud of it in the family. It’s nearly as good as our olive oil and wine.’
She laughed, as she was meant to, tucking the card into her bag, then she tipped her head on one side. ‘Is it a family business?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, most definitely. We’ve been there for more than three hundred years. We’re very lucky. The soil is perfect, the slopes are all in the right direction, and if we can’t grow one thing on any particular slope, we grow another, or use it for pasture. And then there are the chestnut woods. We export a lot of canned chestnuts, both whole and puréed.’
‘And your wife?’ she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. ‘Does she help with the business, or do you keep her too busy producing children for you?’
There was a heartbeat of silence before his eyes clouded, and his smile twisted a little as he looked away. ‘Angelina died five years ago,’ he said softly, and she felt a wave of regret that she’d blundered in and brought his grief to life when they’d been having a sensible and intelligent conversation about something she was genuinely interested in.
She reached across the aisle and touched his arm gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have brought it up if …’
‘Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. Anyway, five years is a long time.’
Long enough that, when confronted by a vivacious, dynamic and delightful woman with beautiful, generous curves and a low-cut dress
