‘You’re kidding!’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. I’ve never been out of England before.’ Michael hadn’t earned very much, and neither had she—and saving up to buy a house had seemed more important than trips abroad. Though a man like Guy Masters would probably not understand that.
‘And you came here on your own?’
‘That’s right.’
He looked at her curiously. ‘Pretty daring thing to do,’ he observed, ‘first time in a foreign country on your own?’
Sabrina stared down at the fingers which were laced around her coffee-cup. ‘I’ve never done anything remotely daring before…’
‘What, never?’ he teased softly.
Sabrina didn’t smile back. Hadn’t she decided that life was too short to play safe all the time? ‘So I thought I’d give it a try,’ she said solemnly, and shifted her bottom back a little further on the seat.
Guy sipped his coffee and wished that she would sit still, not keep shifting around on the sofa as if she had ants in her pants. And then he remembered.
She wasn’t wearing any.
Dear God. A shaft of desire shot through him, which was as unexpected as it was inappropriate, and he took a huge mouthful of coffee—almost glad when it scalded his lips. He risked a surreptitious glance at his watch. Only forty-five minutes to go. Less if he was lucky. Much more of this and he would be unable to move.
‘So why Venice?’ he queried, a slight edge of desperation to his voice.
‘Oh, it’s one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and I—I had to…to…’
Something in the quality of her hesitation made him stir with interest. ‘Had to what?’
She had been about to say ‘get away’, but that particular statement always provoked the questions to ask why, and once that question had been asked then the whole sad story would come out. A story she was weary of telling. Weary of living through. She had come to Italy to escape from death and its clutches.
‘I had to see St Mark’s Square.’ She smiled brightly. ‘It was something of a life’s ambition. So was riding in a gondola.’
‘But not taking a bath in the Grand Canal?’
She actually laughed. ‘No. Not that. I hadn’t bargained on that!’
He thought how the laugh lit up her face. Like sunshine glowing from within. ‘And how long are you staying?’
‘Only a couple more days. How about you?’
He felt a pulse begin to beat insistently at his temple. Suddenly Venice was getting more attractive by the minute—rather uncomfortably attractive, actually. ‘Me, too,’ he said huskily, and risked another glance at his watch.
The room seemed much too small. Much too intimate. Again Sabrina shifted self-consciously on the sofa.
‘How old are you?’ he demanded suddenly, as she crossed one pale, slender thigh over the other.
Old enough to recognise that maybe Guy Masters wasn’t completely indifferent to her after all. The quiet, metallic gleam in the cool grey eyes told her that. But that wasn’t the kind of answer he was seeking.
‘I’m twenty-seven,’ she told him.
‘You look younger.’
‘So people say.’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘And you?’
‘Thirty-two.’
‘You look older.’
Their eyes connected as something primitive shuddered in the air around them.
‘I know I do,’ he murmured.
His words caressed her and Sabrina stared at him, unable to stop her eyes from committing every exquisite feature to memory. I will never forget you, she thought with an aching sense of sadness. Ever.
They sat in silence for a while as they drank their coffee. Eventually, there was a rap on the door and the valet delivered an exquisitely laundered set of underwear, jeans and T-shirt. Guy handed them over to her. ‘There you go,’ he said gravely.
She took them, blushingly aware that his fingertips had actually been touching the pressed cotton of her bra and panties. ‘I’d better go and get changed.’
And if he’d thought that she’d looked exquisite before, that was nothing to the transformation which had taken place when she emerged, shimmering, from the bathroom. Guy didn’t know what the laundry had managed to do with her clothes, but they now looked as if they were brand-new, and her hair had dried to a glorious strawberry-blonde sheen which spilled over her shoulders.
‘You’d better take this,’ he said as he dug deep into the pocket of his trousers and withdrew a wad of money, seeing her eyes widen in an alarmed question as he gave it to her.
‘What’s this?’ she demanded.
‘Didn’t you drop your purse into the water?’ he queried softly. ‘And don’t you need to get home?’
‘I can’t take your money,’ she protested.
‘Then don’t. Think of it as a loan. Pay me back tomorrow if you like.’
Sabrina slid the notes thoughtfully into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘OK. I will. Thanks.’
He went down with her in the lift to the foyer, telling himself that he would never see her again.
And wondering why that thought should make him ache so much, and so badly.
DESPITE telling herself that she was being crazy and unrealistic, Sabrina couldn’t help the decided spring to her step next morning as she set off to return Guy’s money, nor the flush of anticipation which made her cheeks glow. And why had she dressed up for him in an ice-blue sundress which very nearly matched her eyes and peep-toed sandals which made her legs look longer than they really were?
Surely she didn’t imagine for a moment that he would take one look at her and decide that she was the woman of his dreams?
She put the stack of lire in an envelope. He probably wouldn’t even be there, she reasoned. She would just have to leave the money for him at Reception.
The buildings soared up all around her and the water—which was everywhere—seemed to glimmer and glitter with some unspoken promise. As her steps drew her closer to Guy’s hotel, she felt the slow prickle of nerves.
She told herself that even if he was there he would probably just take the money with that cool, enigmatic smile and thank her. Then say goodbye, his faintly quizzical expression mocking her if she was foolish enough
