Excerpt of The Italian's Passio by Elizabeth Power

HE WAS sitting alone at one of the waterside tables, looking out over the rustic platform that jutted out from the rocks. A man who had produced a ripple of excitement among the female bathers and had had pulses fluttering like the white fringes of the blue sun umbrellas he was now studying with such careless arrogance even before he had stepped out of his dinghy and come ashore.

Now, under the raffia canopy of the beach restaurant, with her sunglasses shielding her eyes from the bright Italian sun, Mel Sheraton's interest was unwillingly drawn to him.

Probably in his mid-thirties, olive-skinned. His strong black hair, combed straight back from a high forehead, reached almost to his shoulders, marking him at once as a man who flouted convention. She couldn't see his eyes because he too was wearing shades, but instinctively she knew that they would miss nothing, that behind them lurked a brain that was hard and shrewd. But it was that profile! Those well-defined cheekbones and that grim mouth and jaw, carved as the rocks to which the white Moorish houses of Positano — partially obscured by the jutting headland — clung dramatically, that filled her with a sudden, disquieting unease.

"OK. He's a dish all right, but you don't have to eat him all at once." Karen Kingsley's words cut through Mel's absorption, bringing her attention back to the dark-haired young woman sitting opposite her.

"Who?" she parried, with a prudent sideways glance down across the umbrellas to the three young people who were splashing about in the sparkling blue water. Checking, as she had been doing ever since they had finished lunch.

"Oh, come on, Mel. If you hadn't noticed before, he's been looking at you ever since he arrived."

When, Mel thought tensely, she had done her level best to ignore him. Even so, she had been aware of the power of his presence when, after securing his boat beside the little wooden jetty, he strode across the planking and mounted the steps to a table just metres from their own.

"Don't be silly," Mel responded, lifting her glass to take a long draught of her mineral water. "If anyone, he's been looking at you, not me."

Karen had worked as a model until leaving England two years ago when, newly married, she had emigrated with her artist husband and was now devoting all her time and energy to his small and modern gallery in Rome. But Karen was outstandingly beautiful with her fine, patrician features and expensively bobbed hair, and her shorts and sun top emphasising her long, willowy limbs. Quite a contrast to what Mel considered were her own average features, a body that was unimpressively petite and mutinous auburn hair that went its own way even after the most expert attention.

"You know that's not true. And even if he had been remotely interested — which he isn't — he'd already have noticed the wedding ring and discarded me as unnecessary hassle," Karen assured her. "Don't tell me you're immune, not to someone like him, because I shan't believe it, not least because of the way you've made a point of deliberately avoiding looking at him all the time he's been sitting there."

"Good grief!" Bright tendrils that refused to be constrained in their twisted topknot stirred faintly against Mel's startled face. Was it that obvious?

"Yes," Karen emphasised in response to her friend's un- spoken query, and they both burst out laughing.

Karen was a good friend, Mel thought. They had met when the model had been promoting the newest sports saloon to come out of Germany in an advertising campaign undertaken by Jonathan Harvey Associates, of which Mel was Sales and Marketing Director. Karen had driven all the way down from Rome to join her here in Positano two days ago. Tomorrow, before the rest of the team arrived, she would be driving back and taking Zoë with her, leaving Mel free to devote her time and effort to the week's conference that she and Jonathan were hosting on the firm's behalf, and Mel couldn't help but feel enormous gratitude to her friend.

Out of the corner of her eye, however, she was aware that the little bubble of merriment just now had produced a subtle glance from behind those dark lenses, even though the man was still engaged in conversation with the waiter.

"I'm not immune," she stressed more seriously, careful not to look his way. "But I do have Zoë to think about." Which was why she had insisted on having a couple of days here alone with the child, ahead of schedule. She didn't even feel guilty any more about putting Jonathan off when he had suggested flying out earlier, joining them today. Just self-contained, she thought resolutely, hardening herself to the caress of the sun on her neck and bare arms, the scent of suntan lotion, sweet herbs and the delicious aroma of barbecued fish. All of them were combining to try and make her drop her guard, forget the lesson she had learnt a long time ago, of how devastating the power of sexual attraction could be. It had cost her everything. Almost.

Instinctively, her eyes returning to the swimmers, Mel saw the twelve-year-old striking out, away from the others.

Any further and she would have to consider calling her back, she decided with an anxiety she knew wasn't entirely justified. After all, Zoë"s two teenage companions, who were staying in the hotel, had promised to look after her. Besides, she wasn't that far from the shore, Mel assured herself in an attempt to dispel her unnecessary worries. And Zoë was a brilliant swimmer. As Mel's sister Kelly had been...

A blade of something, long-buried and acute, sliced unexpectedly through Mel and, for a few moments, from the familiar shape of the girl's head and the trick of light and water that made the dark chestnut hair gleam almost black, Mel had a job convincing herself it was Zoë swimming out there and not Kelly.

The warm breeze passing through her white beach tunic nevertheless made her shiver, and mentally she shook the disturbing images away.

Momentarily off guard, her glance strayed to a pair of broad shoulders beneath the stretch fabric of a white T- shirt, down over bronzed, bare forearms to a fit, lean torso. From where she was sitting she was able to assess that his legs, exposed by dark shorts, were hair-roughened and strong, that his feet were lean and as bronzed as the rest of him in their very masculine flip-flops and without warning an un-bidden excitement uncoiled in her stomach.

Then she glanced up, realised with shaming self- consciousness that the waiter had gone and that she was looking straight into those hidden, yet all-seeing, eyes, and for several eternal seconds she couldn't look away.

Caught in the snare of his regard, she felt the pull of a sexual magnetism so great that the animated conversations around her, the chink of glass, the ring of cutlery, seemed not to be part of her world. All that existed was the racing of her blood and that burning gaze she could feel as tangibly as the dappled sunlight through the raffia canopy as it moved over the soft curve of her forehead with its fine dark brows, over her small straight nose and full, slightly parted lips to the long line of her throat, emphasised by the wide slash neckline of her tunic. Down and down his eyes slid, making her startlingly conscious that she wasn't wearing a bikini top. After her swim in the hotel pool before lunch, she had popped up to the room she shared with Zoë and simply substituted briefs and the tunic for her wet swim-wear. And now, because of that shiver — at least she tried convincing herself it was because of the shiver — she felt the betraying tingle of her breasts and realised that their hardened peaks were straining against the soft cotton. Though she couldn't see his eyes, she could feel them playing on her breasts, and suddenly his mouth quirked as though he thought himself solely responsible for their shocking betrayal.

Mortified, she turned sharply away, her heart hammering. She was being silly, she thought, shaken. It couldn't be...!

Hardly daring to think, turning her attention seawards in involuntary escape, she froze, colour draining from her flushed face.

"Oh my God!" she whispered, springing to her feet. "Oh my God!"

"What is it?" Karen asked, but the query was lost beneath the scrape of Mel's chair on the stony surface and the clunk of her tumbler hitting the vinyl tabletop, spilling a pool of melting ice across it as Mel's knee struck one of the legs.

She wasn't even aware of it in her desperate bid for the terrace. Zoë was in trouble, she realised, sick with fear. The two teenagers who had sworn to keep an eye on her weren't even conscious of what was happening. The girl hadn't left the comparative shallows of the rocks and the boy was too preoccupied with his snorkelling to notice anything. But Zoë was trying to swim and, from the frantic splashing of her flailing limbs, was finding it almost impossible even to stay afloat. Mel heard her scream then, the sound ringing ominously across the bay.

"Zoë!" Mel shrieked, heading for the steps to the sun- deck, but, quick to assess the situation, the man had reached them first.

He must have leapt to his feet an instant after she had, Mel realised distractedly, and now he was clearing the wooden steps two at a time.

Fear tearing at her chest, Mel tried to keep up, failing miserably to match his speed as he raced across the platform and on to the jetty. She wasn't even aware of people stirring beneath the umbrellas, or that some of the bathers were already on their feet. Her attention was solely with the man who, poised for a fragmented second, was suddenly plunging into the sea, his body like a dark arrow, before he surfaced, tossing water out of his eyes, arms slicing through the water in a powerful front crawl.

With a mixture of horror and fascination, Mel watched the gap closing between the man and the child, blind and deaf to the onlookers behind her. The teenage boy, suddenly wise to Zoë"s screams, had already started to swim out to her. But the man had reached her first and, with a sigh of weakening relief, Mel saw him catch the frightened girl in his capable arms and turn effortlessly with her back towards the shore.

"It's all right. She's all right." Mel felt a gentle arm go around her shoulders. Karen's, she realised, only conscious then of the sounds of expressed relief coming from behind her on the terrace, of people drifting back to their loungers.

"I shouldn't have let her swim out there on her own. I shouldn't have let her," Mel repeated, bitterly reproaching herself. "I should have said "no" and not let her persuade me, not given in."

"You can't wrap her up in cotton wool," Karen stated philosophically. "Of course you should have. She's a stronger swimmer than you are, and besides, she wasn't alone."

"Wasn't supposed to be," Mel grimaced, angry. She shouldn't have been stupid enough to trust anyone that young to look after Zoë, she thought, still blaming herself, rushing forward the instant the man lifted the coughing, limping child on to the jetty.

"Zoë." Her arms going gratefully around the slim, sodden girl, she was oblivious to the man who was now hauling himself on to dry land. Water seeped through her thin tunic and, where the garment had slipped off one shoulder, ran coldly from Zoë"s long dripping hair on to Mel's heated skin.

"It's all right. I'm all right," was the coughed, almost impatient, response from the twelve-year-old. Zoë hated fuss, and Mel knew she wouldn't allow herself to be discouraged for long. "I just got cramp..." But, as the girl tried to walk, her face twisted in anguish and quickly Mel urged her down on to the decking where, kneeling, she straightened the young limb and gently drew Zoë"s left foot upwards towards her shin.

"There's no harm done." The deep voice drifted down to Mel as she massaged the tightly bunched muscles in the girl's calf. A voice that, despite those Latin looks, uttered only perfect, unaccented English. A voice she would never have forgotten in a million lifetimes. For a few brief moments though, she hadn't realised he was there.

Now she became aware of the long, powerful legs planted firmly beside her, of the water running from him, around his tanned bare feet. He must have kicked off his shoes prior to taking that dive, Mel's brain registered, as it started to get back into gear. "The leg will probably be sore for a day or two, but your sister's a plucky little lady. It might not be a bad idea to keep a close eye on her over the next few days. These cramps have a habit of recurring."

Zoë, clearly beginning to feel more comfortable, was grinning at the man's obvious mistake, but right then Mel couldn't share the child's amusement.

Still struggling with self-recrimination, gratitude and now a deepening dread, Mel placed the young foot gently down on the decking and rose swiftly to her feet.

"Thank you..." She couldn't go on, rendered speechless as she tilted her head to meet harshly sculptured features.

"Vann. Vann Capella," he offered, obviously imagining that she was waiting for him to introduce himself. Not for one moment that she was stunned into silence by this unbelievable trick fate seemed to be playing on her.