Praise for Liz Fielding
‘Alongside the humour, this story contains a large sprinkling of emotion, synonymous with every Liz Fielding story, that will have the reader reaching for the tissues while swallowing the lump in her throat. This is one story you don’t want to miss!’
—romancereviewed.blogspot.com on
The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella
‘Fielding’s deft handling is a triumph. The characters are fabulous, the relationship between them complex and nuanced … and keep a tissue handy at the end!’
RT Book Reviews on SOS: Convenient Husband Required
‘… a magnificent setting, a feisty heroine, and a sexy hero—a definite page-turner. Who could ask for anything more?’
—Still Moments eZine on
A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge
About the Author
LIZ FIELDING was born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain—with pauses for sightseeing pretty much everywhere in between. She finally came to a full stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills, and these days mostly leaves her pen to do the travelling.
When she’s not sorting out the lives and loves of her characters, she potters in the garden, reads her favourite authors, and spends a lot of time wondering ‘What if …?’
For news of upcoming books—and to sign up for her occasional newsletter—visit Liz’s website at www.lizfielding.com
Also by Liz Fielding
The Last Woman He’d Ever Date
Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto
SOS: Convenient Husband Required
A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge
Her Desert Dream
Secret Baby, Surprise Parents
Wedded in a Whirlwind
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Flirting with Italian
Liz Fielding
I dedicate this book to my wonderful editor, Bryony Green,
who has held my hand, uncomplainingly, through more
than twenty books. She has saved a book gone wrong
with ‘Perhaps if you …’ We have agonised over titles,
dined in New York, celebrated an award at the Ritz and
danced the night away in Washington. It’s been great.
CHAPTER ONE
ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS
My bag is packed, my flight booked. While my students are all flapping about in a last minute panic about coursework that needs to be handed to their new teacher in the first week of term, I’ll be getting to grips with the rush hour in Rome, first day nerves and life in a foreign language.
If they think that because I’ll be surrounded by art, culture, high fashion and endless sunshine, I’ve got the best deal, well, they may be right. At the moment I’m only concerned about where I’m going to live, how different this new school will be from Maybridge and whether my new students like me.
Watch this space …
‘I’VE got a new job, Lex. In Rome.’
‘You’re leaving Maybridge High? The “world’s most perfect job”?’
Sarah Gratton had been doing a fine job of convincing her colleagues that she couldn’t wait to get on that plane. Actually, that part was true, but it was more escape than adventure and she should have known that her great-grandfather would see right through a smile that was making her face ache.
He might be rising ninety but he walked into town each morning to pick up his newspaper, and his brain was still sharp enough to do The Times crossword in ten minutes flat.
‘Tom was so popular, the kids loved him.’ Her thumb automatically moved to fiddle with the ring that was no longer there. ‘I feel as if everyone blames me for him leaving.’
‘He’s the one who cheated, Sarah. If you give up the job you love, you lose twice.’
‘He didn’t cheat.’
Didn’t cheat. Didn’t lie. Didn’t pretend. He was incapable of that. He’d told her that he still loved her, but that he’d fallen in love with someone else.
He’d told her at the beginning of the half term holiday, giving her a whole week before she had to walk into the staff room. Face everyone.
What he hadn’t told her was that he’d resigned, taken a job she knew he’d hate at the sports centre in Melchester.
Until then it hadn’t been real.
She’d heard the words but hadn’t been able to take them in. Had convinced herself that when she turned up in the staffroom on Monday morning everything would be as it should be. Back to normal.
But he hadn’t been there.
He’d had time to think it through, to accept that working together in the goldfish bowl of school would be impossible. He was the one who’d sacrificed the job that was his life. That was how much he loved her.
How much he was in love with someone else.
She’d worked really hard to be worthy of that sacrifice. To think of her students when all she wanted to do was to curl up in a corner and bawl her eyes out.
She’d cleaned every trace of him out of her flat so that she wouldn’t keep tripping over the memories. Put away photographs. Stopped going to the places where they’d hung out with their friends.
But she couldn’t scrub him out of school.
He was an invisible presence in the photographs of the teams he’d coached to glory. In the whiff of steaming boys, the clatter of their boots as they came in from the cricket field. In the sound of a whistle on the sports field that had once linked her to him like an invisible thread, but now went through her like a knife.
‘Besides,’ she said, ‘I’m not losing, I’m catching up on my life. You were the one who was so keen on me taking a gap year, having fun, doing the travel thing before I settled down.’
‘You’re not eighteen now,’ her great-grandfather pointed out. ‘And you’re not taking a year off to see the world or have fun.’
‘I’d feel like a matron amongst the backpackers. This way I get the best of both worlds. Great job. Great location. I only hope I live up to the terrific reference the Head gave me.’
He dismissed her doubts with a wave of his hand. ‘Won’t the language be a problem?’
‘It’s an international school. Children of diplomats, UN officials, foreigners living in Rome,’ she explained.
Eight hundred miles away from everyone who knew her as half of a couple.