He thrust a bowl of protein-rich tinned food towards her. ‘Here—eat this.’
There was the most minute flash of something in her eyes as she acknowledged his lack of greeting, but she took the bowl and a spoon and sat down on a nearby log to eat, barely wincing at the less than appetising meal. Yet another blow to Luca’s firmly entrenched antipathy.
He looked at her and forced himself to ignore that dart of guilt he’d just felt—to remember that thanks to his mother’s stellar example he knew all about the mercurial nature of addicts. How as soon as you thought they truly were intent on making a change they went and did the exact opposite. From a young age Luca had witnessed first-hand just how brutal that lack of regard could be and he’d never forgotten it.
Serena looked up at him. She’d finished her meal, and Luca felt slightly winded at the intensity of her gaze. He reached down and took the bowl and handed her a protein bar. His voice gruff, which irritated him, he said, ‘Eat this too.’
‘But I’m full now. I—’
Luca held it out and said tersely, ‘Eat it, Serena. I can’t afford for you to be weak. We have a long walk today.’
Serena’s eyes flashed properly at that, and she stood up with smooth grace and took the bar from his outstretched hand. Tension bristled and crackled between them.
Serena cursed herself for thinking, hoping that some kind of a truce might have grown between them. And she cursed herself again for revealing what she had last night.
Luca was cleaning up the camp, packing things away, getting ready to move on. When she’d woken a while ago it had taken long seconds for her to realise where she was and with whom. A sense of exultation had rushed through her at knowing they were still in the jungle and that she’d survived the first day, that she hadn’t shown Luca any weakness.
Then she’d remembered the gentleness of his hands on her feet and had felt hot. And then she’d got hotter, acknowledging that only extreme exhaustion had knocked her out enough to sleep through sharing such an intimate space with him.
Before Luca might see some of that heat in her expression or in her eyes, Serena busied herself with rolling up the sleeping bags and starting to take down the tent efficiently.
‘Where did you learn to do that?’ came Luca’s voice, its tone incredulous.
Serena barely glanced at him, prickling. ‘We used to go on camping trips while we were in rehab. It was part of the programme.’
She tensed, waiting for him to be derisive or to ask her about it, but he didn’t. He just went and started unpegging the other side of the tent. Serena hadn’t shared her experience of rehab with anyone—not even her sister. Even though her sister had been the one who had sacrificed almost everything to ensure Serena’s care, working herself to the bone and putting herself unwittingly at the mercy of a man she’d betrayed years before and who had come looking for revenge.
Against the odds, though, Siena and Andreas had fallen in love and were now blissfully happy, with a toddler and a baby. Sometimes their intense happiness made Serena feel unaccountably alienated, and she hated herself for the weakness. But it was the same with her half-brother Rocco and his wife and children. If she’d never believed in love or genuine happiness theirs mocked her for it every time she saw them.
Without even realising it was done, she saw the camp was cleared and Luca was handing Serena her backpack.
He arched a brow. ‘Ready?’
Serena took the pack and nodded swiftly, not wanting Luca to guess at the sudden vulnerability she felt to be thinking of her family and their very natural self-absorption.
She put on the pack and followed Luca for a few steps until he turned abruptly. ‘How are your feet?’
Serena frowned and said, with some surprise, ‘They’re fine, actually.’
Luca made an indeterminate sound and carried on, and Serena tried not to fool herself that he’d asked out of any genuine concern.
As they walked the heat progressed and intensified to almost suffocating proportions. When they stopped briefly by a small stream in the afternoon Serena almost wept with relief to be able to throw some cool water over her face and head. She soaked a cloth handkerchief and tied it around her neck.
It was only a short reprieve. Luca picked up the punishing pace again, not even looking to see if Serena was behind him. Irritation rose up inside her. Would he even notice if she was suddenly pulled by some animal into the undergrowth? He’d probably just shrug and carry on.
After another hour any feeling of relief from the stream was a distant memory and sweat dripped down her face, neck and back. Her limbs were aching, her feet numb again. Luca strode on, though, like some kind of robot, and suddenly Serena felt an urge to provoke him, needle him. Force him to stop and face her. Acknowledge that she had done well to last this far. Acknowledge that she might be telling the truth about the drugs.
She called out, ‘So, are you prepared to admit that I might be innocent after all?’
She got her wish. Luca stopped dead in his tracks and then, after a long second, slowly turned around. His eyes were so dark they looked black. He covered the space between them so fast and silently that Serena took an involuntary step backwards, hating herself for the reflexive action.
He looked infinitely dangerous, and yet perversely Serena didn’t feel scared. She felt something far more ambiguous and hotter, deep in her pelvis.
‘To be quite frank, I don’t think I even care any more whether or not you did it. The fact is that my involvement with you made things so much worse. You were enough to turn the incident into front-page news and put certainty into people’s minds about my guilt—because they all believed that you did drugs, and that I was either covering for you or dealing to you. So, innocent bystander or not—as you might have been—I still got punished.’
Serena swallowed down a sudden and very unwelcome lump in her throat. She recognised uncomfortably that the need for this man to know she was innocent was futile or worse. ‘You’ll never forgive me for it, will you?’
His jaw clenched, and just then a huge drop of water landed on her face—so large that it splashed.
Luca looked up and cursed out loud.
‘What? What is it?’ Serena asked, her tension dissolving to be replaced by a tendril of fear.
Luca looked around them and bit out, ‘Rain. Damn. I’d hoped to make the village first. We’ll have to shelter. Come on.’
Even before he’d begun striding away again the rain was starting in earnest, those huge drops cascading from the sky above the canopy. Serena hurried after him to try and keep up. Within seconds, though, it was almost impossible to see a few feet in front of her nose. Genuine panic spiked. She couldn’t see Luca any more. And then he reappeared, taking her hand, keeping her close.
The rain was majestic, awesome. Deafening. But Serena was only aware of her hand in Luca’s. He was leading them through the trees, off the path to a small clearing. The ground was slightly higher here. He let her go and she saw him unrolling a tarpaulin. Catching on quickly, she took one end and tied it off to a nearby sapling while Luca did the same on the other side, creating a shelter a few feet off the ground.
He laid out another piece of tarpaulin under the one they’d tied off and shouted over the roar of the rain, ‘Get underneath!’
Serena slipped off her pack and did so. Luca joined her seconds later. They were drenched. Steam was rising off their clothes. But they were out of the worst of the downpour. Serena was still taken aback at how quickly it had come down.
They sat like that, their breaths evening out, for long minutes. Eventually she asked, ‘How long will it last?’
Luca craned his neck to look out,