he said when he joined her, ‘in my mother’s villa.’
He buckled up, noticing her body, which she’d been holding quite erect anyway, as if the luxury of the leather seats would taint her working-class skin, stiffen further.
‘This was not part of the plan,’ she said.
‘My mother wishes to welcome you to Italy. She is preparing a feast in your honour. Relax,’ he teased, and reached across to squeeze her denim-clad knee.
Katya glared at him and then at his hand, picked it up off her knee and put it back on the gear lever. ‘That is not necessary.’
‘My mother insists.’ He shrugged. ‘She will be very disappointed if we don’t stop. We will go to Ravello in the morning. It is only half an hour, depending on traffic.’
He saw the grim set to her mouth and knew from experience she was itching to say more. He’d seen that glitter in her eyes before and had been the recipient of the caustic dialogue that usually followed. But he could also tell that she didn’t want to offend his mother.
‘Your mother knows we are work colleagues only, da? I trust we will have separate rooms?’
Ben couldn’t help himself, he roared with laughter. His mother was an old-fashioned woman, had raised her children with traditional values. She thought premarital sex was a sin. ‘You have nothing to fear there, Katya.’
‘Good,’ said Katya, and turned to gaze out of her window.
Ben concentrated on his driving, navigating his way out of Rome easily. He had spent a lot of his years in the capital and knew it well. His family had residences in Rome and Florence and he had split his formative years between the two.
He took the autostrada exit to Naples and the Amalfi coast. His mother preferred the gentler climate of southern Italy, and the Positano villa had been her permanent home for five years now. For many years it had been his favourite place in all of Italy but too much had happened there and when he had left a decade ago he had sworn to never return.
But the Lucia Clinic was there. His duty was there.
He glanced at Katya’s profile. She appeared to be engrossed in the scenery and he took the opportunity to study her. She was dressed casually in hipster jeans. They were snug-fitting rather than tight, emphasising her slender thighs. Her white, short-sleeved shirt looked cool, the top few buttons undone, revealing a hint of cleavage.
Funny...he’d seen her almost every day for a year and yet had rarely seen her in civvies. In his mind, when he pictured her, which he did a little too often for his own sanity, it was as she’d been that last night.
Gloriously naked, her body slick with sweat, her blue eyes wide and dazed with passion. He remembered the bite of her nails into his buttocks, the nip of her teeth into his shoulder, the gasps of pleasure from her mouth.
To say he’d been surprised to take her call a few weeks ago was an understatement. After the way they’d parted, the way he’d acted after such an amazing night, it had hardly been his brightest moment.
Is that job offer still open?
Ben had been so delighted to hear her accented English, so relieved that she was still talking to him after his morning-after bungle, that he had said, of course. In honesty, he’d missed her. Missed her frankness. Her cute accent. Her aloofness. She was the only woman he’d ever met who could turn him on through pure indifference.
In typical Katya fashion, she hadn’t gone into detail about her reasons on the phone. She hadn’t explained why she was now doing the very thing she’d told him she wouldn’t.
I’d rather drink bad vodka. That’s what she’d told him that last morning together when he’d suggested she come and work at the clinic.
So why had she changed her mind? He had to admit to being a little more than curious. Perhaps she needed the money for some reason? The Lucia Clinic certainly paid its staff well. MedSurg, on the other hand, the charitable organisation they had both been employed by, while incredible to work for, did not.
But, then, no one joined its ranks to get rich. MedSurg involved a higher ideal. And Katya had been committed to staying on with them — forever. Apparently.
So something had come up to change her mind.
Wanting a change in career direction was what she’d told him on the phone. But he knew that was a lie. What were