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Florence for someone you didn’t even know? It was only one night. How could you have let it change your whole life?’
    He laughed softly. ‘Because it did. Because I can’t get you out of my head, cara. You’ve bewitched me. I had to find you, but I couldn’t bring myself to have you hunted down by aninvestigator—or maybe it was that I was too proud to admit that you’d walked away from me, so I left it to the gods. I thought maybe if I hung around long enough, I might run into you. Which I did.’
    By accident, if she could believe that. She still wasn’t sure she could. Whatever, he was now working alongside her—potentially for months, she realised—with nothing to stop them from exploring this relationship. Except her fear and lack of trust—and she still wasn’t really sure she could believe his story about how he’d found her. It all sounded too innocent to be plausible.
    ‘So—having found me, what do you think happens next?’ she asked, her heart pounding with a mixture of anticipation and dread, and he shrugged, his eyes curiously veiled.
    ‘We see where it goes.’
    Her heart stalled. ‘Where what goes?’
    His voice was soft and low, teasing her senses and sending a shiver through her. ‘Whatever it is, this feeling between us that won’t seem to go away.’
    Her heart started again, and she swallowed hard, refusing to allow herself to be tempted by the serpent, no matter how sweet and juicy the apple.
    ‘Why, Luca?’ she asked with a touch of desperation. ‘Why me?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said softly. ‘Why me? I have no idea why it happened, but it did—and we both felt it that night. I wasn’t alone, Isabella. You felt it, too, and I won’t let you deny it.’
    She couldn’t, but she didn’t want to think about that night. She sucked in a breath. ‘I acted out of character. I don’t do that—don’t have relationships and certainly not one-night stands.’
    ‘Perhaps because there’s never before been that much temptation,’ he suggested quietly, and she swallowed hard.
    ‘God, you’ve got some ego there, Luca.’
    ‘It’s not ego. It’s the truth. We couldn’t help ourselves, cara. Either of us. It was meant to be.’
    Was it? She didn’t want to think so, but at the time, every look, every touch had been enough to make her forget her own name.
    ‘That still doesn’t mean we’ve got a future,’ she said, and his mouth twisted into a wry, humourless smile.
    ‘Maybe not. But it wasn’t only me. I knew it was crazy, but I couldn’t let you go without knowing how it would be between us.’
    ‘You didn’t have to come and find me, though. I told you I didn’t want a relationship. It was just one night.’
    ‘No. It was more than that, Isabella, and you know it.’
    Oh, God. Isabella.
    ‘No. We agreed. That was all it was meant to be. I didn’t want to see you again,’ she lied, ‘didn’t want a relationship, and I still don’t.
    ‘I told you at the time, I don’t do relationships.’
    ‘So how come you’re on the Pill?’
    She coloured softly. ‘To regulate my cycle,’ she told him frankly, holding his eyes even though she clearly wanted to look away. ‘Nothing more.’
    ‘Why not? You’re a beautiful woman, Isabella. You should be living your life, not just going through the motions.’
    ‘I am living. I don’t need a man in my life to do that. We don’t all have to indulge in indiscriminate sex to validate us as human beings!’
    ‘There was nothing indiscriminate about that night. It was incredible—every moment of it. It was wonderful.’ His voicesounded rough to his ears, and he swallowed. ‘You were wonderful—and you deserve to be with a man who can appreciate you.’
    ‘Not if I don’t want it.’
    He sighed softly. ‘But you did—and it moved you to tears. When was the last time you cried when you made love, Isabelle? When was the last time it made you weep?’
    Her eyes filled, and she looked away. ‘I was tired. It was