An Invitation to Sin(32)

Her cheeks turned pink as the waiter approached with her water.

‘Thank you so much.’ She gave a smile that turned the poor man into a gibbering wreck and Luca gave an amused smile.

‘You’re all promise and no follow-through.’

‘I can follow through when it suits me.’

‘And when is that? When you explode from holding it all in?’

Her fingers tightened on her glass. ‘I’m not holding anything in.’

‘You are suppressing so much, dolcezza, that when you finally blow the aftershocks are going to be felt back in your homeland. Don’t worry. I’ll be there to drag you from the rubble.’

She smiled. ‘Do you think about anything but sex?’

‘You’re upset that I understand you so well.’

‘You don’t understand me at all.’

‘No? Let’s do a Taylor Carmichael 101.’ He put his glass down and leaned forward in his chair. ‘You long to let yourself go. I saw the way you reacted to my car in the first few minutes before you remembered you weren’t supposed to enjoy fast cars. You long to drink champagne, but you daren’t in case you drink a bit too much and lose control.’

‘Is that the best you can do?’

‘I haven’t finished. You can’t go anywhere without first looking to see where the photographers are hidden. You know they’re part of the job but for some reason they make you nervous.’

She reached out slender fingers and took an olive. ‘Are you done?’

‘Not yet.’ It was only because he was looking that he saw her fingers shake slightly. ‘You don’t trust anyone any more. You’ve locked yourself away. You won’t tell me why so I’m guessing it’s something you’re ashamed of. Something you regret.’ He watched as the colour drained from her cheeks.

Her breathing grew shallow and she looked away quickly. ‘You talk nonsense.’

‘I scored a direct hit,’ Luca said softly. ‘Now drink some champagne or the headlines tomorrow will be that you’re already pregnant and that’s the reason we’re marrying. Neither of us wants that.’

After a moment’s hesitation she picked up the slender champagne glass. ‘To our future.’

‘To lots of legal sex.’ He glanced up as the waiter approached. ‘Don’t bother giving my beloved a menu, Pietro, I’ll order for both of us. It will be a good test of how well I know her.’

To give her credit, Taylor kept her smile in place. ‘But, sweetheart, you know I like to order for myself.’

‘I know you do, my little cabbage, but I’m a macho Sicilian male and apart from that inherent trait that drives me to protect you from all things including menus written only in Italian, I’m suspicious of your ordering skills. You’ll order the wrong thing.’

‘I order what I want to eat, light of my life.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘How can that be wrong?’

‘You order what you think you’re supposed to eat, kitten paws. That’s not the same thing at all. A romantic meal out is about feeding the senses.’ Enjoying himself, he watched her across the flickering flame of the candle, wishing they were alone so that they could laugh properly and enjoy their food without the audience. ‘I refuse to order you a lettuce leaf. It would be criminal.’ He proceeded to order in Italian while Taylor drummed long, manicured fingernails on the tablecloth.

Only once the waiter had left, did she speak. ‘I can’t believe you ordered for me. Dare I ask which unusual part of the anatomy I’m likely to find myself eating this time?’

Sending her a wicked look that brought colour to her cheeks, Luca raised his glass. ‘To us! I’m much better at this than you are, by the way. If you like, I can arrange for you to have acting lessons.’

There was a brief pause and then she put her napkin down slowly. ‘There’s something I have to say to you, Luca, and perhaps this isn’t the place but I need to say it so badly… .’ It was a voice he hadn’t heard her use before. Soft, sultry and so richly feminine that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. She reached across the table and took his hands in hers. ‘I’ve never felt like this before. I’d given up on love. And then I met you and—and I didn’t expect…’ Her voice faltered and she looked puzzled, almost humbled.

The vulnerability on her face shocked him.

He knew she was acting, but the emotion in her eyes was so genuine he felt an involuntary flicker of panic. She was giving him ‘The Look’ and The Look was something he’d avoided all his life. He made a point of ending relationships before The Look was even a tiny germ in a woman’s brain.