Annie just laughed. “Cut it out,” she chided, chuckling at her friend’s openly appreciative gaze as they followed along in the hot sunshine behind Luca. “You can ogle lovely Luca all you want later. Once we know Colette’s OK and we’ve figured out exactly how the hell she knows him.”

Chapter 21

Then

Kim and Annie paced the hallway at the clinic as they waited for news of their friend.

Colette had been struck by a Jet Skier on his way out to open water from the beach. This was according to Luca, who’d given them both a lift to the clinic.

“It is my fault,” he said, on the journey there. “I called out to her from the shore and she strayed into the wrong area on her way back into the beach.”

“But how do you know her?” Annie asked. “I mean, you said you recognized her—how?”

“She had lunch at my aunt’s restaurant a while ago—and she is difficult to forget,” he said, almost to himself, as Kim and Annie exchanged a glance.

As all three waited in the corridor for news of their friend’s prognosis, Kim couldn’t help but wonder how on earth she had ended up in a shabby Italian medical center with this motley crew of an Irish girl and strange Italian man, worried about an Englishwoman she’d only just met. It was a world apart from her shiny, soulless, former New York life.

And she decided that was no bad thing.

She was jolted out of her thoughts then by the appearance of a guy in a white coat they could only assume was a doctor, and a pale, limping, but smiling Colette by his side.

They all rushed to her at once. “Oh my God! Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

“Please, sit down,” Luca urged, taking her hand and leading her to a nearby seat, while Colette looked overcome and more than a little embarrassed by all the fuss.

Between them, she and the doctor explained that the Jet Ski had managed to swerve away from her just in time, which meant that thankfully her injuries hadn’t been terribly serious: just a slight concussion and a couple of stitches to the head.

“Are you sure there is no concussion now?” Luca demanded and Kim was impressed by his insistence that Colette was actually OK before she was signed out.

“No, she is fine,” the medic replied curtly, before turning back to Colette. “Please, just rest in your accommodation for a few days, and stay out of the hot sun,” he added, glancing at the English girl’s sunburned shoulders, which Kim knew Colette had picked up out of complacency about the Mediterranean’s UV rays during the early days.

“I will, thank you.” Again, she was mortified at being the center of attention, and gratefully accepted Luca’s offer of a lift for all three of them back to the villa.