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surprise, they made a great team. It was certainly a pleasure watching Marco wielding his immense physical strength.
    â€˜I’ll move things out of the way so you can take that rug into the dining room,’ she told him, holding her breath as Marco shouldered the weight of the wool rug as if it were a bag of feathers. Opening the door wide, she cleared a space for him, only to find him breathing down her neck. Their hands brushed. Their bodies touched. Their breath mingled as he turned around. They were just too dangerously close—
    â€˜Great job,’ she said, stepping back. Now she realised that in her hurry to get away from him she had made it sound as if their positions in life had been reversed and Marco was her assistant. Oh, well. There was nothing she could do about that now. Ducking beneath his arm, she slipped away.
    â€˜Where are you going?’ he demanded.
    â€˜To my bed.’ She turned and shrugged. ‘We’ve done all we can tonight. I’m going to have a bath first—try to warm up. The power may be off but the water should still be warm in the reserve tank—and I promise I won’t use it all.’
    â€˜A bath in the dark?’ he queried.
    â€˜I’ll manage—I’ll take some candles.’ She glanced at his fist on the door. Was he going to try and stop her leaving? The tension between them had suddenly roared off the scale.
    â€˜You’re in a hurry to get away.’
    His murmur hit her straight between the shoulder blades in a deliciously dangerous quiver of awareness. ‘I’m cold,’ she excused herself, hugging her body and acting fragile. She doubted he was convinced, but at least he lifted his hand from the door.
    â€˜You’ve done well tonight,’ he said as he stood back.
    â€˜And now I’m freezing,’ she reminded him in a stronger voice. That wasn’t so far from the truth. She was soaking wet. ‘If you could get the power back on...’ she suggested hopefully.
    Marco narrowed his eyes and looked at her. ‘You’d better take that bath,’ he said, to her relief. ‘And don’t forget to reassure your godmother that you’re safe. A storm like this will have made the international news. And anyone else, of course, who might be interested,’ he added as an apparent afterthought.
    He didn’t fool her. ‘There is no one else.’ She guessed that was his real question. ‘And I will speak to my godmother as soon as the phone line comes back.’
    â€˜You obviously think a lot of her.’
    Passion and gratitude swept over her. ‘My godmother is the most wonderful woman on earth. She took me in—’
    â€˜When your parents were killed,’ Marco supplied thoughtfully.
    â€˜Yes.’ She firmed her lips, reluctant to say anything more. How much did he know?
    â€˜Why did you leave her to come here to work in Tuscany?’
    â€˜It’s a great job,’ she said frankly. ‘And I can’t just live off her. She found this opportunity for me when I left my last job. She found it through one of her friends, another keen gardener. It would have been churlish of me to turn it down.’
    Though maybe she should have done, Cass reflected as Marco continued to stare at her. He was beginning to make her nervous. She decided to give him a little more. ‘I can easily get a job at another supermarket when I go home, and in the meantime this job is perfect for me.’
    â€˜Perfect,’ Marco echoed without comment or expression.
    He might want to know more, but she wasn’t going to discuss her personal life with someone who was practically a stranger.
    â€˜Don’t catch cold,’ he reminded her.
    She didn’t need another prompt. She left him and ran across the courtyard without a backward glance. Racing up the steps to her room, she felt as if the devil was on her back.
    * * *
    He stood in silence when Cassandra left him.