STANDING UP, HE held out his hand to Eva. She hesitated. Then she smiled and reached out to him. He drew her with him, pausing only at the counter to pay.
‘We’ll be back.’ Roman narrowed his eyes when it struck him that the gaze of the smiling waiter taking his money was fixed longingly on Eva’s face.
His hackles rose. He smoothed them down again. Who could blame the youth when Eva looked as she did—a little bewildered and surprised she could enjoy herself and relax as she had with him? She was endearingly dishevelled from the stiff breeze blowing off the sea, and her face was flushed from the warm sun on her winter pale skin. She looked beautiful. She looked beautiful and vulnerable and desirable, yet strong. She was as strong as he was, maybe. But she was tender too, and sensitive. He had never told anyone the history of the chain he wore, or his backstory. Only the two men in the consortium knew that, and they had known him since school. And though they had hardly known each other long, he trusted her, and for no better reason that he knew his diamonds, and Eva was a pure blue-white in a grimy world. She was everything he had dreamed about as a teenager, and as a man could never find.
‘Where are you taking me now?’ she asked him as they headed back towards the helicopter.
‘That depends on whether you’re prepared to call a truce or not,’ he teased her, drawing her along by the hand, wondering if he had ever felt quite so relaxed or so happy with a woman. ‘Personally, I think you owe me for showing you around.’ His face relaxed in a smile as he stared down at her.
She met his gaze and smiled. ‘I’m not sure I’m quite in the same league as you, Roman. I don’t have a helicopter to whisk you away, or a multimillion-pound facility to blow your mind.’
‘How about a return trip to Skavanga?’
‘Are you serious?’ The smile died and was replaced by something far more touching.
‘Never more so,’ he said.
‘Then it’s a date,’ she said, brightening at once.
There weren’t many women who could persuade him to change his plans. Eva could, because he wanted to please her. But he still wasn’t sure he could break the habit of a lifetime and learn to feel again, so for Eva’s sake he had decided on a delaying tactic he thought she might enjoy before they made the trip to Skavanga. ‘We’re going somewhere else first.’
‘Where?’ she asked him when they reached the helicopter.
‘Get in and I’ll tell you.’
‘Roman?’ she prompted while he was buckling her in.
‘Close.’ His lips curved in a smile as he settled the headphones on her head. ‘We’re going to Rome.’
She looked at him. ‘Why not Rome?’ He shrugged, stood back and closed her door.
‘Explain,’ she demanded through the headphones the instant they were in the air.
‘I have an apartment in Rome.’
‘Of course you do.’ She sighed with resignation.
‘It’s a city apartment and I think you’ll like it.’
‘But all my clothes are at the palazzo.’
One rucksack and a heavy parka? ‘So we’ll buy some more.’
‘Life is always so simple for you.’ She didn’t sound pleased. ‘And no. We will not buy some more clothes for me. What do you think I am?’
‘A small shareholder in the mining company I’ve invested in. Just call it an advance on your next dividend.’
That silenced her—for around ten seconds. ‘That sounds very confident.’
‘I’m a very confident man, Signorina Skavanga.’
‘I noticed,’ she murmured beneath her breath.
* * *
This was amazing, Eva thought as Roman led her through the grand entrance into a tiled courtyard of what had to be one of the most magnificent buildings in Rome. To describe this as a city apartment hardly did it justice. If there was one thing she had noticed about billionaires—bearing in mind she only knew one—it was that they were masters of understatement. And they certainly knew how to rack up the miles. Distance meant nothing to them. Hotels were redundant. Roman appeared to have a home in every worthwhile stopping off point in the world.
And Rome was definitely worthwhile, Eva reflected, marvelling at the grandiose surroundings as the cool of plaster walls and marble floors soothed her heated senses. Roman had pointed out all the unbelievably well preserved historical sites as they were driven from the airport to the city. To see ancient buildings co-existing next to very modern structures was astonishing. The modern city of Rome had been built around artefacts that left history intact as a lasting reminder that everyone carried a legacy from the past. The Coliseum was so much bigger than she had imagined, and infinitely more menacing, while the Vatican City with its stunning rococo architecture was breath-taking. Roman had asked their driver to stop at the Trevi Fountain, where he had pointed out the statue of Oceanus, god of all the waters, who gazed out sternly from his horse-drawn shell chariot, which was guarded by conch shell blowing tritons.
‘It’s magnificent...’
‘You’ll have to come back here one day,’ Roman had teased her when they got out of the car to take a closer look. She had stood gaping like the country bumpkin she was. And then he had pressed a coin into her hand, and when she had asked him what it was for he’d told her to toss it over her shoulder into the water, and she would come back... She’d laughed, but she did as he said. Hearing the coin splash into the water had made her think about all the other wishes it was joining. Had any of them come true? she had wondered.
‘Eva?’
‘Sorry.’ She shook herself round, realising Roman was waiting for her to cross the shady courtyard and join him.
‘The security is for the Italian president, not me,’ he murmured discreetly when she gazed at the security guards in their dark suits and dark glasses. ‘We share the same building,’ he explained.
‘Of course you do,’ she said wryly. ‘No. Seriously,’ she added, teasing him with what was fast becoming their catchphrase, ‘I believe you.’ They both laughed.
‘Would you like to go out for supper tonight?’ Roman asked as he ushered her in through an ancient ornate door.
She clocked the butler in his dark, beautifully tailored dark suit, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere to open the door for them, and who now faded into the background, as if he worked on astral orders rather than spoken instruction.
‘Eva?’
‘Sorry.’ She shook her head in an attempt to shake herself round from all the surprises. ‘I was distracted.’
‘I was just saying—or would you prefer to stay in?’
‘Oh, go out,’ she said quickly, and then blushed, realising how naive she must sound to him, but she longed to see something of the city while she was here. And also, after her last disaster in the bedroom, staying in seemed by far the riskier choice.
‘Let’s say, we’ll meet in an hour,’ Roman said with easy charm, glancing at his watch. ‘If you need me you can reach me on the internal phone. My number’s one.’
‘No. Seriously?’