(2012) Evie Undercover by Liz Harris Page B

you?’
    ‘Of course it is.’
    ‘Look on the bright side – it may be a bit of a hectic way to spend the last day, but at least you’ll have another full day with Eduardo.’
    ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’ She stood up. ‘Goodnight, Tom.’
    ‘Goodnight, Evie. Sleep well.’
     
    He stared into the black night beyond the terrace.
    What on earth was the matter with him? He’d just spent the evening with a charming woman, who was exactly the sort of woman he chose to go out with in London – beautiful, smart, sophisticated; not someone he’d ever fall in love with, but someone he would, under normal circumstances, have f ound a stimulating companion – y et instead of thoroughly enjoying every minute of the evening, he’d spent the whole time trying to do what women always did - listen to more than one conversation at the same time.
    Despite knowing that he wouldn’t understand a word of what Evie and Eduardo were saying to each other, he’d rather hoped to be able to pick up some idea about their mutual feelings from the tone of their voices. But he’d been singularly unsuccessful in doing so, and that was entirely because his conversation with Gabriela had continually got in the way.
    They had obviously spent some of the time talking about places in Italy . H e’d picked up the words Lake Garda more than once , and he’d wondered if Eduardo had been suggesting that he go with Evie to visit the places she’d got to know when she worked there. That was fair enough – they were free agents, after all.
    So why did that idea irritate him ? B ecause irritate him it clearly did . Evie was a pleasant employee and Eduardo was excellent at his job. Good luck to them both, was what he said, or what he should have been saying.
    And there was something else . H e was mystified as to why he’d missed her contributions to the conversation tha t evening. Yes, she was amusing, but he could listen to any of his Billy Connolly collection if he felt the need of a good laugh, so why had he found himself wishing that he was talking to her and not Gabriela ?
    He really couldn’t understand himself, but his mood was disconcerting. Whatever the reason was for the way he felt, he very much hoped that it would soon pass and he could get back to his normal state of pleasant detachment.
    Unfortunately, getting back to normal in the immediate future was a bit of a forlorn hope. The next morning, for example, could be tricky, given the funny mood he was in.
    The beds w ere going to be delivered in the morning, and he and Evie would be at the house by themselves when they arrived. The fact that they’d be alone shouldn’t matter at all.
    As they were leaving the restaurant after dinner h e’d actually thought about suggesting Eduardo come up to the house before the beds arrived , but in the end he hadn’t done so. Thinking back on it now, though, it might have been a sensible thing to do . Once the beds had arrived, he and Evie could have said goodbye to Eduardo and gone off to Montefalco on their own.
    It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d asked Eduardo at such short notice – it had already been agreed that he would be at their disposal for the week. He had no doubt that Eduardo would have readily come and joined them , if for no other reason than that it would have been a chance to spend more time with Evie.
    True, being a minute longer than was absolutely necessary in Eduardo’s company wasn’t an attractive proposition – far from it – but for reasons that he wasn’t clear about, he rather felt that the advantages of having Eduardo there outweighed the disadvantages.
    Fortunately, it wasn’t too late to ask Eduardo. Obviously it was too late to ring him that evening – and Evie had gone to bed, anyway, so she wasn’t around to do the talking – but he could ask her to ring Eduardo at breakfast the following morning and suggest that he get to the ho use for ten thirty. Yes, that’ s what he would do. It had been