(2012) Evie Undercover (7 page)

Evie stared at the crown of gleaming black hair,
at
the perfectly sculptured face,
at
the thin Roman nose, the sensual red lips.

‘
Mamma mia
,
’ she
breathed
, and she
took a
step
forward. ‘That’s not oily
,
that’s divine.’

‘Stop drooling, Evie,’ Tom murmured. He brushed past her as he went to greet the man. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’

‘Maybe not,’ she said, and her lips curv
ed
into a broad smile as a thought burst into her head like a ray of shining light. ‘But that is.’

Chapter Five

Thank you, Guardian Angel
!

Eduardo di Montefiori leaned over in a low, graceful bow and brushed the back of Evie’s
hand with his lips, h
is eyes never le
aving
her face.

‘
Bellissima,
’ he murmured. Straightening up, he gave her a look of undisguised admiration. ‘
Assolutamente bellissima.
’

OK, maybe a little oily.
Definitely not her cup of tea, but a situation offering

possibilities. If she could play it right.

‘That means
—
’ she began brightly, turning to Tom.

‘I think I can just about manage that,’ he cut in cheerfully, and she saw that he was trying not to laugh. Her lips be
ga
n to twitch
, too
. She quickly turned away and g
raced
Eduardo
with
a radiant smile
, then
reined it in a little
–
she should
n’t be too obvious.

‘
Venite
,’ Eduardo said with an elegant
flick
of his right hand. E
mbracing Evie with his inviting gaze
,
he moved to Tom’s side, took him lightly by the elbow and started to lead him past a row of slender cypress trees towards a path flanked by white rose bushes that led to the house.

Evie followed hot on their heels, her mind racing. Could she work on two fronts at the same time?

If she played
up to Eduardo
, she might learn something from
him
about Tom’s affair
with Zizi
. He obviously wouldn’t know the full details – he and Tom couldn’t talk to each other and there was a limit to what sign language could say – but it was
quite possible
that Tom had phoned Zizi on one
of
his visits to Italy, or that she had called him wh
ile
he was with Eduardo. If that had happened, Tom would have said her name and Eduardo might have heard him.

Or Eduardo might have seen a photo of them together
.
Tom could have pulled it out of his pocket to look at it
,
assuming that men did things like that
–
she wasn’t sure if they did. She didn’t expect a photo of him and Zizi in the act – that would be too much to hope for – but something that helped to date their affair would be brilliant.

S
he
felt a stab of guilt at the
thought
of using Eduardo like that
,
but she’d been stuck on how to move her relationship with Tom to the next base
–
a
n emotional base, not a physical one
; ther
e
was a limit to what she’d do
–
a
nd
the moment she’d seen the
gleam in Eduardo’s eyes as he
’d
looked at her, she’d known that her
guardian angel
had sent her a backup plan. I
f she was reporter enough to go along with it.

And
she was.

Successfully squash
ing
the niggly feeling of guilt
, she
felt her spirits start to rise. Thank you, thank you,
g
uardian
a
ngel
,
she bubbled inwardly,
and she
beam
ed
at Eduardo’s back, which was swaying from one side of the path to the other
,
every time
that
he threw his hands in the air to point out the newly planted trees and shrubs.

She’d flirt with him for a bit, which would be easy enough
–
last night had shown her
that
she could do anything she put her mind to
–
and then she’d encourage him to talk about Tom.
OK, it
was a tall order to work on two men at the same time in the hopes that at least one of them
would
open up to her – a dauntingly tall order
–
but she could do it. She had to
.
H
er only chance of breaking into the
world of
magazine
journalism
was at stake.

They started to go down the terracotta-tiled steps to the front door
when
Eduardo suddenly stopped to draw their attention to the roses and purple clematis growing around the stone pillars on the corners of the porch
.
She
slipped into the gap between the men
;
she was there to translate for them, after all. So far, it had been pretty obvious what Eduardo was saying, what with his facial expressions and gestures, but Tom
just
might need her help at any minute.

Eduardo finished
with
the subject of the flowers and produced a large iron key with a flourish. They went down the last couple of steps to the porch and he put the key into the lock of the heavy wooden door. After turning it several times, he pushed the door open, stepped back and slipped a hand under Evie’s elbow. At exactly the same moment, Tom slipped his hand under her other elbow.

‘
Perdono
!
’ Eduardo said hastily, seeing Tom’s action. He dropped his hand, gave a small bow and stood back.

No one said it was going to be easy, she thought, and she stepped into the small entrance hall at Tom’s side.

From that moment on, Tom needed her to translate for him.

As she f
ollow
ed
the two men through the ground floor rooms it was all she could do to keep up with Eduardo’s rapi
d delivery as he explained the
thing
s
that had been done since Tom’s last visit. Tom was clearly delighted with what he saw, and when they went through the arched doorway leading from the sitting room into the kitchen
,
and saw the pale peach-coloured units above and below a granite worktop that spanned the back wall of the kitchen, he stopped abruptly.

‘It’s stunning
.
Absolutely stunning. Eduardo
was
right about the colour bringing out the tones in the stone walls. Will you tell him that I thought the kitchen looked good in the shop, but this is way beyond anything I ever imagined?’

She translated Tom’s words, and Eduardo inclined his head in acknowledgement. Smiling with pleasure, he led them back through the sitting room into the hall and up the wide stairs to the upper floors.

‘
Questa è la camera principale
,’ he announced as they entered a large room leading off the first landing. ‘
C’è posto per un molto grande letto
.’

‘This is the master bedroom,’ she translated, turning to Tom. ‘He says
that
there’s room for a very large bed.’

Their eyes met
.

Her thoughts fle
w back to the night before. His
look of
sudden
amusement
told her that his had, too.

She felt herself starting to
go red
. Hell’s bells and curses galore on her auburn hair –
any minute from now
she was going to look like a
n overboiled
beetroot
.
She blamed her mother. Behind them, she heard Eduardo
walk a
cross the room, open a door and call
for
them to join him in the
en suite
bathroom, and she all but ran to him.

When they’d finished looking at the bathroom and the two small rooms in the tower, they went back down to the sitting room and Eduardo began to tell Tom how to work the lights for outside the house and the pool, showing him which switch was responsible for which area.

She shifted from one foot to the other. Hopefully, they’d soon move on to something else and she’
d have the
chance to make a subtle move on Eduardo, the emphasis being on subtle – Italian men liked to feel that they were the on
es who were calling the shots. T
hat had been one of the first
things
she’d learnt in Lake Garda.

She sneaked a glance at Eduardo
and wondered if she could ever
fancy him
.

A lock of jet black hair had fallen over his forehead and his dark eyes
were
blaz
ing
with enthusiasm. He had amazingly long lashes for a man
. They were
so long that they were actually casting shadows on his
high
cheekbones. Without doubt he was gorgeous, the sort of gorgeous that Rachel and Jess went for in a big way.

And
as for
his bod
y
…
Her eyes
ran down the length
of
his
frame
. Although
slighter in build than Tom and more graceful, he looked quite strong.

Her gaze returned to his face. Yes, he was definitely a dish
–
a sleek, beautiful dish
–
but he wasn’t the dish of her choice
. He might be charming, but he
just wasn’t her type.

S
he knew she was going to like him,
though,
and it was going to be fun flirting with him, provided that she could stop herself from laughing every time he went into his Latin lover routine. What’s more, he was
bound
to have got kissing down to a fine art
–
a bonus if she ever had to go
that far to be convincing. A
s for bed,
well,
she was sure he’d be brilliant
at that
– there’d be no rolling on
,
and rolling off three snorting minutes later
–
but
she
w
as
n’t
going to
be
checking that out
.

‘Evie!’
Tom
called
.

She jumped
,
and turned to
wards
him. He was standing next to
Eduardo
, who
had his
finger on one of the
wall
switches
,
waiting for their full attention. When he was sure that he had it, he flicked the switch and
looked
up
. They followed his gaze. Through the clear glass that formed half of the high ceiling, they
saw the illuminated tower
rising up
at the back of
the roof
,
seeming to look
down at them
.

Tom gave a sigh of deep satisfaction. ‘This is something we’ve got to see at night at least once before we go back to England, Evie. That’s for sure.’

The two of them alone in the house at
the dead of
night, a time when souls wer
e bared and secrets tumbled out
.

‘It certainly is,’ she said fervently.

The demonstration over, Eduardo switched off the light and
led them out through
the arched glass doors
on
to a vine-covered
loggia
that ran along two sides of the house.

An expanse of grass stretched from the
loggia
to a green slope covered with lavender bushes and rosemary
, whose
musky aroma filled the air. On either side of the slope, paved stone steps led down to a large infinity pool. Beyond the pool, sloping groves of olive trees were set against a backdrop of shadowy distant hills. On one of the dark green hills far away to the right,
the town of
Todi glistened in the late morning sunlight.