But the truth was that her heart was aching. Something about Francesco had reached out to her, and she had reached back because it had felt so right. It was crazy to feel like this about a man she’d only just met, but with all her heart and soul she wanted him.

Now, floating in the blessed anonymity of the ocean, she wondered how she could have loved him so agonisingly then, and five months later be running away from him?

The question tortured her as she sank deeper into the water, reliving the events of yesterday, when she’d slipped out of the home they shared without telling him where she was going. She’d left him a note that she’d managed to write on a large pad:

I’LL CALL YOU LATER TODAY, CELIA.

She’d hated the deception, hated herself for doing it, but she’d had no choice. She loved him now as much as she’d done on that evening, five months ago, when she’d wondered, sadly, if she would ever see him again. If anything, she loved him more.

And yet she’d escaped him, knowing that if she didn’t she would go mad.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PR contract had been arranged the next day, and over the following week there had been a good deal of coming and going between the two firms. But it had never been Francesco who arrived. Celia had resigned herself to not meeting him again when there was a knock on her front door in the evening.

She’d gone to the door, switching on the light as she went, so that the visitor should have some illumination. She lived without lights.

‘Who is it?’ she called.

‘It’s me,’ came his voice from behind the door.

He didn’t need to identify himself further. They both understood that there was only one ‘me.’ She opened the door and put out her hand, feeling it enfolded in his.