And because it hadn’t happened until she had reached the comparatively ripe old age of twenty-five it seemed to have hit her with the most overwhelming force.
She found herself at the mercy of new and rather frightening feelings, found that she wanted to do all those things she had previously thought were the province of the emotionally unstable—to tremble, and to weep, to reach out and touch him. . .
And didn’t all those things sound suspiciously like the symptoms of love?
She gave her head a tiny shake of denial—you simply did not fall in love with people you hardly knew!
‘Stop sulking,’ he urged softly.
‘I am not sulking. I’m enjoying the view.’
The Mimosa was easily recognisable with its hundreds of tiny white lights threaded into the still bare branches of the trees outside. Lola spotted people queuing around the block in an attempt to secure a table.
‘We’re here!’ she exclaimed, inadvertently tugging the sleeve of Geraint’s jacket in her excitement. ‘And just look at all the fairy lights—it’s absolutely beautiful!’
Her enthusiasm produced a look from Geraint which was half-indulgent and half-perplexed, as if he wasn’t used to such exuberant behaviour. But he said nothing before they were led through the restaurant and seated at what was, quite simply, the best table in the room.
‘So how did you manage to swing this?’ Lola asked as she broke a bread stick in half and crunched on it.
‘What? A date with you?’
‘The table,’ she told him.
‘Oh, that bit wasn’t difficult. Certainly not as difficult as securing the date.’
‘No?’ She studied him in disbelief. ‘That’s why all those people outside are virtually trying to break the door down to get in, is it?’
He shrugged. ‘I speak Italian. I do a lot of business here. I adore the country—the food, the wine and the culture. Given all those things, finding a table in a good restaurant doesn’t pose much of a problem.’
He made it sound as easy as ABC! Lola finished chomping on her bread stick and picked up another, to find him looking at her with reluctant approval. He obviously did like women who enjoyed their food, she thought in amazement, but that did not mean that she had to go over the top and completely pig out!
She put the bread stick carefully back down in front of her. ‘I don’t want to spoil my appetite,’ she explained.
‘Maybe we’d better order?’ he suggested with a smile, and he must have elevated an eyebrow or moved a broad shoulder or something, Lola decided, since the waiter appeared as if on cue.
The next couple of minutes were spent discussing the wine list and the recommended dishes and Lola tried to appear interested in her choices, but she might as well have ordered bread and sawdust—for the normal pleasure she took in anticipating her meal had been totally eclipsed by Geraint’s presence.
She felt as gauche as a teenager out on a first date, which was absolutely ridiculous! She had enjoyed lots of dates, and what she had thought was going to be a fairly heavy love-affair with a pilot, not long after she had started at Atalanta Airlines. But she had been far too young to cope with a smooth operator who seemed to be out of the country more often than he was in it.
The memory of that relationship still had the power to make her ask herself incredulously how she could have been such a fool.
The affair had ended before it had even begun—very painfully—with Lola’s shocked discovery that the pilot she had been planning to spend a romantic weekend with already had a fiancée tucked away.
Lola had had her fingers badly burned by the experience. She would never forget the misery she had experienced afterwards—because of his callous deceit more than anything else. And it had managed to put her off serious involvement, though that had been easy to avoid—there hadn’t been anyone else she had remotely fancied enough to contemplate plunging headlong into an affair with them.
Until now.
‘You promised me your life-story,’ she said hastily, and was slightly nonplussed by his reaction.
His shoulders had tensed as if he was suddenly under stress. ‘Did I?’ he queried coolly.
Lola sensed his reluctance, and wondered what had caused it. ‘You know you did!’
His expression was guarded. ‘And what if I told you that I don’t particularly care for talking about myself?’ he questioned.
‘I would say that either you’re repressed or you’ve something to hide!’
‘Touché!’ he laughed. ‘What would you like to know?’
Lola sat back in her seat. ‘Oh, I’m sure that an intelligent man like yourself doesn’t need any help from me,’ she told him sweetly.
His grey eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Are you teasing me again, Lola Hennessy?’
‘Why?’ she laughed, enjoying herself hugely. ‘Can’t you take it?’
‘Oh, I can take anything you care to throw at me,’ he challenged in a sultry murmur. ‘Anything at all.’
The atmosphere began to crackle with an eroticism which was almost tangible, and Lola found herself unable to look him in the eye. She began fiddling unnecessarily with the thick linen napkin on her lap, and was indescribably pleased when she decided to let his mocking invitation go unanswered and started to speak.
‘I come from Wales,’ he told her, and his musical accent deepened as he went on to describe the country of his birth. ‘Beautiful West Wales—which is wild and dark and thoroughly magnificent!’
Yes, thought Lola at once. Wild and dark and magnificent—just like you. . .
He looked at her keenly. ‘I’m afraid that it’s the classic, corny tale of rags to riches—sure you’re ready for it?’
Beneath the flippant tone and the throw-away statement Lola was convinced that she detected a chink in his steely armour and she found herself intrigued by this apparent streak of vulnerability. For surely it added an extra dimension to the man’s character, rather than detracting from it?
‘Quite ready,’ she told him truthfully, and something in her quiet, almost respectful tone made him grow still for a moment.
‘My father was a coal-miner,’ he began, and his grey eyes darkened with pain. ‘But he suffered a lot of ill health when he was still quite young—along with many others, of course.’ He ran a hand distractedly through his thick, tar-black hair. ‘When I was eight he was finally laid off and given an invalidity pension.’ His voice grew harsh. ‘But it wasn’t enough to feed a family of sparrows—let alone me and Mam and my sister, Catrin.’
He gazed down at the small centrepiece on the table, a glass bowl filled with yellow mimosa, and his features hardened with the memories. ‘So my mother went out to work—doing the only things which an early marriage had qualified her for. She cleaned houses, took in sewing—did whatever she could do which fitted in around Catrin and me. Mostly she was what I suppose you’d call a drudge.’
He shot her a bleak, almost defiant look and Lola suddenly caught a glimpse of the boy behind the man. The boy who had longed to protect his mother from hard work and penury, but because of his tender years and inexperience had been unable to do either.
Which must have been a heavy cross for a proud man like Geraint Howell-Williams to carry, Lola recognised instinctively.