.

by me and if there’s anything I need you to do I’ll let you know,’ said Sandro as Tessa stumbled after him down the winding path to the beach in the virtual dark of the bitterly cold morning.

      To think that she had spent half the night tossing in sleepless dread of this encounter, she marvelled disgruntledly, whereas he obviously hadn’t lost any sleep over what had happened between them on their last meeting.

      She had been relieved when he hadn’t appeared for dinner the previous evening, but had soon noticed that someone else was also missing.

      ‘That woman we saw earlier—isn’t she staying here?’ she had enquired of Babs.

      ‘You mean Angelica Bellini,’ her cousin had replied with a grin. ‘And what you’re really asking me is where are she and Sandro.’

      ‘No, I’m—’

      ‘And, given what you’re up to,’ Babs had continued relentlessly, plainly enjoying herself, ‘that’s not the sort of question I’m prepared to answer.’

      ‘You know perfectly well my intention is to do a serious article on his professional habits, not something salacious on his love life.’

      ‘What, in the hope that Ray Linton will print it?’ Babs had chortled. ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’

      There was no sense to be had from Babs when she was in that irritatingly flippant frame of mind, so she had let the subject drop. But her cousin’s teasingly exaggerated secrecy had left her with the impression that the director could well be romantically involved with the elusive Angelica, which, if true, and given his earlier behaviour, indicated that he more than deserved his infamy as a womaniser.

      ‘Are you sure you’ll be warm enough dressed like that?’ asked Sandro, eyeing her slim, jeans-clad legs when he turned and waited while she negotiated the last of the rock-hewn steps on a particularly steep and twisting section of the path.

      ‘Quite sure…Good heavens!’ she gasped as the beach below came into sight—a beach that was a hive of industry, littered with men and equipment of every shape and size and bathed in the illusion of bright sunlight by a blinding array of arc lamps. ‘I’m not sure what I expected,’ she whispered dazedly.

      ‘But nothing like this,’ he laughed, the indulgence in his tone surprising her almost as much as the sight below. ‘Come on, let’s get you down there and introduced to the grim realities of producing fantasy.’

      It was only the bitter cold of the January morning that brought any grimness to the proceedings, she had decided a couple of hours later when, chilled to the marrow, she was taking a mental inventory of the meagre wardrobe she had brought with her. The only answer she could think of, to prevent a repeat of the physical agonies she was experiencing, was to wear everything she had brought in layers next time. But not even the piercing bitterness of the wind, nor the fitful drizzle of rain, could detract from her feelings of exhilaration. She was utterly absorbed in what was going on around her, fascinated beyond her every expectation—even though all she was doing, she realised, was watching them line up the shots they planned taking of the incomparably beautiful scenery.

      ‘I’m sure you must be finding all this rather boring,’ Sandro called, his broad shoulders hunching against a sudden scurry of wind as he strode back up the beach towards her. ‘But you’ll soon get the hang of what’s going on.’

      Tessa smiled and shook her head as he reached her. ‘Of course I’m not bored,’ she protested, then felt her heart skip several beats. The wind dancing through the inky darkness of his uncovered hair lent an air of almost piratical raffishness to the already dramatically exotic figure he cut. ‘I’m finding it all fascinating,’ she added unsteadily, thrown by the overwhelming impact he was suddenly having on her.

      ‘But we’re not doing anything,’ he laughed with a flash of faultlessly formed white teeth. ‘We’re—’ He broke off, the laughter dying to grimness on his face. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded icily.

      ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she stammered, colour flooding her cheeks. ‘It’s just that I was thinking how like a pirate you looked, walking up the beach—not that I have much idea what a real pirate would look like.’

      ‘A pirate?’ he enquired, the grimness fading from him. ‘A pirate in designer ski-wear?’

      ‘I’m sorry—it was rude of me,’ muttered Tessa, limp with embarrassment and feeling only marginally relieved that he had accepted her outlandish excuse for so openly gawping at him.

      ‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he laughed. ‘Paolo will love that; he’s convinced pirates must have operated from here in the olden days—’ He broke off and bellowed something in Italian to the man standing behind a camera on the shoreline, receiving only an impatiently dismissive wave of the hand in reply.

      ‘When I say we’re doing nothing,’ Sandro chuckled, ‘that’s not quite accurate. What’s happening is that Paolo’s artistic temperament is being indulged.’ He smiled as Tessa cast a bemused look in the direction of the cameraman. ‘There’s something ticking away in his head as he’s shooting the bay right now. I’ve little idea what it is, but I’ve told him to get on with it anyway.’

      ‘But…’ began Tessa, then thought better of it.

      ‘But what?’

      ‘It’s just that I thought a director—well, directed, and that everyone else carried out his instructions.’

      ‘That’s how it is, for the most part,’ he replied easily. ‘But I’m not given to playing God with crews the calibre of mine. When a man of Paolo’s genius behind the camera has a hunch, it’s more often than not an inspired hunch—I’d be a fool not to indulge him.’

      Tessa was mentally nodding as she returned her gaze to the camera. Almost the first thing she had noticed was the atmosphere of relaxed camaraderie in which so many different nationalities interacted. But the apparent effortlessness of such interaction was, she now realised, due to the taut professionalism of the highly skilled men involved and their obvious respect and affection for the man whose creative genius co-ordinated their skills.

      ‘Do you always work with the same crew?’ she asked.

      ‘I tend to pick my crews from a fairly narrow circle,’ he replied. ‘Unfortunately there are times when lack of availability forces me to compromise—though where cinematographers are concerned, if Paolo or a guy by the name of Umberto Bellini wasn’t available, I’d probably choose to wait till one or the other was.’

      ‘Umberto Bellini—wasn’t he the man hurt in an accident on one of your films?’

      ‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Poor Umberto—’ He broke off, a guarded expression coming to his face before, to her complete bewilderment, he began speaking in Italian.

      It was only when she realised he must be addressing someone else that Tessa turned round, appalled awareness flitting unguardedly through her mind of how ghastly she must look as she saw approaching the tall figure of the woman she had fleetingly glimpsed the previous day.

      ‘Have you two met?’ asked Sandro, a discernible edge to his tone as he switched back to English.

      ‘No, we haven’t,’ said the woman, her smile accentuating the striking beauty of her face as she removed a gloved hand from beneath the elegant tartan wrap draped around her. ‘It’s so good to find another woman here,’ she murmured in perfect, slightly American-accented English as she shook hands with Tessa. ‘You must be about the only female crew member not to have succumbed to this dreadful flu.’

      ‘Tessa isn’t a member of the crew, she’s just kindly agreed to fill in for Carla,’ said Sandro before Tessa had a chance to speak. His mouth tightened to a grim line when Angelica made a teasing-sounding comment to him in Italian. ‘I don’t think Tessa speaks Italian,’ he stated with brusque pointedness.

      ‘Oh, I am sorry!’ exclaimed Angelica,