Page 19 of Best Laid Plans
That was why she’d given in so easily.
That and the fact she’d been acutely aware of something in his eyes when he’d argued with her – something that made her think he’d needed to win this small battle. Maybe it was just a macho male impulse to assert his authority, but for some reason she didn’t believe that was the whole of it. Even though he’d made it clear he didn’t want anything more to do with her he hadn’t been able to turn a blind eye when he’d seen how she was struggling.
Just the fact he’d noticed that she was in trouble made her feel like she wanted to cry again, only this time with gratitude. It felt like a long time since someone had looked out for her like that.
Argh! And now she was starting to like him again, when she’d told herself to stay well out of his way.
After exiting the shop with Julien hot on her newly shod heels, they stood awkwardly on the pavement, looking anywhere but at each other. She expected him to make some excuse any second now to get away from the strange tension deadening the air between them, but he didn’t move, instead turning to look at her with that perplexed frown of his.
‘Why don’t you go for a short walk in your boots, to check they’re fitting properly?’ he said, breaking eye contact to glance down at her feet. ‘Just in case you need to take them back. I’m guessing you’re walking on to Positano tomorrow so you won’t have an opportunity to swap them after today.’
‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘That’s a good idea.’ Swinging her bag onto her back, she took a pace backwards. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible. What was the etiquette here? Should she invite him to come along? It felt rude to just stride off when he’d gone to the trouble of helping her out. But, then again, would she be putting him in an awkward position where he’d feel forced to reject her again?
‘Why don’t I come with you?’ he said, surprising her. ‘The assistant didn’t seem to have much English and you might need me to translate again.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘At least I’m assuming you don’t speak Italian? I never asked.’
‘You assume correctly.’ It had pleased her to find out she’d been right about his linguistic skills. When the sales assistant had come over and they’d started speaking to her in English and she’d not understood the nuances of what they wanted, Julien had switched to Italian. To her untrained ear it sounded as flawless as his English. Which proved her theory that he’d been speaking her language for her benefit the night they’d shared the honeymoon suite. Something about this discovery gave her a little lift of joy.
‘I can order a coffee and ask where the bathrooms are, but that’s about the extent of my vocabulary without consulting a phrasebook,’ she said with a smile.
‘Bon. I’ll come with you then.’
‘Don’t you want to check in to your hotel?’
He shook his head. ‘Later.’
‘Okay,’ she said, shrugging, trying not to give away how pleased she was that he wasn’t just going to abandon her now. ‘I’m going to grab a sandwich from that shop over there before I die of hunger, but I can eat it while we walk.’
‘We can sit down. I’m not in a rush.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Sure.’
So she bought a panini stuffed with prosciutto and nutty-tasting cheese and the sweetest sundried tomatoes she’d ever eaten and sat at a long counter in the shop and consumed the whole thing in about two minutes flat. Julien stood next to her, drinking an espresso, not saying a word about her eating habits, though she could practically hear him thinking the words,See? You were a fool not to take that energy bar when I offered it to you.
Maybe she had been a little foolish, but she’d still been angry with him at the time for the way he’d spoken to her the night before and had chosen her pride over her stomach.
After that, they wandered out of the town centre and away towards the cliffs, enjoying the cool breeze coming off the sea. It was still hot, but much more bearable now that the sun had begun to slip down behind the horizon.
‘Let’s go and check out the beach,’ she suggested, fully expecting him to say no and make his excuses to leave now.
He paused for a moment, his expression unreadable, before nodding slowly. ‘Sure,’ he said, surprising her again with the warmth in his voice.
They made their way over to where a winding set of steps led down to the small, pebbled beach. The sharp, briny smell of the sea hit her nose as they picked their way across to the centre of the deserted cove, the only sound coming from the rush of waves and the melodic tinkle of the stones as the water played back and forth over them.
She stopped near the water’s edge and looked out towards the horizon, where the sun was disappearing from view, leaving the soft glow of dusk in its wake.
‘Wow. It really is beautiful here,’ she said as Julien came to a halt beside her.
They stood side by side and stared out at the gentle swell of the water in silence, listening to the faraway cries of the birds wheeling in the sky above them.
When she turned to glance at Julien, she was surprised to find he was looking at her with a strange little pinch between his brows.
A wave of tingling warmth washed from head to foot, pooling deep inside her as their gazes locked. She knew it was ridiculous to read anything into it, but something felt different between them now, as if a layer of armour had been peeled away.
Clearing her throat, she tore her gaze away and rummaged in her bag, desperate for something to distract her from the fizz of nerves in her tummy, producing her book on walking the Amalfi coast and her eyeliner. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting them towards him. ‘Write your address inside the front cover, will you? Then I’ll know where to send the money.’
Without a word, he took them from her and, twitching his eyebrows at her choice of writing implement, wrote in the book.
