The rest of the journey passed in surprisingly easy silence, and then Rose could see that the hills around them were gradually losing their greenery and becoming more stripped back. A huge stone entrance was looming, and Zac drove in through a gate, waving at the security guard who tipped his hat at him.
The quarry was grey, the earth hacked and cut into all around them. They drove down a precipitously winding path to a deep ravine, where openings into tunnels were visible. Rose shuddered lightly at the thought of going down a dark shaft deep into the earth.
Above ground it looked stark and desolate, but Rose was fascinated to think of the riches that were obviously mined from the earth. She followed Zac out of the Jeep and he led her over to a large Portakabin office, where he handed her a high-visibility sleeveless jacket and a hard hat, and then a mask to put over her mouth.
She looked at him, and he said, ‘It’s probably not really necessary, but I’m not taking any risks.’
Of course. The baby.
Rose dutifully put on the mask and followed him back out. He was talking to a foreman and looking out over the whole quarry, which looked like a riverbed run dry when it had really been gouged out of the earth by men and machines.
Zac introduced her to the man and she pulled down her mask momentarily to greet him—only for Zac to scowl and pull it back up. She glared at him, but was more unsettled by the brush of his fingers against her mouth. He seemed to be transfixed too, for a moment, before breaking their staring contest and leading her away from the office.
Her mouth tingled where he’d touched it and she cursed her reaction. What if he did actually kiss her again? That thought made her stumble on the path down into the quarry, but strong arms wrapped around her so fast she couldn’t breathe. She was pulled back into Zac’s body and the imprint of his lean muscles was like a brand, mocking her for her flight of fancy, because he wouldn’t touch her like that again.
She scrambled free, saying breathily, ‘I’m fine.’
She was glad of the mask now, feeling her face burn. Thankfully he let her go, and Rose watched where she put her feet from then on.
She did her best to ignore her reaction as they continued their tour of the quarry. Rose was inordinately touched when his foreman spoke in English, obviously so she could understand what he was saying. And everyone they saw greeted Zac with a deference more suited to a visiting dignitary.
When she lagged behind at one point, looking down one of the cavernous shafts with a kind of dread fascination, another man in a suit stopped to wait for her. He asked her some polite questions and then confided with obvious awe, ‘This region was dying a slow death until Signor Valenti came back and invested in the mine. We all knew there was a possibility of more seams, but he was the only one who cared enough to invest. It was a huge gamble, but it’s paid off and we have him to thank for it.’
The man was called away by someone before he could continue, and now Rose was more intrigued than ever. What on earth would have induced Zac to take a gamble on investing in a mine in deepest Tuscany when the industry had all but died out?
He was striding back towards her now, and Rose’s heart swooped. Even against this barren backdrop, with a hard hat on his head, he looked vital and disgustingly handsome.
‘I’m done here. We can go now.’
Rose looked at her watch and was surprised to see that a couple of hours had passed. She’d been more engrossed than she’d thought she might be; it was such an alien but interesting place.
They handed in their jackets and hats, and when they were back in the Jeep Rose said, ‘Thank you for bringing me. I enjoyed seeing it.’
Zac looked at her and arched a suspicious brow. Rose chose to ignore his obvious scepticism at her professed enjoyment and asked, ‘Is this where you’ve been going since we arrived?’
He looked back to the road, his jaw clenching minutely, before he said, ‘Here, and also in Siena. I’m opening a new hotel there in a few months.’
‘Wow,’ Rose said. ‘You’re really marking your territory.’
Zac made a noncommittal noise, and then his phone rang through the car’s hands-free system. He said to Rose, ‘Do you mind if I take this? It’s important.’
She waved a hand. ‘Not at all.’
He took the call and spoke entirely in rapid-fire Italian, of which Rose couldn’t understand a word. She found it curiously soothing, though, listening to Zac’s deep voice, ridiculously melodic in the foreign language. And as a wave of weariness washed over her she curled onto her side and let her eyes close... Just for a few minutes, she promised herself.
Rose woke to a gentle knocking sound. She sat up groggily and realised she was on top of her bed. Feeling disorientated, she said, ‘Come in?’ not entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming.
But Maria’s friendly face appeared around the door and she said in her careful English, ‘Signor Zac is on the terrace—dinner in ten minutes.’
Rose gabbled a thank you and Maria left. A wave of hot self-consciousness washed through her. She remembered closing her eyes in the Jeep, promising herself just a few minutes’ rest while Zac was on the phone, but she must have fallen into a deep sleep... How had she got to her bedroom and onto the bed?
The realisation that Zac must have carried her...he had to have... Oh, God! He probably thought she’d been pretending to be asleep to lure him into her bedroom.
She got up and hastily stripped off her clothes and put on fresh ones, choosing a soft knee-length sleeveless jersey dress in a dark blue colour, pairing it with a pair of low-heeled slingbacks. She washed her face to wake herself up, and put on a minimum amount of make-up, brushing her hair and giving a deep sigh of frustration when it insisted on following its own unruly lines.
Then she castigated herself. What was she doing, primping and preening for a man who barely tolerated her presence in his life anyway?
As she walked to the terrace it dawned on her to wonder why Zac was eating with her, and she also realised that the dress was clinging far too lovingly to her blooming curves, especially her breasts, which were tender and feeling about a size bigger already.