TB B by SJ

Author:SJ
Format: mobi
Tags: fiction
Publisher: Harlequin Mills & Boon
Published: 2010-07-30T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

EMILY hoped that the look of total surprise wasn’t written all over her face. This was certainly the same woman she’d seen talking to Giovanni earlier—but it was his mother, not his girlfriend! She was good-looking, short and about sixty years old, Emily guessed, and she had obviously looked after herself, her overall appearance still extremely attractive. She was dressed in a sheer cream skirt and smart summer shoes, her loose lemon top setting off her black hair and dark complexion. And her large, bright gold hoop earrings glistened in the afternoon sunlight, adding to the glamorous picture she presented to the world. She had Giovanni’s searching eyes—which were raised questioningly now, as she stared at Emily, then at her son, then back at Emily.

‘What on earth has got you both into this state?’ she demanded, her English heavily accented. She turned to her son. ‘Giovanni?’

Giovanni took a few moments to explain briefly what had happened earlier, and his mother put down the tray she’d been holding and came over to Emily, her hand outstretched.

‘Mamma Mia!… How terrible! How terrible!’ she exclaimed, then she broke into a smile. ‘I am Maria,’ she said, her voice warm, ‘and I am pleased to meet you…to meet another of my son’s many friends.’

Emily smiled back in response, taking Maria’s hand lightly. ‘Thank you, Maria.’ She looked down at herself, then back at the woman. ‘I am sorry to be in such a mess,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can do something about it in a minute, before I go back to my hotel?’

Giovanni picked up the tray with the two mugs on it. ‘Sit down and have a coffee first, Emily,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and make another one for myself,’ he added, as he handed his mother hers.

Emily did as she was told, sitting down carefully on the pale chaise longue by the window—where she’d lain down once before, she remembered wryly. The room seemed vast in the daylight, she thought, glancing around her briefly, its tiled floor cool beneath her feet. And still there in the centre of the cabinet in front of her was that picture. Still smiling, those bewitching eyes sending out their message to any onlooker. This is my place; this is where I belong, it seemed to say.

Maria sat down then, a little way from Emily, but looking at her with a rather inscrutable expression on her face. Neither spoke for a moment as they sipped their coffee.

Then, ‘I can’t tell you how thankful I was when Giovanni suddenly showed up,’ Emily said earnestly. ‘I was the only person who seemed to be offering any assistance—and goodness knows, I could do very little. The way the poor girl was trapped made it impossible for me to find out if she was seriously injured, or even to put her into the recovery position.’

‘You have medical experience?’ Maria asked.

‘No, but after my mother died I attended several first aid courses,’ she said. ‘I wanted to have at least some understanding of what to do in an emergency.

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