‘I’m Rebecca Solway. Becky.’
He looked down at the small, elegant hand she held out to him. For the first time he seemed to become uncertain. Then he thrust out his own hand. It was coarse and powerful, bruised and battered by heavy work. It engulfed hers out of sight.
His whole appearance was rough. His dark hair needed cutting and hung shaggily about his thickly muscled neck. He wore worn black jeans and a black sleeveless vest, and he was well over six feet, built on impressive lines.
Hercules, she thought.
The frightening rage in his face had disappeared entirely now, and the look he turned on her was gentle, although unsmiling. ‘Rebecca,’ he repeated.
‘No, Becky to my friends. You are my friend, aren’t you? You must be, after you saved me.’
For the whole of her short life, her charm and beauty had won people over. It was unusual for anyone not to warm to her easily, but she could sense this young man’s hesitation.
‘Yes,’ he said awkwardly at last. ‘I am your friend.’
‘Then you’ll call me Becky?’
‘Becky.’
‘Do you live here alone, or with a family?’
‘I have no family. This was my mother’s and father’s house, and now it belongs to me.’
The firm tone in which he said the last words prompted her to say, ‘Hey, I’m not arguing about that. It’s yours, it’s yours.’
‘I wish your father felt the same way. Where is he now?’
‘In Spain. He’ll be home next week.’
‘Until then I think it’s better if you don’t ride alone.’
She had been thinking the same thing, but this easy assumption of authority riled her.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He frowned. ‘There is no need to beg my pardon.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ she said, realising that his English was not as good as he’d claimed. “‘I beg your pardon” is an expression that means “Who the heck do you think you are to give me orders?”.’
He frowned again. ‘Then why not just say so?’
‘Because…’ But the task of explaining was too much. She abandoned English in favour of Tuscan dialect.
‘Don’t give me orders. I’ll ride as I please.’
‘And what happens next time, when I may not be there to come to your aid?’ he asked in the same language.
‘They’ll have gone by now.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘That’s—that’s got nothing to do with it,’ she floundered, unable to counter the argument.
A faint smile appeared on his face. ‘I think it has.’
‘Oh, stop being so reasonable!’ she said crossly.
The smile became a grin. ‘Very well. Whatever pleases you.’
She smiled back ruefully. ‘You might be right.’
He refilled her cup and she sipped it appreciatively. ‘You make very good tea. I’m impressed.’
‘And I am impressed that you speak my dialect so well.’
‘My grandmother taught me. She came from here. She used to own the house where we live now.’
‘Emilia Talese?’
‘That was her maiden name, yes.’
‘My family have always been carpenters. They used to do jobs for her family.’
That was their first meeting. He walked home with her, coming into the house, instructing the servants to take good care of her, as if he’d been commanding people all his life.
‘Will you be all right?’ she asked, thinking of him walking back alone in the gathering dusk. ‘Suppose they’re waiting for you?’
His grin was answer enough. It said that such fears were for other men. Then he walked out, leaving behind only the memory of his brilliant self-confidence. It was as strong as sunlight, and he seemed both to carry it with him, and leave it behind wherever he had been.
CHAPTER TWO
NEXT day Becky left the house early and rode down to find him. She had gone to bed thinking of him, lain awake thinking of him, finally slept, dreaming of him, then awoke thinking of him. She saw his face, young yet forceful, the mouth that was too stern for his years, until he smiled and became suddenly charming.
His mouth haunted her. With everything in her she wanted to kiss it, and to feel it kissing her back. And his arms, as powerful as steel hawsers, belonged around her. She knew that, as certainly as she had ever known anything, knew it with the conviction of a girl who had never seriously been denied anything she really wanted.
She had never even kissed a man before. But now that she’d met Luca she wanted him completely, in every way. It was as though her body had come alive in an instant, sending a message to her brain: this is the one.
The only question was how and when. It was impossible that the world, or Luca himself, could deny her.
As she approached he heard the hoof beats and looked up. She jumped down from the horse, facing him, and she knew at once, with joyful certainty, that he too had lain awake all night. But he turned away from her.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘I told you not to ride alone.’
‘Then why didn’t you come for me?’
‘Because the signorina did not give me orders to do so,’ he said proudly.
‘But I don’t give you orders. We’re just friends.’
She stood looking into his face, willing him to let her have her wish. He gave the slow smile that already made her heart beat strongly.
‘Why don’t you go and make the tea?’ he suggested.
She did so, and spent the rest of the day helping him work on the house. He made rolls with salami, which was the most delicious food she’d ever tasted. But she hadn’t given up her determination to make him kiss her. Sooner or later he would yield.
It took her three days to crack his resistance. During that time she came to know the man a little. He had a touchy pride that could make his temper smoulder, although he always reined it in quickly for her sake.
On the first day he had said, ‘Whatever pleases you,’ and that became his mantra. Whatever pleased her was right for him. This big man, who could be so ferocious to others, was like a child in her hands. It gave her a delicious sense of power.
But she couldn’t make him do the one thing she wanted above all else. She created chance after chance, and he wouldn’t take any of them, until one day he said, ‘I think you should go home now.’ He added in slow, awkward English, ‘It has been very nice knowing you.’
Her answer was to pick up a bread roll from the table and hurl it at him. He ducked, but didn’t seem disconcerted.
‘Why don’t you like me any more?’ she cried.
‘I do like you, Becky. I like you more than I should. That is why you must go, and not come back.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense!’
‘I think you know just what I mean.’
‘No!’ she cried, refusing to understand what didn’t suit her.
‘I think you do. You know what I want with