The dress fitted perfectly. She stared at herself in the mirror, pleased for once with her reflection. The dress was sleeveless, and the pleated silk was the colour of a robin’s egg and the intricate ruffles on the bodice of the dress made her think of water moving.
When Ettore saw her, she felt naked again. His eyes burned into hers and as his gaze moved over her hungrily, it was like tiny flames licking over her body.
‘Do you like it?’
He nodded. ‘You look beautiful.’ His voice was rough, his bedroom voice, and it was all too easy to imagine his hands on her belly and hips and between her thighs.
‘You kept your hair loose.’
She nodded. ‘Do you mind?’
‘I like it. I like all of it.’
She liked the way he looked too in his dark suit and a crisp white shirt that he’d left loose at the neck. Nobody wore a suit like Ettore, she thought. He was just so intensely male and impossibly handsome.
Abruptly he leaned forward and lifted her face to his and kissed her hard until she thought she might melt into a liquid pool of desire.
‘You’re making it very hard for me to go out tonight,’ he grumbled as he broke the kiss.
‘Then stop kissing me,’ she said softly. ‘Come on, I want to make every woman in Paris jealous.’
Table Margaux was an astonishing restaurant. It was full but there was no sense of urgency. The service was low-key but efficient and the decor wasfin de siècle, all eau de Nil paintwork and gilt mirrors and yet it didn’t feel like a pastiche. As for the food.
‘That was incredible,’ she said as she put down her spoon and pushed her plate away.
‘Would you like coffee or a tisane? Nightcap?’
She shook her head. ‘Could we go back to the hotel?’
‘You read my mind,’ Ettore said, doing one of those minuscule uptilts of his head that managed to be both gracious and authoritative.‘L’addition, s’il vous plaît?’he murmured as the maître d’ appeared by the table.
As they walked into the private lift to their suite, their security detail melted away. ‘Do they bother you?’ Ettore glanced down at her. ‘I can tell them to back up a little for the rest of our stay.’
‘It’s fine. I just forget about them when we’re home.’
Home. That word again.
She felt Ettore’s gaze pick over her profile and she wondered if he had picked up on it too, and, if so, what was he thinking?
‘Speaking of home,’ he said as they walked into the huge living area. ‘I was wondering how you would feel about sitting in on a conversation I want to have with Gianni. About the estate? I have some ideas I’d like to run past him, and I could use your expertise.’
‘You’re pretty expert yourself.’
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. But why? Did he not see what an incredible job he had done at the estate?
‘Barely. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes.’ He gave her a smile. Or at least his lips curved into the shape of a smile. But his body told a different story.
‘Shall we sit outside?’ He gestured towards their private terrace, and she followed him into the warm, still air. Across the city, the Eiffel Tower was shimmering with lights, but she was too distracted by the strange, taut set to his mouth to do more than glance at it.
‘Did you ever talk to him about it?’
‘Who?’ He stared at her blankly.
‘Your brother, Edo. Before he died. About running the estate.’ She was floundering suddenly. Ettore looked confused, but surely Edo was running it before Ettore. ‘Or had your father not stepped down?’
‘My father never stepped up.’ He gave her a small, tight smile. ‘Gianni’s father, Stefano, oversaw the vineyard, and my father chased unsuitable women. When the bank got involved, I took over.’
‘When was that?’
