Free The Perfect Lover by Penny Jordan

her mother exclaimed with a smile. 'Oh, poor you, coming all this way and then having your privacy invaded by one of your students.'
    'I rather think that Louise believes if anyone is deserving of commiseration for the coincidence, then it's her,' Gareth advised her mother dryly.
    Hospitably her mother offered Gareth a drink—but he hadn't had to accept, Louise fumed an hour later, as Gareth was still chatting, apparently quite happily, to her parents while she sat in silent resentment beside her mother. That was bad enough. But when her mother invited him to join them for dinner, and Gareth accepted, Louise wasn't sure which of them she disliked the most. However, a welcome diversion was fortuitously provided when Giovanni slouched round the corner of the villa, his face lighting up when he caught sight of Louise.
    'Here comes your admirer,' she heard her father warning her. Louise tossed her head, suspecting that Giovanni was even more astonished than her father when, instead of irritably rejecting his unwanted and quite obviously sexually intentioned advances as she normally did, she not only responded to his soft-eyed looks and flowery compliments, but actively encouraged them.
    'Oh, dear, Louise, was that wise?' her mother sighed once he had gone. 'Maria was telling us only this morning that his family are trying to encourage a match between Giovanni and his third cousin.'
    'I wasn't actually thinking of marrying him, Mum,' Louise told her mother meaningfully, adding pointedly, just in case anyone listening—including her wretched and far too watchful tutor—had missed the point, 'He's got the most terrifically sexy body, though, don't you think?'
    'Oh, Louise...' Jenny protested, but over her daughter's downbent head she gave her husband a rueful, slightly relieved look, which Louise caught out of the corner of her eye. She knew very well how concerned her family, especially her parents, had been about her crush on Saul, and they weren't to know that her pretence of being physically attracted to Giovanni had nothing to do with Saul but everything to do with the impassive and unwanted presence of the man seated next to her mother, silently watching the small piece of theatre being played out in front of him.
    'I think I'll just go and see what Maria's planning for supper,' she told her mother airily, standing up to follow Giovanni who had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen and his aunt. 'Suddenly I'm rather... I'm...hungry...'
    Tossing her head, she left her startled parents to exchange surprised looks as she stalked ferociously after her prey.
    Once inside the kitchen, though, it was a different matter. Under Maria's stern eye, Giovanni's earlier swaggeringly macho display of flirtation quickly turned into bashful silence, and while Louise herself had been happy enough to encourage him while Gareth was looking on—how dared he imply that she was little more than a child?—now she lost no time in making it plain to the young Italian that she simply wasn't interested.
     
    In the days that followed Louise very quickly came to regret not just encouraging Giovanni, who had now taken to following her around at every opportunity, but even more importantly running into Gareth.
    An easy, relaxed friendship had very quickly developed between her parents and her tutor—even Joss and Jack seemed to enjoy his company, going off on long walks with him to explore the Italian countryside—and, whereas normally Louise would have been able to give vent to the pent-up irritation his almost constant presence in their family circle was causing her to Katie, there was a certain amount of distance between her and her twin still, a small and as yet not totally healed sore place from the quarrel they had had at Oxford—the quarrel of which Gareth himself had initially been the cause.
    When her cousin Olivia, her husband and their little girl came to join her own family the situation, at least in Louise's eyes, became even