It welcomed her into his world. And she was beginning to feel as if that was where she wanted to be.

While he emptied the washing-up machine of the load that had finished, she scraped plates and handed them to him to fill it up again.

"There's still plenty left to do," she said, "so we'd better do them by hand."

She got busy at the sink, working vigorously, until she looked up and found him regarding her strangely; not with a smile this time, but with a look that was half rueful, half wistful.

"What?" she asked.

"This is not how I planned our first evening alone together to be," he said.

"But you told me yourself, you plan too much," she reminded him. "Sometimes it's better when things just happen."

He nodded. "You are wise."

Still he stood there, eyes fixed on her, until she said gently, "Would you hand me that plate, please?"

"What plate?" He sounded dazed.

"The one just next to you."

He gave it to her. Justine turned back to the sink and got to work, but only half her mind was on what she was doing. The skin at the back of her neck and halfway down her spine seemed to have come alive with the awareness of him behind her.

He was going to kiss her just there, she knew it. The hairs were standing up on her neck with the sense of him moving toward her.

But nothing happened, and when she looked around, he was gone.

Chapter Ten

Riccardo was back in a moment, carrying plates. Justine had returned to work at the sink, apparently unconcerned. But she was aware of him now in a new way. A moment had come and gone, and something sweet and indefinable had happened.

She washed, he dried, and in about an hour they had finished.

"Let me show you my home," he said.

He took her hand and they wandered through the quiet building. It was a beautiful place, furnished in the eighteenth-century style and, apart from a man on the night desk, they were alone downstairs.