smiled, anticipation filling him again.
* * *
‘Oh, wow!’ Fran breathed, her eyes widening at the sight appearing before them as the SUV gained the low brow of a hill, revealing what was beyond.
It was like something out of a sci-fi film—other-worldly—with a vast matrix of huge dish antennae, angled upwards to catch the faintest radio whisper of distant stars, each one set on rails for moving into precise position.
The whole place was perimeter-fenced, but they drove up to the visitor centre, where Fran identified herself as from her university and promptly got the attention of one of the technical staff to show them around.
Nic was as impressed as anyone would be by the engineering feats achieved, but understood scarcely a word of their erudite exchanges. He was content just to see how the animation in her face, the interest in her keen, intelligent eyes, only enhanced her beauty, her appeal to him.
As they finally left the array she was fulsome in her thanks. He gave her his slashing smile. ‘This morning was your treat—this afternoon is mine. But you’ll enjoy it, I promise you.’
She did, too—though she gasped breathlessly as Nic showed her just why it was his treat.
They drove on another forty miles or so to a reservoir lake with a water resort, where they lunched at a waterfront café. Then Nic led her out along the jetty and hired the leanest, meanest motorboat available.
And hit the accelerator.
Fran’s breath and speech were blown far behind her, her hair streaming, her hands clutching at the rails as the boat flew across the lake, the bow hitting the water’s surface as if it was concrete. Italian words broke from her—and she heard Nic laugh, realised he could understand her expletives, and her description of him as a certifiable maniac who would kill them both.
‘No way! You’re safe as a baby!’ he yelled at her, in the same language, his face alight with laughter.
He bombed across the width of the lake, slewing around in a huge arcing curve of water that caught the sun’s rays in a million rainbows before racing back towards the jetty again.
Within reach of it he slowed and turned to Fran. Her hair was a wild tangle, her eyes alight with laughter. Nic let his arm slide around her shoulder and pulled her against him.
‘Fun?’ he asked.
He didn’t really have to ask. It was visible in her face.
She let her head rest on his shoulder, feeling it strong beneath her cheek. ‘Most fun ever,’ she said.
‘Happy to please you,’ he said, and dropped a kiss on her forehead.
Such a slight gesture, such a slight tightening of his arm around her... They sat beside each other, his other hand on the wheel, guiding the boat lightly on the water as if he were Cesare on one of his thoroughbreds.
Fran’s eyes flickered slightly, and she wondered why, of all things, she was thinking of Cesare now.
Nic saw it, saw her expression change. ‘What is it?’ he asked quietly.
She looked at him, easing away a little, but not freeing herself. ‘I’m thinking of the man I nearly married,’ she said.
Nic stilled. It was impossible to think of her married, or even engaged—taken by another man. Not when he wanted her himself so much.
‘What happened?’ he heard his voice asking. He heard the tension in it, but didn’t know why it was there.
‘I broke it off,’ she said. ‘I’d just been offered a research post out on the West Coast, working with a Nobel Laureate, and I couldn’t resist it. And I was pretty sure,’ she added slowly, ‘that Cesare was involved with someone else anyway.’
‘Then he was nuts,’ said Nic bluntly. ‘Nuts to prefer someone else to you.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But he and I...we never—well, you know. It wasn’t an affair that we had. It was a—Well, I guess a kind of expectation. We’d known each other all our lives. It would have worked, him and me.’
‘Cesare?’ mused Nic, registering the Italian name, which she’d pronounced in the Italian way. ‘So—back in the old country?’
‘Very much so,’ she said dryly, thinking of just how sizeable a chunk of ‘the old country’ Cesare’s estates covered.
Nic eased the throttle again. He didn’t want to know any more about the guy that she’d nearly married and hadn’t. Right now he wanted to be the only male in her vision, her thoughts.
Her desires.
At a much slower pace he nosed the boat forward again, keeping his arm around Fran, where he wanted it to be.
‘Let’s see what’s at the far end of the lake,’ he said.
* * *
The sun was lowering by the time they handed the boat in. Nic turned to her. Her hair was still windblown, her skin sun-kissed even with sun-block. She looked effortlessly lovely.
‘What next?’ he asked.
His eyes were light on her, the question in his voice putting the decision in her hands. The choice of what was to happen—or not—between them now.
Fran’s expression flickered. ‘It’s a long way back to the Falcone,’ she observed. ‘Maybe too far?’ Her glance went to the resort motel that was set back on a low bluff.
‘Not in the Falcone league,’ Nic said, ‘but it looks passable.’
He kept his voice neutral, not wanting to show his satisfaction that she was indicating they should stay there together. As he so wanted.
Fran gave a wry smile. ‘There speaks a loyal employee of the famous Falcone chain!’ she answered lightly.
Then she nodded, as if making a silent decision for herself. Maybe thinking about Cesare, talking about him, had confirmed her feelings. Told her that whatever it was that was happening between her and Nic, she wanted it to happen.
‘OK...’ She took a breath. ‘Let’s go for it.’
Even so, she booked separate rooms at Reception—and not just because anything else might have seemed too...obvious. She definitely needed a bathroom and a bedroom entirely to herself—her wind-tangled hair and water-splashed day-worn clothes were a disaster.
Gratefully spotting a small retail outlet, inset into the lobby, she plunged in.
It was a good hour before she was ready to meet Nic in the motel’s bar. As he rose to greet her, she laughed.
‘Snap!’
They had both, it seemed, availed themselves of the retail outlet’s offerings—and not just shampoo and toiletries for her, and a razor for him. They were both now wearing tee shirts bearing the name of the lake, Fran’s in pink and Nic’s in blue.
But where Nic was making do with the chinos he’d been wearing all day, Fran had found a wraparound cotton skirt in white seersucker that floated gracefully to mid-calf to replace her water-stained Bermuda shorts. Her newly washed hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her only make-up was a touch of mascara and lip gloss.
She knew Nic’s eyes were warm upon her.
But then, hers were warm on him, too. He was cleanly shaven, damp hair feathering at the nape of his neck, and the deep blue tee shirt matched his eyes and lovingly moulded his torso. But he was no muscle-bound Adonis. That innate air of Italian style he possessed was overwhelming—the kind of automatic male display that she was used to seeing in her countrymen. It was not vanity, or showing off, but it came instinctively to them.
‘You look so Italian,’ she heard herself say as they took their happy hour cocktails over to a table looking out