* * *
Anna stepped into a bathroom on the second floor with an external wall made entirely of glass.
‘I’ve been in here before,’ she said, the words popping out of her mouth as that feeling of déjà vu hit her again, all residue of their almost-argument forgotten.
This memory was more than a feeling though. This one had substance.
She hurried to the glass wall and looked out.
Just as she’d known, the bathroom jutted out over the sunroom on the ground floor giving an immaculate view of the ocean and their strip of private beach.
Excited at this burst of memories, she faced him. ‘I remember this! This glass...you can’t see in from the outside, can you?’ She pointed to the free-standing bath. ‘I remember saying how brilliant it would be to have a bath in here and watch the ocean. I remember.’
‘I didn’t think a bath would act as a jogger,’ he said drily but with a stiff undertone that made her look at him.
He’d come to stand beside her. His face was inscrutable as he gazed out. ‘Are you remembering anything else?’
Her excitement diminished as more longed-for memories stayed stubbornly stuck in the void. ‘No.’
‘More will come. I don’t think it will be long.’
‘I hope so,’ she said fervently. ‘It’s so frustrating. You’re going to have to fill me in on everything about work if they don’t come back soon.’
‘Forget work.’ He gathered a lock of hair that had fallen onto a shoulder and smoothed it off her neck. ‘I don’t want you thinking about it until we return to London.’
‘I can decide for myself what I think, thank you.’
‘Your beautiful mind is one of the many things I adore about you.’ He placed his other hand on her neck and gazed down at her. ‘But all I want is for you to get better. I’m thinking of you, bellissima.’
‘I am better.’
‘Almost.’ He stepped closer and inhaled. ‘You’re almost there.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘DO YOU MISS ITALY?’ Anna asked some hours later. She’d had a three-hour nap in their four-poster bed, which even had muslin curtains, then a shower, and gone downstairs to find Stefano had ordered Italian takeaway for them.
Now they were sitting outside on the terrace, the roar of the Pacific their music.
‘I miss the food.’ He removed the lid of one large box to reveal a sharing platter of antipasti.
‘What about everything else?’
He thought about it. ‘I miss speaking my language.’
‘Your English and Swedish are excellent and your Japanese is pretty good too.’
‘Is not the same. When I speak my language I don’t think about the words before I say them. Is natural for me.’
‘Okay, so that’s the food and the language. Anything else?’
‘Our summers are better than in London.’
She gave him the stern look with one raised eyebrow that she’d often fixed him with when she’d worked for him.
‘I am Italian. I will always be Italian. It is in my blood and when I retire I will move back there.’
‘You? Retire?’