Under a Siena Sun (Escape to Tuscany #1) - T.A. Williams Page 0,70

did have its compensations.

Finally, she roused herself from her somnolent state and climbed back out of the water. David was lying stretched out on a sunbed. She was just dabbing herself dry when she heard his voice, this time sounding suddenly serious.

‘Lucy, come with me, quick!’ He jumped to his feet remarkably nimbly, caught hold of her arm and hurried her across to the door of the little pool house. For a moment she wondered what his intentions might be as he dragged her along, but he soon explained. ‘Drone, there’s a drone coming. Can’t you hear it?’

She couldn’t hear a thing, but she followed him without question. As they stood close side-by-side inside the little cubicle, he peered out of the half-closed door and pointed. ‘See, up there. Armando said he’d seen one buzzing about.’

She leant forward and stared along the line of his arm. First she heard the noise. It was barely audible, not a lot louder than an angry bee and she was impressed he had heard it, although, after years of media attention, no doubt his ears were attuned to this sort of thing. Sure enough, a star-shaped drone the size of a substantial bird of prey was hovering over the pool, an object strapped to its underside that was obviously a camera.

‘Bastards!’ There was real feeling in his voice. ‘I’m going to tell Armando to get his shotgun out.’

As they waited there for the drone to lose interest, she was very conscious that their near-naked bodies were so close she could feel the hairs of his forearm against her bare skin. She found herself wondering what she would do if he moved his mouth only a few inches down towards hers and kissed her. Just as she was coming to terms with the realisation that, in spite of all her reservations, she would have no hesitation in kissing him back, he straightened up and, maybe realising they were too close together, moved a few inches in the other direction, leaving her with a sensation almost of abandonment.

‘It’s going.’ He glanced back down at her. ‘Sorry about that, Lucy. These guys just know no boundaries. Seriously, later on I’m going down to the gate to tell them I’ll shoot the damn thing out of the sky next time I see it. Anyway, for now we should be okay, but maybe best to stay under the parasol.’

They went back out into the full heat of the sun and lay down side by side under the shelter of a wide parasol. Lucy’s heart was pounding in her chest and she knew this had nothing to do with the drone. She couldn’t fool herself any more. She definitely found David very attractive and the sensation of his naked flesh against hers had been highly stimulating. This threw up a number of problems.

First, there was the continued uncertainty about whether he was a cheat, although the more time she spent with him, the less credible this appeared. In fact, had it not been for her experience of infidelity at the hands of Charles, she would already have dismissed it as impossible. Equally annoying was the simple fact that he hadn’t demonstrated the slightest sign of attraction as far as she was concerned. She had always considered herself to be a modern, self-confident woman, but she knew that in this case there was no way she was confident enough to make the first move. It was frustrating, but she knew this was the way it had to be.

Chapter 21

The week passed slowly as she worked by night and rested by day. To her disappointment, David went off to Paris and London for five days to meet with his agent and to do a series of media interviews. She was in the guest lounge of the clinic, watching his interview on Sky Sports being replayed in the small hours of Thursday morning when she was called away for an emergency. She found herself having to attend to a charming elderly man, recovering from a prostatectomy, who had somehow managed to dislodge his catheter, and by the time she had successfully reconnected him to his plastic bag and sat with him to reassure him and calm him down, the interview was over.

All week she had been thinking a lot about David, not least because on Tuesday she had finally signed on the dotted line, handed over the balance of the money, and bought the cottage. David’s place in the notary’s office had been