Читать книгу From Rome with Love: Escape the winter blues with the perfect feel-good romance! - Jules Wake, Jules Wake - Страница 11

Her ankle ached by the time the car finally pulled into the manically busy car park, the long snail’s pace up the hill had had her foot tapping non-stop in between anxious looks at her watch. Passport, phone. She opened her bag. Yup, still there, like they had been when the taxi lurched up the slip road off the M1 towards Luton. Zipped into the pocket. The messenger bag looped over her head across her body. She patted it. Safe and secure.

Hurling herself out of the cab, Lisa waited, her foot going into action again, as the taxi driver took forever to open the boot. With hurried thanks, she grabbed the handle of her case, grateful for the swell of people all headed in the same direction. Pulling the case along, she stepped into the slipstream of two girls who clearly knew what they were doing and followed them towards the terminal.

Thank goodness for Giovanni’s heads-up that she should check in online. The queues snaking round and round and back on themselves, as people filed up to the check-in desks, looked horrendous. She clutched her phone tightly, unconvinced that flashing a phone app at someone was going to be enough to get her on a plane. What if she’d lost it or the battery died, which it was prone to do?

Riffling through her bag she produced the little plastic bag of toiletries ready for the x-ray machines, and as she glanced up, on the other side of the cavernous hall, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the back of a blonde head with a stubby ponytail rather like Will’s. The man was tall enough to be him and had that same confident stride.

She pinched her lips. A trip like this was for Will, Mr Sophisticated, no more stressful than popping out to the shops. He wouldn’t be checking he had his phone or passport with him once, let alone on the half hour, every half hour.

‘Everything in the tray, Miss,’ snapped an excessively grumpy security man. Why were they always so cross? Seriously? With her flushed red cheeks, two-year-old phone and sad collection of make-up, she looked like a major security threat? Flustered, she dumped everything into the grey plastic tray and when she looked up the Will lookalike had gone.

The departure lounge she could cope with, as for once there were plenty of signs with details of all the flights leaving, meaning there was absolutely no danger of her missing her flight, and, more importantly, it looked more like a shopping centre. Boots, Monsoon, WH Smiths, the familiar names and layouts made her breathing ease up. Despite being much later than she’d planned, there was half an hour before the plane left and the gate number for boarding still hadn’t been announced. Bags of time to pick up a guide book to read on the plane and check out the duty-free perfume. She could do this. She would be fine on a plane on her own. All she needed to do was keep breathing. Focus on one minute at a time.

How bloody stupid. Why were there two flights to Rome within twenty minutes of each other? And why had she been looking at the wrong one? They’d announced the gate number for her flight ten minutes ago! Duh! The horrible pull-along case, which had seemed so brilliant earlier, suddenly had a life of its own and did not want to partake in the hurried slalom through other travellers all heading down the same wide corridor. The damn thing kept twisting over. She could feel the patches of sweat pooling under her arms. Stupid bloody airline rules, the security people had deemed her deodorant too big and confiscated it. She’d have to sit, all hot and smelly, next to someone for the next few hours. How embarrassing.

When she finally got to the gate, it was a relief to see that although she was the last to arrive, there were still a couple of people ahead of her.

Thankfully the bright, shiny lady with perfect glossy lipstick at the desk had received some sort of ninja training because she caught Lisa’s phone before it dropped to the floor and smashed into a thousand, useless app-unfriendly pieces.

By the time Lisa arrived at her seat, a window one, there was lots of kerfuffle as the middle-aged woman who had the seat next to hers ponderously rose to her feet to let her get past. She felt hot, bothered, very flustered and totally out of sorts. Not herself at all. There was no room in the overhead locker and a frantic search ensued, trying to find a suitable space for her case, before the air hostess, a fake smile pasted on her face at Lisa’s incompetence, came and rescued her, by which time her flight neighbour had huffed and puffed and tutted enough times that Lisa was ready to curl up and die.

If it hadn’t been exactly the sort of thing Nan would do, she might have been tempted to shout at the top of her voice, ‘Give me an effing break! This is my first time flying on my own.’

Dropping down into the seat, feeling a fine sheen of sweat coating every limb, she grabbed the seat belt and secured it as tightly as it would go. How on earth had she managed to book a window seat? Another rookie mistake. Easy, she wouldn’t look out.

Damn! She’d left her book in the overhead locker and now her neighbour, dressed in an unfortunate tweed ensemble that gave off a slight whiff of damp dog, had sat down again. There was no way on earth Lisa would dare ask her to move. She’d have to make do with one of the leaflets the doctor had given her at the hospital, even though she’d read it several times over.

She swallowed hard, feeling heat racing over her skin. This was a nightmare. She. Was. Not. Going. To. Cry. This was supposed to be a holiday as well as a mission. An adventure. A half-smothered laugh escaped at the thought, which sounded more Tolkien than Lisa Vettese. At least she wouldn’t have to contend with a horde of Orcs or evil wizards, although her hostile neighbour might give them a run for their money.

It was easy. Giovanni would meet her at the airport. She tried hard to re-ignite the tremor of excitement she’d felt at the thought of seeing all the places she’d only heard of up until now.

It was no good, as the captain announced the fasten seat belts notice, her limbs had turned rigid and her rib cage felt like a stone sarcophagus with every shallow breath.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the stewardess talking to Tweedy-knickers. Breathe. And breathe again. Suddenly her neighbour had gone and someone else slipped into the seat beside her. Then the plane started moving, taxiing away from the gate. She closed her eyes. Breathe. It wasn’t even the serious stuff yet.

She opened her eyes. Faded denim-clad thighs next to hers.

‘Hey, Lisa, fancy seeing you here. Interesting reading?’

‘Will!’ She sat up so hard she banged her head on the head rest. ‘What the hell! What are you doing here?’

He lifted one eyebrow, in a studied move that immediately had her on the defensive. Why the fuck couldn’t she be icily sophisticated and nonplussed around Will? It bugged her that he was always able to raise a reaction from her.

‘Would you believe, taking a flight to Rome?’

‘Ha, ha very funny. I meant …’ What did she mean? Of course, he was flying to Rome, that was where the plane was going.

Lisa frowned suspiciously. ‘Why are you going to Rome?’

Will’s eyes twinkled with devilment and her stomach fell. No, please no.

‘Giovanni invited me.’

Her stomach contracted, like a balloon deflating, and for a minute she thought she might be sick before the longing to punch Will really, really hard in the solar plexus took over, leaving the knuckles of her cramped fists twitching with desire.

She’d been worried enough about spending time with Giovanni and keeping things cool, but tossing Will into the mix gave her palpitations. That was a balancing act she didn’t want to be involved with.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got no intention of playing gooseberry. I’ll be doing some serious business. Sourcing some suppliers. Giovanni having a spare room was too good an opportunity to miss. The timing was perfect.’

‘Perfect?’ her voice pitched upwards in disbelief. Surely Will couldn’t believe that. Was he that thick-skinned? ‘What and you just happened to be on my flight?’

‘It made sense. Means Giovanni only needs to make one trip out to the airport.’

‘And when did you decide this?’ And why hadn’t Giovanni mentioned it?

‘Was a last-minute thing. I managed to set up a few appointments in Italy. As I said, the opportunity was too good.’ Like the slippery toad he was, she noticed he slid out of answering the question.

‘Appointments?’ Lisa looked at him, innocence and nonchalance written all over his carefully posed face. Ha! She didn’t think so. But she wasn’t big headed enough to think he’d done it purely to wind her up. Clearly he was so bloody self-centred, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might be intruding.

‘Yep, while you two love birds are taking in the city, I’ll be out doing business and in the evenings, while you’re romantically dining a deux, I’ll be wining and dining local restaurateurs, picking their brains.’ Why did he have to sound so damn patronising? Like he was her elderly bloody aunt or something.

Superior sod was only two years older than her and she’d known him since she was eight. He ought to remember that she had memories of him as a schoolboy with gangly legs in regulation uniform grey shorts. Nan had worked for his family as their daily, so Lisa had spent many a school holiday in the big farmhouse kitchen at his parents’ home. When they were older they used to walk to the bus stop, on their way to school together, although he’d gone to a very different school. And despite the best efforts of the pretty, posh girls from the other school, he still sat with the cleaner’s granddaughter. When she was sixteen, he went off to university and not long after that Nan had decided to move out of the village when she stopped driving.

‘Yes, I’m looking forward to having a wonderful time.’ She deliberately added a touch of huskiness to her voice. Let him think what he liked. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him that she and Giovanni were just friends.

The plane turned, a slow, wide swing, and she saw the runway stretching out, before it completed its turn to face the long expanse of tarmac. Her knees turned to jelly and she gripped her armrest, her fingers cramping.

‘I’m quite surprised you took Giovanni up on his offer,’ said Will, in a conversational tone.

‘Why?’ she asked sharply, taking a quick breath as she registered the engines revving up.

Will shrugged, an amused look on his face that had her itching to wipe it off. Arrogant git.

‘It’s quite a commitment, going on holiday with someone. You’re not exactly the committing type.’

‘Says who?’ she asked, her head snapping towards him, half an ear on the increasing roar of the engine and conscious of that horrible sensation of being on the back of racehorse about to charge into action and unable to stop it.

‘You, I seem to recall. You told me you weren’t on the market for that sort of relationship.’

She pursed her lips, wishing she’d said a lot less to him that night nine months ago. Her words had been fuelled by a healthy dose of self-preservation. If only she’d had the sense to stick to them.

The plane picked up pace. She cast a fleeting glance out of the window at the trees speeding past. She leaned harder into her seat, bracing herself.

‘You seemed quite adamant,’ added Will, with a perverse grin, his voice filled with teasing challenge. Women chased him all the time, but she wanted to be different. And she didn’t want to depend on anyone. She thought that perhaps they’d found common ground, because he didn’t do commitment either. Boy, did he not do commitment. She’d lost count of the women he’d seen in the last seven months. No, that was a humungous lie. There’d been Izzie, the vet’s assistant, Cordelia, the interior designer, two Charlottes, Eva, Olivia, Thea, Martina, Ella and Dora, short for Isadora, which exactly summed up the sort of well-bred, well-educated and well-connected women Will associated with. She had been an anomaly. Although, to be fair, he’d treated her equally badly.

She shouldn’t complain. Everyone knew what he was like. She should have stuck to her guns and not given in to the beguiling undercurrent of chemistry that crackled between them. At fifteen they’d been friends. At twenty, when he came back from university, something had changed, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he wasn’t a boy any more. Luckily he’d gone off to do something in the City, like his dad. Then he came back again.

It was when she started work at the pub that something had reared its head. After managing to resist for six months, she’d given in, tired and fed up after a horrendously long week at work, going home to solitary meals. After the late-night shift at the pub, against all her better judgement, when one too many brushes up against him had ignited her hormone levels to combustion, she’d foolishly let them do the talking. She might have even made the first move. She was still furious with herself for letting down her guard.

Memories slid through like tendrils of mist, snaking, damn them, through the barriers she usually managed to keep in place, before building into full-blown images, bringing with them the heat and taste of him. They exploded in her head, sending a rush of adrenaline punching into her system, making her pulse surge with fevered heat.

She clenched her fists tight beneath her legs, but it was no use, she couldn’t get him out of her stupid head. Heat gathered between her thighs as she tried to dispel what had become an indelible vision of his body gliding over hers, the remembrance of heated skin to skin and his hands tenderly cupping her face as he kissed her with a passionate thoroughness, as if scouring every other emotion out of her.

No wonder he was such a success with women; he had a brilliant routine. He’d successfully made her feel as if she were the only woman who had ever mattered to him. Or had she fooled herself because she was lonely? Whichever it had been, all the defences she’d so carefully constructed to protect herself from ever falling in love had gone up in smoke.

She should have stuck to her guns. Being independent was the best way to be. That way you couldn’t be let down by anyone. And hadn’t he shown her the truth of that?

She scowled, scrunching up her face, as if there were a nasty smell in the vicinity, which there might as well have been. Will was bad news. A womaniser, who moved on to the next woman as soon as he’d made a conquest. She’d been a challenge, like an unclimbed mountain to be scaled. And the minute he’d conquered her, he’d moved on to the next.

‘Maybe I’ve found the right person to have a relationship with,’ she snapped.

‘What, Giovanni?’ Will scoffed. ‘He’s not right for you.’

‘Why not?’ she asked, unable to keep the outrage at bay. ‘Although, what the hell it’s got to do with you, I’ve no idea.’ How dare Will presume he knew her or what was right for her?

‘I know you.’ Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t duck his serious contemplation. ‘You need someone stronger. More worldly. Someone who will treat you as an equal.’

Lisa deliberately didn’t say anything. That counted him out. Will was infinitely superior and he knew it. Although it was doubly annoying that he’d nailed the very reason she was doing her best to discourage Giovanni’s determined flirtation, but she was damned if she was going to admit it out loud, especially not now and not to him, of all people.

‘Come on. Giovanni’s a lovely guy, but so is a Labrador puppy. There’s no emotional maturity there. Plus, he’s a good Italian mama’s boy. He’s not looking for an equal; he’s looking for someone to replace his mother. Someone who will look after him, tell him he’s wonderful and pick up after him. I can’t see you putting up with that.’

‘And you would know, would you?’ challenged Lisa, ignoring the flash of fury that his astute assessment triggered.

‘And there we go.’ Will smiled and he reached out and touched her hand. ‘You okay now?’

‘What?’ The unexpected contact startled her. It occurred to her that she hadn’t touched Will since that weekend or he her. Why now? They’d both been at great pains to avoid each other ever since THAT night.

He nodded his head towards the window and the view of the fields below them.

‘We’re safely off the ground.’ He leaned forward and fished a book out of the seat pocket.

She stared at his bowed head in open-mouthed astonishment, but he gave no sign of acknowledging it. She felt completely wrong-footed. Had his strategy been a deliberate distraction attempt, then? Had she told him over the late-night Cointreau they’d once shared? Could he have squirreled away the fact that she was terrified of take-offs and landings?

Low-level anxiety about the take-off had been bubbling away ever since she’d woken this morning and here she was, already several thousand feet up, without the usual sensation of sweat-drenched panic. Instead all her focus had been on the feelings Will stirred up.

She squirmed in her seat, not wanting to give him any credit for being kind. Will didn’t do ‘kind’. He was a bastard. A lying two-faced bastard. Surely he hadn’t deliberately wound her up just to help her. Winding her up was standard Will operating procedure.

He turned and caught her studying him.

‘What?’ he asked, resting a book of Italian recipes against his stomach, one finger lazily tracing the large silver scar on the palm of his left hand. Burns were an occupational hazard in professional kitchens, but he’d had that one a very long time. She’d often wondered how he’d got it.

‘What’s the deal with this Italian restaurant you’re setting up? Won’t it be pizza and pasta just like everyone else?’ She could needle too if she wanted.

Siena was right. They were as bad as brother and sister.

Will’s mouth twisted in a supercilious grimace. And she realised she’d answered the question.

‘Okay, why do you need to go to Italy?’ What she meant was why now and why Rome.

She nodded at the recipe book. ‘Wouldn’t desk research have sufficed?’

‘I want it to be authentic. Give people a taste of Italy that they’ve tried on their holidays. I’m going to break down the menu into different regional specialities.’

‘What, so you’re going to go to all the different parts of Italy as part of this re …?’ her voice died away as her words suddenly conjured up a vivid image: Will talking about his passion for Italian food, tracing a map of Italy on her naked stomach, pointing out Siena, Pisa and Bologna, before being distracted by the possible whereabouts of Sicily. That conversation hadn’t ever been finished. Heat flooded her cheeks and her nipples sprang to ridiculously misplaced attention at the memory of his hand dipping lower and lower.

To her surprise he looked away. Most unlike the cocky self-assured Will she was used to.

‘Obviously not, but I’ve been to … Sic … places in recent years and kept notes. But I’ve not been to Rome for a long time. This was the perfect opportunity.’