as a child as they were the one feature that linked her to her lanky blonde, suntanned school friends.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ she said once she located her voice.
After a brief moment in which the little girl assimilated the English word, she said, ‘Hello,’ also in English but with a thick Italian accent. ‘My name is Mila.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mila. I’m Gracie.’
Mila was not smiling, or frowning, just watching Gracie with her head tipped to one side. ‘Are you OK?’
Gracie cracked an unexpected grin. But there was nothing to be gained from confiding in the little girl. ‘Sure, I’m OK. Thank you for asking.’
Gracie looked around for the child’s guardian. There were people everywhere, tourists throwing coins, local men selling bottle openers emblazoned with the pope’s face, pairs of nuns sifting through the bottle openers, young men ‘giving away’ one-euro roses.
‘Where’s your mother?’ Gracie asked, taking the little girl by the hand.
‘In heaven,’ the girl said, her face earnest and calm.
Gracie’s gaze snapped back to her cohort. It seemed they had more in common than their looks. ‘Well, then, your father? Your…papa? Is he here?’
Mila nodded.
‘Can you point him out to me?’ Gracie asked.
The little girl did not need to. At that moment, Gracie caught sight of a tall male figure moving frantically through the crowd, leaping to see over heads and not caring if he was shoving at people as he went.
Gracie’s stomach gave an unexpected little flip. She could tell he was a stunner even with the look of controlled terror on his face. He was immaculately dressed in a black suit and long coat that swished out behind him like a cape as he dodged through the crowd. He had dark hair slightly longer than was fashionable back home, but it looked just right on the tall, dark and handsome types who could be found on many a street corner in Rome. His eyes flashed so bright she could not make out their colour.
With a brisk shake of her head, Gracie refused to be drawn into the unintentional allurement of the little girl’s father. It was the Italian thing, that was all.
Her lifelong captivation with all things Italian had been cemented after she first saw The Godfather trilogy. She had watched the films enough times over the years to develop an effusive crush on the charismatic Al Pacino and to be able to repeat entire scenes of dialogue when the opportunity arose. The fact that it had riled her mother to distraction only made the Italian thing more enticing.
‘Mi scusi!’ Gracie waved one arm madly as she held on tight to her young friend with the other.
‘Papa!’ Mila called out, imitating Gracie’s waving hand.
The sweet, high voice of his daughter was enough to have the man stop, his feet shoulder-width apart, his ears straining to pick up on the familiar sound.
‘Call out again,’ Gracie said, grabbing Mila about the waist and hitching her up onto her hip.
‘Papa. Vieni qui!’
The man turned, as though he had extra-sensory radar attuned to that particular voice. He spotted his daughter, his expression went from terror to relief, and he rushed over towards them, in one smooth movement sweeping Mila from Gracie’s hip and into his arms, twirling her about, chattering away a million miles a minute in lilting Italian as he went. It was obvious to Gracie’s ears that he was chastising her, but it must have been in the most adorable manner, as the little girl would not stop giggling.
Up close and personal, the guy was definite crush material with a good several inches’ height advantage over Mr Pacino, and bone structure that would give Michelangelo’s David a run for his money.
Once he put Mila down, she started babbling away in Italian and pointing in Gracie’s direction. The man bent over, listening intently, before flicking his dark gaze in Gracie’s direction.
Melted dark chocolate, she thought as she had her first proper view of the colour of those flashing eyes.
Keeping hold of his daughter’s hand, he stood up straight, his tall frame dwarfing her five feet five and a half inches. Now his focus had shifted, Gracie had it one hundred per cent. He looked at her so completely she felt as though he was committing her face to memory. It was riveting. Her stomach flipped a little higher.
Then his mouth flickered with the beginnings of a smile. And, despite the remarkable appeal of his puppy-dog eyes, if she was describing him to the Saturday Night Cocktails gang back home, his smooth, chiselled, perfectly shaped mouth would have been given a litany all on its own.
‘Ciao,’ he said. His voice was deep and sensuous to Gracie’s ears. ‘Grazie per—’
Gracie held up her hands and he stopped mid-sentence. She dragged her gaze from that slightly smiling mouth and back to his kind and captivating eyes.
‘Whoa. Hang on there, partner. Non comprende. Ah, Australian,’ she said, pointing to herself. ‘I don’t parle much Italiano…’ Her words petered out. She found herself shaking her head and flapping her hands and feeling like a madwoman, yet the little girl’s father was watching her with an ever-increasing smile lighting his face. His lovely face.
She shook the obscuring thoughts from her head, telling herself that her reaction was a mix of the Italian thing and the relief at having someone looking at her as if she was a real person for the first time in weeks, not just a nuisance with no language skills or a tourist to be taken advantage of.
‘Luca Siracusa,’ he said, holding out his spare hand.
‘Gracie Lane,’ she returned, shaking said hand.
He bowed lightly and let her go, but his smiling eyes remained on her. Her hand fluttered to her throat, which was suddenly feeling warm. Mila took a hold of her other hand and swung between the two adults, skipping and dancing and singing some unknown tune to herself.
‘You are an Australian, Ms Lane?’ Luca asked in perfect English. His accent was lilting and obviously came from American schooling.
‘Yep.’
‘I’m afraid I mistook you for a Roman. You do not have the same wide-eyed grin of the tourists around here.’
Gracie tried to smile, but her heart was breaking all over again. Of course she looked Italian! That was the problem!
‘Well, I am,’ she said, still getting used to admitting as much aloud. ‘Half, actually.’
‘But you don’t speak the language?’ he asked.
The answer to that was complicated. Too complicated. She waved a dismissive hand and said, ‘Only enough to catch a train and buy a piece of pizza.’
That earned her a grin from the guy and any judge would have given her stomach’s resultant triple back-flip a perfect ten.
‘I was saying how grateful I am that you brought me back my Mila. She is a handful enough within our grounds. I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing
