Passionate Affairs: Breakfast at Giovanni's. Kate Hardy

      It was weird, going to sleep in Gio’s bed. Even though the sheets were clean, his scent was everywhere; and being wrapped in his duvet felt a bit like being wrapped in his arms.

      Right now she could really do with a cuddle. She had no idea when her flat would be habitable again, or how much of her stuff would have to be replaced, or even if the flat would still have the same feel about it when all the repairs had been made.

      ‘Pull yourself together. Stop being so wet. There are plenty of people in far worse situations,’ she told herself fiercely. Yet still the tears slid silently down her face. She scrubbed them away and buried her face in the pillow, until at last she fell asleep.

      Until a strange noise woke her.

      A noise that sounded like the door opening.

      For a moment, she was disorientated: then she remembered she was in Gio’s bedroom. In Gio’s bed. He was asleep on the sofa bed in the living room. She must have dreamed all that nonsense about the door opening. It was probably a floorboard creaking as the building settled overnight or something; and didn’t people always misinterpret the noises in a strange house?

      She turned over to go back to sleep.

      And then she felt the mattress dip beside her.

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      FRAN’S first reaction was to shriek and switch on the light.

      Gio also gave out the most almighty yell—and then sat bolt upright and stared at her in shock. ‘Fran? What—why—how—oh, Dio.’ He groaned and covered his face with his hands. ‘I’m so sorry. When I offered you a bed for the night, I didn’t mean you had to share it with me. This wasn’t meant to happen. I… Look, I’m really sorry for disturbing you.’ He started to slide out of the bed—and then stopped.

      ‘Um, Fran, can you turn the light off?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Turn the light off,’ he repeated. ‘Unless you want an eyeful. Because I’m not wearing…’ He dragged in a breath and looked her straight in the eye. ‘Oh, hell. This isn’t what you think it is, I swear it.’

      She shook her head. ‘Right now, I don’t have a clue what’s going on.’

      He swallowed hard. ‘I sleepwalk. I haven’t done it for years—I used to do it when I was a kid, but I thought I’d grown out of it.’

      ‘You sleepwalk?’So he’d walked into her room and climbed into bed with her without realising what he was doing?

      He nodded. ‘Mum took me to a few doctors when I was little. They did all kinds of tests, but it seemed there wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it. Nobody knows why it happens. I just…sleepwalk.’