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instead.’
    The innocent invitation caught him unawares and something erratic began to happen to his heart-rate even though he was registering—rather incredulously—that she had actually turned down his invitation to dinner.
    Her eyes glittered him a warning. ‘But I don’t have long.’
    ‘Just throw me out when you want to,’ he drawled, in the arrogant manner of someone who had never been thrown out of anywhere in their lives.
    He closed the door behind him with a certain sense of triumph, though he could never remember having to fight so hard to get a simple cup of coffee. ‘These houses were not built for tall men,’ he commented wryly as he followed her along a low, dark corridor through into the kitchen.
    ‘That’s why a woman of average height lives in it! And people were shorter in those days.’
    The kitchen was clean and the room smelt fresh. An old-fashioned dresser was crammed with quirky pieces of coloured china and a jug of copper-coloured chrysanthemums glowed on the scrubbed table. From the French doors he could see the sea—grey and angry today and topped with white foam. ‘I love the Hamble,’ he said softly.
    ‘Yes, it’s gorgeous, isn’t it? The view is never the same twice, but then the sea is never constant.’ She studied him. ‘What’s it like, coming back here?’
    He stared out at the water, remembering what it had been like when he had first sailed into this sleepy English harbour, young and free, unencumbered by responsibility. It had been a heady feeling.
    ‘It makes you realise how precious time is,’ he said slowly. ‘How quickly it passes.’ And then he shook himself, unwilling to reflect, to let her close to his innermost thoughts. ‘This house is…’ he searched for just the right description ‘…sweet.’
    Eve smiled. ‘Thank you. It’s the old coastguard’s cottage. I’ve lived here all my life.’
    ‘It isn’t what I was expecting.’
    She filled the kettle up. ‘And what was that?’
    ‘Something modern. Sleek. Not this.’ And today she was not what he expected, either. His pulse should not be pounding in this overpowering way. He tried telling himself that he liked his women to be smart and chic, not wearing baggy clothes with spots of paint all over them, and yet all he could think about was her slender body beneath the unflattering trousers, and his crazy fascination for the flirty pink varnish on the toes of her bare feet.
    Eve made the coffee in silence, thinking that he seemed to fill the room with his presence and that never, in all her life, had she been so uncomfortably aware of a man. Maybe, subconsciously, she was unable to make the transition from starstruck adolescent to mature and independent woman. Maybe, as far as Luca was concerned, she was stuck in a timewarp, for ever doomed to be the inept waitress with a serious crush. Her heart was thundering so loudly in her ears that she wondered if he could hear it. ‘How do you like your coffee?’ she asked steadily.
    ‘As it comes.’
    But the kettle boiling sounded deafeningly loud, almost as loud as her heart. She turned and looked at him. He was leaning against the counter, perfectly still, just watching her. And something in his eyesmade her feel quite dizzy. ‘So?’ she questioned, in a voice which sounded a million miles away from the usual way she asked questions.
    He smiled. ‘So why am I here?’
    ‘Well, yes.’
    He let his gaze drift over her. ‘I couldn’t help myself,’ he said, with a shrug, as if admitting to a weakness that was alien to him.
    Eve stared back at him. She tried telling herself that she wasn’t like this with men. She worked with men. Lots of them—some of them gorgeous, too. Yet there was something different about Luca—something powerful and impenetrable which didn’t stop him seeming gloriously accessible. Sensuality shimmered off him in almost tangible waves. He was making her feel vulnerable, and she didn’t want to be.
    She could feel the