The Italian Next Door. Anna Cleary

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       For Bess, Jan and Liz, three of the dearest sisters on the planet.

       Also, I extend the most grateful thanks to Maria Elisabetta Forrest for her kind and generous assistance with my Italian grammar.

      CHAPTER ONE

      PASSION was the last thing on Pia Renfern’s mind when she approached the row of car-hire booths at Rome’s Fiumicino airport preparing to take a massive risk and drive on the wrong side of the road. But sometimes, in a foreign land, things happened beyond the control of the most careful people.

      Da Vinci Auto looked the most likely of the hire places. Parking her baggage trolley by the counter, Pia assumed a bright, breezy smile for the clerk. ‘Mi scusi, signora, can you tell me the cost of hiring a car for the day?’

      The woman’s shrewd gaze appraised Pia right through to her tender Australian conscience, which had only known the left hand side of any road it had ever travelled.

      ‘For one day, signorina?’

      ‘Yes, I only need it for the one. Just to get me to Positano.’ The clerk’s eyebrows arched high, and Pia felt obliged to explain. ‘You see, my flight was late and I’ve missed the bus I was booked on. I’d have caught a train, but with the train strike …’ She made a rueful gesture. She tried a smile, but after the stresses of a twenty-four-hour flight, it was a little wobbly. ‘I’ve tried taxis but none of the drivers will agree to take me that far.’

      The woman examined all five feet four of Pia from her blonde short cut, down to her blue suede jacket, travel-weary jeans and ankle boots.

      ‘May I see your passport, signorina? And your driving authority?’

      Pia sensed a presence loom up behind her like a brooding shadow. As she handed over her documents she noticed the clerk’s glance flit to somewhere above and beyond her head. For the first time the woman’s face burst into beaming smiles. ‘Ah, signore. Saro con Lei fra poco.’

      Pia glanced behind. An Italian man was standing there, leaning negligently on the towing handle of his suitcase. He was at least six feet tall, probably seven, with thick brows and intelligent dark eyes that connected at once with hers and gleamed with a disturbing boldness that zinged through her like a chemical infusion.

      Pia turned sharply back to the woman. She shouldn’t have looked. If there was one thing she wasn’t ready for, it was big, lean and hungry and packed with testosterone, however handsome it might appear.

      Valentino Silvestri, on the other hand, just flown in from Tunis after co-ordinating Interpol’s latest gruelling assault on the narcotics trade, felt a strange frisson prickle the nape of his neck and shiver down his spine.

      He willed the pretty blonde to turn around again for another glimpse of her arresting blue eyes. Deprived of the face, he allowed his appreciative gaze to wander further.

      Below the hem of her jacket, her blue jeans cupped a luscious little behind as sweetly rounded as an apricot. His mouth watered. Dio, how he yearned for a woman.

      Pia held her breath while the clerk perused the passport with a frown while at the same time assaulting her keyboard СКАЧАТЬ