Reaching up with his free hand, Mark pulled his T-shirt down again until the scars were hidden from view. When he glanced up, Emma did her best to show no sign of having noticed anything untoward. Suddenly his reluctance to expose his torso was explained and she felt a wave of sympathy for him. Wounds like this must have been life-threatening and she could only imagine the trauma he had suffered. Luckily he appeared unaware that she had seen the signs of his injury. He caught her eye and grinned.
‘Bloody dog. I wonder how she managed to get in.’
Emma smiled back at him. ‘You might need to rename her Houdini.’
Mark cast an affectionate look down at the dog and released his hold on her collar. ‘Well, all right then, Carmen. Seeing as we’re both in, we might as well have a swim.’ As Carmen paddled happily away, he glanced back up at Emma. ‘The good news is that the water temperature’s risen a quite a bit over the past few days and it’s really very pleasant in here. The bad news is that I’ve got my phone in my pocket. Anyway, if you feel like joining us, Carmen and I will avert our eyes.’
For a moment Emma was sorely tempted to slip out of her dress and join them, but then common sense kicked in. Regretfully, she shook her head.
‘I’m very tempted, but I think I’ll just stand and see which of you is the better swimmer.’
She settled back on a bench and looked on as Mark demonstrated that he swam very well indeed, even fully clothed, putting his head down and setting off on a dozen lengths, before finally shepherding the Labrador back towards the steps at the shallow end. With a bit of pushing and shoving, he managed to eject her and then waited as she shook herself energetically. Carmen then trotted across to say hello to Emma who took immediate evasive action to avoid being soaked as the dog shook herself again. While this was happening, Mark climbed out of the pool and stood there dripping. He reached into his pocket and brought out his phone.
‘Well, I’ll be…! It really is waterproof. Remind me to write to Apple to congratulate them.’ He squelched across towards Emma. His clothes were plastered tightly across his body and he looked even more appealing, if that was possible. She swallowed hard and gave him a smile.
‘Somehow I think you might need to change before dinner.’
Chapter 14
Marina and Rich arrived at the villa with Ethan and Sinclair bang on seven o’clock. Mark was back at his house reprimanding his dog and changing his clothes; Emma was waiting on the steps to meet Ethan as he emerged from the car.
‘Hi, guys. Welcome to Villa Graziella. Good flight?’
Ethan came across to her, caught hold of her affectionately round the waist and lifted her easily into the air.
‘Hello, gorgeous. The villa looks as stunning as you do.’
As he set her down again, Emma smoothed her dress and grinned at him. ‘I bet you say that to all the villas you meet. How did the award ceremony go?’
‘I won Best Male Actor in a Horror Movie. Mind you, there wasn’t much competition – most of the others didn’t need any make-up to turn them into zombies.’
‘Ouch, that’s a bit catty! Didn’t your mummy tell you to be nice? Anyway, congratulations on yet another trophy. Your collection must be enormous by now.’
‘You should come over to my place and check them out some time. Sinc keeps telling me I should store them in a vault somewhere, but I get a kick out of looking at them from time to time.’
Sinclair shook his head in resignation. ‘One of these days the bad guys are going to come looking for your stash of trophies and then you’ll wish you’d followed my advice.’
Emma led them into the hotel and handed them over to Claudio and his team who were doing a masterful job of trying to look as if the arrival of a global megastar was an everyday event. As they escorted him to the lift, Emma gave him a little wave.
‘Once you’ve freshened up, we’ll be in the orangery if you want to come down for a drink.’
As the lift doors closed, Emma turned towards Marina and Rich and noticed the same odd expression on both faces.
‘What’s up, guys? Something happen out on the road?’
Marina glanced across at Rich and then answered for both of them.
‘No, the trip was fine. It’s just something Ethan said in the car.’ Emma saw her searching for the right words. ‘He was asking us about you, you see.’
‘About me…?’
‘We think he’s interested in you.’ Rich sounded unusually hesitant and Marina took over.
‘What he actually asked was whether you were seeing anybody… you know, a boyfriend.’
Emma took a few calming breaths, trying not to panic. Maybe Mark had been right after all. ‘Ah, okay, and what did you tell him?’
‘The truth – we don’t know.’ Marina gave her a nervous little smile. ‘Did we do the right thing?’
Emma did her best to smile back, although her mind was whirling with the possible complications this could cause. ‘Of course you did and thank you both for telling me.’ She reinforced her smile. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll sort it out. I’m sure he was just curious. He and I go way back and he was probably only being nosey. And, seriously, thanks for coming to me with this. I appreciate it.’
As Marina and Rich set off up the stairs, she saw relief on both their faces. As for her, things had potentially got a lot more complicated. She walked back to the orangery and ordered a double espresso. She needed her brain to be sharp this evening. If it was true that Ethan was interested in her, how should she react? The last thing she wanted to do was to rebuff him and maybe even piss him off so seriously that he might throw a tantrum and storm off. The alternative would be to play along with him for now and then let him down gently when they were back in Hollywood. She immediately discounted this idea. First, she had never been the sort of woman to use sexual favours to get ahead and second, there was Mark.
‘Ecco, signora.’
The waitress set the little cup down in front of her and Emma reached for it immediately, shooting the girl a little smile and murmuring grazie. It was boiling hot, so she just took a sip as she returned to her internal debate.
She was under no illusions that she had developed a deep attraction to Mark in such an incredibly short space of time. Never in her life had she been so immediately swept away by a man. Whether this overwhelming sense of attraction was in any way reciprocated by him remained uncertain, but she potentially now found herself in the sights of one of the most familiar, and desirable, faces on the planet and she knew that getting together with Ethan would totally change her life forever: overnight she would be catapulted into the limelight and she had enough experience of what media hounding could do to people to want to stay well clear of that, even if she were interested in Ethan in that way, which she just wasn’t. Crazy as it would, undoubtedly, sound to a lot of the female population of the globe, she just didn’t feel physically attracted to the sexiest man on earth.
It was very, very annoying.
Her musings were interrupted by the arrival of Claudio, who also had an odd expression on his face. For a moment, Emma wondered whether Ethan had been quizzing him about her relationship status as well. ‘Signora…’
‘Emma, please.’