mostly,’ he told her.
‘They do say all roads lead there.’
‘Ecco Roma!’ he exclaimed, falling back effortlessly into Italian.
She paused to look up at him. He was so very much taller she had to tilt her head back. ‘Your accent is good.’
‘I must have a good ear,’ he said. ‘At least that’s what I was told. For someone born in Australia, you still retain a trace of your accent.’
‘I know.’ Just the merest flash of a smile. He all but missed it. ‘We’re bilingual as a family. Actually, I speak French as well. It’s been a big help to me in my line of work.’
‘As a chef?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t speak fifteen languages.’ He made an attempt to get a bigger smile from her. Longer. ‘Sing, paint, play the piano, maybe even the harp? What you don’t look like is you eat much of your own cooking!’ he mocked gently. ‘You’re what? One hundred and two, one hundred and four pounds?’ His downbent gaze lightly skimmed her petite figure.
He loved her dress, just a slip of a thing that left her golden arms and lovely legs bare. Low oval neck, short skirt—simplicity itself. Only what it was made of turned it into a work of art.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked, turning her great dark eyes on him almost with censure.
‘Actually, I was looking at your dress. What is it made of? Beribboned lace?’
She kept walking, twirling a perfumed pink blossom in her hand. ‘If you must know it’s embroidered crocheted cotton by a top designer.’
‘Okay, I’m impressed.’ He laughed in his throat.
‘Thank you.’ She coloured just a tiny bit. ‘I bought it in London. It wasn’t cheap.’
‘Worth every penny, I’d say,’ he said dryly. ‘You should never take it off. So, how long is the vacation going to be?’ How much time did he have? God, was he mad? This woman was drawing him deeper and deeper beneath her spell.
‘I’m in no hurry to go back,’ she said.
She couldn’t tell him she feared to go back. She had told no one. Not even her family. Gerald Templeton, the only son of a very wealthy and influential upper-class family, a man about town in swinging London, had in a short period of time become obsessively attracted to her—to the extent he had turned into a stalker when she’d told him she no longer wanted to see him. It wasn’t beyond him to follow her to Australia if he could track her down. All it took was a plane ticket.
He saw the shadow that crossed her face. ‘Sounds like this vacation is more like an escape?’ He was following a gut feeling. Chuck always did say he was good at interpreting vibes. Besides, one could learn crucial things through instinct and gut feelings.
She said nothing. She reached out to pick another flower, twirling it beneath her small straight nose. ‘You told me you were interested in the Callaghan place—Briar’s Ridge?’ She changed the subject.
He nodded. ‘Very much so. I have Alana’s okay; now I have to get her brother’s. I only met Kieran today, and we haven’t had time to talk. I heard he’s become a real someone in the art world, and I know Alex is involved. Guy and I went to the same school, where he was sort of like my mentor. Anyway, he kept me in check.’
‘You were a bad boy?’ She looked up into his undeniably handsome, charismatic face.
He gave a twisted smile, deepening those dimples. ‘In some ways, yes.’
‘I have observed your dark side,’ she commented, pausing to admire a stone cupid. Someone had placed a mixed bouquet of flowers in the cupid’s lap. A romantic touch.
‘Now, how the heck did you manage to do that?’ he asked wryly.
‘A woman’s instinct,’ she said, turning to allow her eyes to roam his face.
‘Maybe you would have made a good psychologist, had you followed that path.’
‘Maybe I would. Do…do you have a girlfriend? Someone you care about?’
‘Is this simple curiosity, Daniela?’ His silvery green gaze, made even more startling against his darkly tanned skin, openly mocked her.
She walked on, picking up pace. ‘All right, don’t tell me.’
He caught her up easily. ‘Like most guys, I’ve had plenty of girlfriends, but no one in particular. Tell me about the guy in London. The one you’re on the run from.’
She felt a violent thrill of shock. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It would explain why you’re so wary.’ He spoke tautly, angry at the very thought some guy might have been hassling her.
‘You’re way off the mark.’ She wasn’t going to tell him he had scored a bullseye.
‘Am I? You’re a beautiful woman. A lot of beautiful women feed on their own self-regard. At least that’s been my experience. You’re not like that. You don’t see your beauty as something special, more a danger. Am I right?’
What else had he learned about her? ‘Maybe I’m beautiful only by your set of criteria?’ she suggested evasively.
‘Nonsense,’ he clipped off. ‘You’d warrant a double take anywhere. Unfortunately it’s in some men’s nature to hunt beautiful women.’
She stood looking up at him, trying to hide her emotions. ‘Why are you speaking to me like this? You don’t know anything about me.’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he countered. ‘Yet you said I have a dark side. I assure you, hunting beautiful women is not my style. So you can relax. I had a mother I adored. I would hate to throw a scare into any woman.’
She believed him. He would never do so deliberately. ‘You said had?’ She changed the subject again. ‘Your mother is dead?’
‘Breast cancer.’ His tone, considering how he felt, was extraordinarily level—even matter-of-fact.
It didn’t fool her. ‘And after she died you didn’t know how you were going to go on with life?’ she suggested gently. ‘You must have been a boy?’
There was definitely something between the two of them now. ‘Are you deliberately turning the tables, Daniela? I was twelve, my brother Charles eighteen months older. Sad, sad times for both of us.’
She kept her eyes on him, fascinated and disturbed by his dark good looks and magnetic presence. ‘And your father? Was he able to offer much love and support? He, too, must have been devastated.’
‘Oh, he was!’ He could hear the cutting cynicism in his own voice. ‘He remarried barely two years later.’
‘A younger woman?’ She felt his world of anger, pain and bitter resentment.
