The Colorado Countess. Stephanie Howard

Carrie.

      ‘Apologies, signorina, but there’s been a most regrettable error. This table you’re sitting at . . . you should never have been given it. It was already booked, you see. . .’ He glanced wretchedly across his shoulder at the noisy group of young people at the end of the terrace. ‘Your table and the one next to it. . . These people booked them some time ago. I really do apologise, but I’m going to have to move you to another table. . .’

      ‘And what if we don’t want to move?’

      It wasn’t like Carrie to be awkward, but on this occasion she felt she was more than justified.

      ‘My friend and I are halfway through our meal,’ she protested. ‘I’m afraid it really would be most inconvenient.’

      And besides, she was thinking, it rather stuck in her throat to be moved for the convenience of the group of young people in question, who more than likely hadn’t booked the table at all. They were obviously celebrities. They positively oozed self-importance. Her skin prickled as one of them called out now, in English, ‘Come on, waiter! What are we waiting for? Tell them they can go and sit at the back.’

      What bad-mannered hooligans! Carrie glared in their direction. ‘Maybe they should go and sit at the back,’ she muttered.

      But Louise was trying to persuade her. ‘Let’s just move,’ she was urging. ‘We’ve almost finished anyway and I’d rather avoid the hassle.’

      Carrie could feel herself weakening. She knew how Louise hated scenes, and this evening was supposed to be a special treat for her—just to thank her for dropping by on her way back to the States after a business trip to Rome. So, reluctantly, she agreed. ‘Ok,’ she told the waiter—though she was thinking as they were moved to a half-hidden table at the back, I’ll never set foot in this restaurant again!

      It was about twenty minutes later, after the two girls had had coffee and Louise had disappeared off to powder her nose, that Carrie decided to call for the bill. And it was as she was signaling to the waiter that, from the corner of her eye, she became aware of a tall figure at the table she had so recently vacated rising to his feet and coming across the terrace. But she did not turn to look at him. She would not honour him with a glance. Pompous, self-important swine, she was thinking.

      But then, a moment later, to her total astonishment, she was aware that he had come to stand at her elbow. Then a voice said, ‘Signorina, may I have a word with you?’

      Something had jolted inside Carrie even before she looked up. There was something in the voice, with its soft, smoky accent, that sent a shiver of expectation rippling down her spine. Feeling somewhat taken aback at herself, she slowly raised her eyes.

      And that was when her heart did a somersault in her chest.

      His face was in shadow, so she couldn’t see him clearly—for the lighting here at the back of the terrace was far from bright. But, shadow or not, his effect on her was electric. What a perfectly spectacular-looking guy!

      And there was something else as well. Didn’t she know him from somewhere? For there was something a little familiar about the high-cheekboned face, with its amused, sensuous mouth and broad, intelligent brow, the dark-as-midnight eyes that seemed to smoulder with secrets and the curling black hair that fell to just below his ears. She couldn’t think where, but she’d seen him somewhere before.

      All this went through Carrie’s head as she hurriedly pulled herself together and responded in a tone that impressed even her with its perfect calmness. ‘A word?’ What could he possibly want to have a word with her about?

      The stranger answered that question immediately. ‘I wish to apologise,’ he said.

      ‘Apologise?’ Carrie blinked at him.

      ‘For the unfortunate business concerning your table.’

      Ah, the table. She had quite forgotten about the table, bowled over as she had been by the sheer seductive power of him. But, now that he had reminded her, she felt her attitude abruptly change. How foolish of her to be so easily seduced by a handsome face! He was one of the band of hooligans who had pinched her table!

      She looked back at him, quite recovered, a distinct edge to her voice now. ‘I would have thought,’ she pointed out, ‘that it’s a little late for that.’

      ‘I agree. It is. But I wanted to apologise, anyway.’

      As he spoke, the dark eyes travelled quite openly over her, taking in her slender, feminine figure, currently dressed in a cream top and trousers that showed off the light tan she’d acquired in the few days she’d been here, skimming her heart-shaped face in its frame of cropped blonde hair, pausing to admire the wide hazel eyes, the tip-tilted nose and the soft-lipped mouth—though the latter, at this moment, was set in a disapproving line.

      How dare he eye me like that? Carrie was thinking to herself irritably, though his gaze was so direct, his expression so open that it was really a little hard to take offence. And, if she was strictly honest with herself, she would have to admit that he was studying her no more carefully than she was secretly studying him.

      He was tall, over six feet, in his early thirties, she guessed, with the lean and supple build of an athlete. Beneath the blue linen jacket his shoulders were broad and muscular, and there was something about the way he stood, on those long legs in their dark blue trousers, that suggested a powerful, restless energy. He really was rather seriously sexy.

      No, he wasn’t, she contradicted herself. He was one of those awful hooligans. Some minor celebrity she couldn’t quite put a name to who thought he had the right to behave with total arrogance and who was simply amusing himself by coming over to apologise. No doubt she was supposed to feel deeply privileged and grateful.

      Carrie narrowed her eyes as he continued to look at her with that half-amused, half-scrutinising gaze. ‘Well, you’ve apologised now,’ she pointed out in a clipped tone, ‘so I guess you can go back and rejoin your friends.’

      ‘You’re still angry, I see?’ One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Well, I can’t really blame you. This is a far inferior table. I guess, if I were in your shoes, I’d be pretty angry too.’

      That was patronising. What would he know about being in her shoes? Celebrities like him, whoever he was, were unlikely ever to encounter such disagreeable situations. Instead, they went about creating them for ordinary mortals like her.

      She continued to squint at him, trying to put a name to his face. Was he a singer? An actor? Maybe he was in the theatre? For there was definitely something rather classy about him.

      But, classy or not, he was making her bristle. She informed him in a cutting tone, ‘I can assure you, if it had been up to me, I’d have refused, point-blank to move to this table. But I’m here with a friend and she didn’t want a fuss. That’s the only reason you and your friends got our table.’

      ‘I see.’ He smiled. Her disapproval merely amused him, as did her claim that she would have stood up to him. ‘You believe in fighting for your rights, I see? That’s most commendable.’

      ‘And very necessary, I’d say, when there are so many people. . .’ As she said it she glanced pointedly across the terrace at his friends. ‘So many people about with such little regard for the rights of others.’

      Again the dark eyebrows rose and again he smiled at her, and there was something so bright and so beguiling about that smile that Carrie very nearly forgot herself and smiled right back at him. But she resisted and continued to scowl at him as he responded, ‘I see you consider that my friends need teaching some manners. Well, perhaps you have a point. And that’s why I’m here to apologise.’

      ‘Well, that’s very nice of you.’ Carrie’s tone was barbed with sarcasm. ‘But, as I said, it’s a little late in the day for apologies. And an apology doesn’t change the fact that our dinner was spoiled.’

      The stranger continued to watch her with that smouldering dark gaze he had that, though she was trying hard to fight it,