Page 28 of In Italy for Love

Just when she’d thought this man couldn’t get any cuter, she discovered he wore glasses.

Arco trotted over to him and began enthusiastically licking his knee while Alex peered doubtfully at him with a puzzled smile on his lips – a gorgeous, puzzled smile. With a blur of white, the cat jumped down from the table and fled past her ankles.

Only when the silence stretched and Alex’s gaze returned questioningly to hers did she remember he’d asked her a question.

‘Yeeeessss, I’m fine, just… seeing things and—’ Seeing things like Death in the mist and an adorable accordion doctor with fine, strong hands and bright blue eyes. She shook herself.

He rose and came around the workbench to where she was standing. ‘Do you have a fever?’

‘No,’ she insisted, ‘I—’ His fingers on her forehead stole any words she might have uttered in explanation. What did come out of her lips was something entirely unhelpful. ‘Those glasses look so hot on you.’

His gaze flew to hers in surprise as she clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I took my contacts out.’ Tugging the glasses off, he rubbed his forehead self-consciously.

‘No, keep them on,’ she insisted, the damage done now so she might as well make it worthwhile. He eyed her as he slipped them on again, and even that was attractive. ‘What are you doing still up? I don’t even know what time it is.’

‘I’m trying to repair this for a student,’ he explained, taking the opportunity to step safely behind the bench again. ‘It’s making a phantom sound.’

Jules burst out laughing and he stared at her again, mystified. ‘A phantom sound is a very good description. I heard it last night too and it put me in the weirdest mood. I’m imagining ghosts everywhere.’

He gave her a strange look that reminded her of the way he’d looked at her when she’d arrived home from the farm that day. ‘You’re not the first person to suggest this accordion is haunted,’ he muttered. ‘But I think it’s only haunting me.’ He stretched, making his sleeves pull up over his forearms. ‘There must be a stuck pin somewhere but there are so many little things out of place in here I can’t find it.’

She peered at the carcass of the instrument, spread out on the table. The bellows, the vinyl concertina part in the middle, had been set carefully to one side and the two wooden ends taken apart to reveal a complex mesh of pins and valves.

‘These are the reeds,’ he explained, pointing to a set of metal strips in a wooden frame. ‘When the air moves along them, they vibrate and that’s how the sound is produced.’ Picking up one end to show her the grid of round buttons, he pressed a couple and little hatches opened and closed on the other side. ‘The pallets control the air flow to the reeds and that’s how you choose which note to play.’

‘It’s like a little machine and you’re a midnight mechanic.’

He gave a shrug in agreement.

‘At least your workshop is warm,’ she commented, pressing the backs of her fingers to her cheeks.

He glanced up sharply. ‘Your radiator wasn’t working. You said something earlier and I forgot.’

‘I forgot too,’ she admitted. ‘And I fell asleep fine at first.’

‘But now you’re freezing,’ he finished for her, getting to his feet again and selecting a pair of pliers from the toolbox on the workbench. ‘I hope it’s just the valve. Let’s have a look.’

While Alex inspected the radiator, Jules’s gaze wandered to his hunched figure in her room, drawn to study him. As she leaned over to peer at what he was doing at the radiator, she noticed he had an indentation in his earlobe, suggesting he’d had his ear pierced at some point, which only reminded her of the many things she didn’t know about him.

He got the knob of the radiator off and tugged gently at the pin with the pliers. The radiator gurgled and then warmth began to flow into the unit – to Jules’s relief and also, she guessed, to Alex’s, if his deep exhale was anything to go by.

Glancing over his shoulder at her, he froze to find her leaning close. Jules told herself sternly to move away, except her brain was sluggish with questions about why he was awake in the middle of the night, why he looked at her with such a pained expression sometimes, when she’d thought they’d had fun the night they’d been together.

She was so close she saw his throat move as he swallowed and could pick up the scent of him.Move away. She was supposed to be granting him privacy, not smelling the mix of woodsy cologne and old accordions that she found strangely compelling.

He drew back so suddenly that she had to clutch his sleeve for balance, then prised her fingers open again before he thought she was trying to pull him closer. He stood as soon as she released him.

‘I—’ she began, as she scrambled to her feet as well. ‘Sorry I was—’ Running an agitated hand through her hair, she noticed his eyes drift there and suspected she looked desperately unkempt – even more of a mess than she usually did. ‘I was just—’ She tried again, but with him regarding her expectantly from behind those gorgeous glasses, she could barely remember what she’d been doing leaning so close. ‘Smelling the scent of old accordion and sexy cologne on you’ wouldn’t do. ‘I waswatching so I can fix it myself if it happens again. I don’t want to be any trouble.’

His brow knit and his sigh came from deep inside him as he rubbed a hand over his face. ‘It’s not your fault,’ was all he said.

‘I know, but I still don’t want to be a burden.’

‘You don’t understand,’ he continued. ‘I lost someone – important. It was a while ago, but it hit hard and I needed to be alone?—’

He looked so dismayed that Julia’s stomach twisted and plummeted. ‘You don’t have to talk to me about it. Something to do with the jacket, right?’

He nodded.

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