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Remembering how she had thrown his father’s name at him like some verbal gauntlet, he gritted his teeth.
‘And what would he think about you doing this?’ Lily had asked. ‘He wanted you to step up. To grow up.’
The answer to that question made him get to his feet abruptly, because it wasn’t Lily’s voice inside his head, but Henry’s, and his chest clenched, tightening hard, tightening around an emptiness that was as familiar as it was painful. He swayed forward. His brain felt as if it were short-circuiting and his hands moved automatically to his face, but it would take more than tapping to quiet his mind. He turned and began to walk swiftly away from the house.
Rereading the same paragraph for the umpteenth time, Lily looked up from her book and sighed. She was sitting on the window seat in her room and it was in many ways the perfect spot to read. Light but not bright, comfy enough to relax but not to doze off. But she couldn’t concentrate. All she could think about was what Trip had said to her earlier.
He was right. She did need this to work. No doubt, news of their engagement would leak out if it hadn’t already, and it didn’t matter that she hated everything about the situation. There was more at stake than her ego. Her throat tightened. Only it was turning out to be so much harder than she had ever imagined.
Her fingers twitched, and she made a fist, trying to banish the memory of how it had felt when Trip had taken her hand out by the pool. She knew that it had been for Valentina’s benefit, oh, and to prove a point, but why then could she still feel the imprint of his touch? Why did it still burn now, sharp and hot like the lick of a flame?
Why then did it make her want more heat? More touch, just more...
Needing to distract herself, she stared through the window at the view. She had been to Rome only once with her parents and she had loved all the art and architecture and the buzz of the moped and the oven-hot streets. But this was the other side to Italy. Lush, rural, so quiet you could hear your heart beating. It was like looking at a painting. Or perhaps the backdrop to a play or a ballet. But there were no dancers waiting nervously in the wings, just horses, heads low as they grazed the lush green grass.
She put down her book.
Her family were sailors. Her dad had a yacht and they spent their summers around Martha’s Vineyard, taking the boat out all the way to the Bahamas and back. She liked horses but they were large and unpredictable, so mostly she was happy to look at them from a distance.
But maybe that was something else that was going to have to change too if she was ever going to take a look around her home for the next few days—weeks?—because there seemed to be an awful lot of them.
As if to prove that point, she heard a whinny from nearby and, leaning forward a fraction, she narrowed her gaze in the direction of the sound.
She was more than a little scared of horses, but perhaps if she could get past her fear then everything else would seem easy in comparison. At the very least it would stop her thinking about Trip. First, though, she was going to change clothes. She was just too hot and she couldn’t keep wearing the same things day after day.
Having changed into a light gingham print dress with puffed sleeves, which was no doubt her mother’s idea of what to wear for some imaginary picnic in the country, she slipped on her sandals and made her way downstairs.
It was easy to find the stables, although only the two-part doors with their hay rails gave any hint that they were for horses, not humans. They shared the same stucco walls and pantiled roof as the main house and were easily the most opulent-looking stables she had ever seen. But there were no horses.
And then she heard it again, the same noise as before, only softer, more of a nickering sound than a whinny. It was coming from a slightly larger building next door, some kind of barn by the looks of it.
The door was shut but it opened easily and she slipped inside, glancing up, momentarily transfixed by the dust motes spiralling lazily down from the ceiling.
And then she saw him.
Trip was standing next to a beautiful chestnut-coloured horse. Given that he was standing in a barn, she would have expected him to be wearing chinos or jeans, but he was still wearing his swim shorts. His one concession to the equestrian setting was that he no longer had bare feet. Instead he was wearing some of those short riding boots.
At first she thought he was on the phone. His head was lowered slightly and one hand was pressing against the side of his face, but then he moved and she saw that it was empty. He seemed to be just standing there. No, not just standing, she thought, her gaze resting on the rise and fall of his chest. He was concentrating.
Abruptly, the horse shook his head and took a couple of steps forward and she saw Trip frown, adjust his breathing, then follow the horse.
Her own breath was trapped in her throat. What was he doing?
Now, Trip was bowing his head again, closing his eyes and for a moment nothing happened and then the horse turned and gently nuzzled his shoulders, and she had a sudden, strong feeling that she was intruding.
Without turning, she took a step backwards and collided with something hard and metallic. A shovel—
‘Ouch!’
‘Lily?’
The horse made an accusatory whickering sound, but it was Trip’s voice that made her legs momentarily weave beneath her, then freeze.
Trip had turned and was walking towards her. In the soft, smothered light of the barn his beauty transcended any words she could muster.
‘Are you okay?’ He was squinting but she felt his gaze like a searchlight. Behind him, the horse was walking over to tug at a net of hay.
‘I’m fine.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I heard the horses, so I thought I’d come and have a look at them.’ Remembering how Trip had followed it around, she said, ‘Is it okay?’
