Romance of a Lifetime Read Free Page A

of women. It would always have the opposite effect on her.
    Always…
    'Quite,' she bit out tersely, nodding dismissively before pointedly walking past him, her head held high, daring him to apprehend her once again.
    There was no hand grasping her arm, no sarcastic or cajoling comment that invoked a response, and yet Beth could feel that steely gaze on her back for the whole length of the foyer, sensed it even as she walked up the steps and out of the amphitheatre, knew he was following her, quite a distance behind her, but following none the less.
    She would have liked to have strolled along as the other people were doing; the square looking quite beautiful now that it was lit up by the street lamps and cafes, the amphitheatre itself something to behold from this angle, most of the outside walls being intact as well. It seemed hard to believe that the amphitheatre had been built in the first century AD; the history it must have witnessed was incredible.
    And Beth would have liked time to ponder on that history, to take time while still in these magnificent surroundings to think of the spectacle she had witnessed herself within its walls this evening. Instead she fled as if she were being pursued.
    Resentment burned within her at the need to hurry past the strolling people, hating this feeling of being hounded back to her hotel.
    But hounded was exactly how she felt!

CHAPTER TWO
    'IT'S impossible not to feel the romance of the place, isn't it?'
    All Beth's good humour, her feelings of relaxed well-being, left her in an instant, deserted her at the first sound of that all-too-familiar voice. A voice that she wished she weren't becoming familiar with at all!
    She had spent a disturbed and restless night. Not through any fault of the hotel she was staying at, which had proved comfortable enough; she would have been surprised if it hadn't when her mother had been the one to.arrange the booking.
    Her mother believed in travelling in style if she was to travel at all.
    But Marcus Craven's persistence where she was concerned during the previous evening had unnerved and disturbed her to the extent where she had great difficulty sleeping at all, still burning with resentment towards him. A fact she found irritating to say the least.
    But a late morning catching up on her sleep, followed by a late breakfast in bed, accompanied by plenty of coffee, and she felt more relaxed and ready to stroll to the house of the Capulets in the town, to enter the quiet tranquillity of the courtyard before going into the house itself andup to the balcony where Juliet was reputed to have spoken to Romeo.
    This house had to be a must on a visit to Verona, and, while Beth didn't want to fall into the habit of doing the 'touristy'
    things, she was none the less a great fan of Shakespeare's, and her interest in the Capulet family had long ago been aroused by him.
    In the courtyard below stood a statue of Juliet herself, and it seemed odd to look down upon the bronze statue of the young woman who had actually stood on this very balcony to talk to her forbidden lover.
    For a few brief moments Beth had—despite the intrusion of the other couple of dozen people wandering around, also anxious to share in the experience of looking around them at the ivy-covered walls of the courtyard—been lost in the pure romance of the occasion.

    But the feeling had only been allowed to last those few brief moments!
    She spun around to face Marcus Craven, her expression full of hostility, the two of them completely alone on the balcony at that moment. 'Are you following me, Mr Craven?' she accused.
    Dark brows rose Over eyes full of feigned surprise. 'Of course not, Miss…?' As she had the night before, he paused significantly, waiting for her to rectify the omission of her name.
    He was dressed casually today, in light-coloured trousers, and a short-sleeved open-necked shirt of a shade of grey that managed to match the steel of his eyes. And yet Beth was sure both these