Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,109

clinging to her legs as she moved.

The duck-blue colour did good things for her eyes and made her skin look translucently pale. Against the bare skin of her shoulders her hair stood out like a flame. The effect was dramatic and feminine.

‘It isn’t what I would have chosen,’ she admitted.

But she hadn’t chosen it, Francesco had. Considering the things that were packed in her case, she wondered if he had even looked at the list she had given him!

Wearing this dress was like hanging a sign around her neck saying ‘I’m available,’ with a subheading of ‘Take me please!’

‘You are inclined to hide your light, cara. What do they say? If you have it, flaunt it?’

‘I just don’t think that it is necessary to wave it in their faces and jump up and down saying look at me, as well.’

At that moment the young attendant, casually dressed, like the rest of the crew, in jeans and a shirt, made her fortuitous arrival.

Erin declined food but said she would love a cup of tea. Francesco overruled her with a display of high-handedness that was typical of him and said she would have something light, scrambled egg with a little smoked salmon perhaps?

Despite Erin’s insistence that she couldn’t eat a thing, the light dish was actually so delicious she polished off the lot and had a second cup of tea.

They were half an hour into their journey, and Francesco, who had been to talk to the pilot, had again taken the seat opposite her when she finally mentioned the previous night.

‘At the risk of breaking the mood, about last night …’ Erin skimmed a slightly nervous look at him through the filigree mesh of her lashes.

‘You discovered I have no liking for cocoa.’

‘I didn’t want you to go.’

It was an admission a short time ago she would not have made, but some time over the past days her defences had lowered. It was about trust. Without even realising what was happening she had started to trust him … trust her own judgement. Startled by this discovery, she felt her throat thicken with emotional tears.

Francesco, who had stilled at the husky admission, released a long sibilant sigh. ‘I didn’t particularly want to go myself.’

Her startled eyes flew to his. ‘You didn’t?’

He shook his head. ‘But you were exhausted and—’

‘I don’t like falling asleep. Since the accident I have been having these nightmares … I wake up convinced that the baby has died.’

Francesco gave a horrified exclamation in Italian. Out of his seat in a heartbeat, he dropped on his knees beside her seat and took her small hands between his. ‘Your hands are cold,’ he said, drawing them to his mouth and kissing each palm before enfolding them once more in his warm strong grip. ‘Why didn’t you say something about the nightmares?’ he reproached thickly.

Shoulders hunched, she gave a jerky little shrug. ‘I was being stupid, I know that. It was just a dream … the same one each time.’ She swallowed. ‘About the baby, and I know it’s stupid because even you can’t do much about dreams, but if I’d known you were there I wouldn’t have felt so afraid of falling asleep. I suppose I feel safe with you around.’

Francesco sucked in a deep breath; the strong angles of his lean face seemed carved of stone as he stared at her.

Lost in his eyes, Erin hardly noticed that the silence between them had stretched into minutes.

When he did speak Francesco’s accent was perceptibly thicker than normal. ‘You don’t have to be afraid of falling asleep again because I will be there.’ With a slow smile that made her stomach flip, he leaned across and cupped her chin in his hand. ‘And I will be there when you wake up, too.’

Beneath the sweep of his lashes she could see the dark liquid glow of his eyes as they moved across her face. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. In her chest her heart started to thud slow and hard, banging as if it were making an escape attempt against her ribcage.

‘I would really like to kiss you,’ he said thickly.

The heat in his liquid eyes as they lingered on her mouth made her dizzy. She was drowning in a warm, languid lethargy that made her throat dry and her limbs heavy and that was drawing her thoughts dangerously towards the idea of dropping her defences completely and telling him how she really