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'No, you didn't.' His gaze was holding hers very tightly and then he relaxed suddenly, his eyes crinkling as he smiled, really smiled, for the first time since she had met him. The result was devastating.
Did he know what that warm openness did for him? she asked herself in stunned disbelief. The way it mellowed the hard, rugged features and softened the piercingly keen eyes? He wasn't just attractive, he was… Well, he was…
'But there's no need to look so tragic; you had no way of knowing about John. And for the record we weren't spoilt, not much anyway. My father was a great disciplinarian and my mother, like all Italian women, ruled her house with a rod of iron.'
'All of them?' She smiled as she spoke and he laughed right back, his chuckle appreciative.
'All of them,' he confirmed, just as the waiter arrived with their lobster and avocado salads.
The rest of the evening passed in a warm haze of good food, delectable wine and a mixture of conversation and laughter. The lobster was delicious, the fricassee of veal in its sauce of cream, lemons, herbs and onion was mouthwatering, as were the accompanying vegetables, and the coffee soufflé' Josie chose for dessert was so light she thought it would float out of the dish.
It was as she was finishing the last luscious spoonful of soufflé that alarm bells began to go off in her head like clanging cymbals. In fact it was just as Luke leant across the table and touched her cheek gently with one finger before tracing a path to her mouth.
'I can't remember when I enjoyed a meal so much.' His voice was deep and resonant and did something incredible to her stomach.
'I thought you said you'd eaten here often?' she parried lightly.
'I wasn't talking about the food.' She felt her face flood with colour, and at the same time she realised she was way, way out of her depth. He was an accomplished man of the world, ruthless in business and probably in his private life too, and wealthy—no, not just wealthy, filthy, disgustingly rich—and he'd probably had more women than she'd had hot dinners.
He thought she was a hard career woman who had willingly chosen to pursue her vocation at the cost of marriage and a family, and who just happened to be without a man at the moment. In his world it would probably be the normal thing for her to pop into bed with him, and then they would enjoy a brief affair until either one of them tired of the fun. No strings, no recriminations, nothing heavy.
But she wasn't like that. What would he do if she told him she was a virgin? The thought brought a brief surge of hysteria that she squashed immediately. She shouldn't have let herself relax so completely, enjoy herself so much. It was those cocktails and then the wine. And him. Definitely him.
'Well, I thought the food was wonderful,' she said, with a careful coolness that was quite at odds with the mad pounding of her heart. 'Thank you very much for the lovely evening.'
'You are very welcome.' His voice was grave but slightly mocking as his piercing eyes wandered over her flushed cheeks and anxious mouth. He settled back in his seat again, his big body relaxed and his face cool and sardonic. 'Would you like coffee here, or perhaps it would be more comfortable back at the hotel?'
'I think here would be nice,' she said primly as she tried to fight both the cloudy effects of the alcohol she had imbibed far too freely—first in panic and then because she simply hadn't realised what she was doing—and her own feelings of attraction for the man sitting opposite her.
And she was attracted to him. It was a relief to finally admit it, and with the acknowledgement came the realisation that she had been fighting just that very thing since the first moment of laying eyes on him.
What was it with her anyway? she asked herself with grim ruefulness as she nerved herself to look into the silver-grey gaze trained on her hot face. Had she got a death wish or something? Even an experienced, worldly coquette like Charlotte Montgomery, who changed her men along with her nail varnish, would have trouble handling this man.
'Here? You're sure?' He smiled slowly, and she had to admit it was a devastatingly sensual technique that would make most women melt. But she nodded firmly as she smiled a polite if unknowingly nervous smile. 'Here it is, then…' He didn't seem at all put out, and although part of her was relieved that he had accepted her decision so gracefully a tiny part of her, unawakened until this very moment, was piqued.
The easy conversation and laughter of the meal was a thing of the past as they sipped their coffee. Josie's whole body was as tight as a coiled spring and Luke was sardonic and mordant when she answered his efforts at conversation with monosyllables which if they weren't exactly rude came very close to it.
She was aware that she was handling this whole thing extremely badly, and conscious of the fact that he must be wondering what the hell was going on, but she had never been more frightened in her life. She had let her guard down, for the first time in the whole of her adult life, and she didn't understand why or how she could be so physically attracted to a man she had only known a few days when she had had no trouble of that kind in the whole of the last thirteen years.
They left the restaurant with the head waiter virtually bowing them out, his face wreathed in smiles, and although the man's obsequiousness wasn't Luke's fault Josie felt as angry with him as though it were.
'What's wrong?' They had been travelling in silence for some miles, and when Luke spoke Josie jumped visibly before she could control herself.
'Wrong?' She forced a bright smile that was wasted on the man sitting next to her as he concentrated on the dark, unlit road through the windscreen. The restaurant had been situated in rolling countryside—part of its appeal, Luke had assured her when she had spoken of it during the meal— and they were now travelling through what looked like farmland on a lonely road that she remembered from a few hours ago was almost devoid of other traffic. 'Nothing's wrong.'
'I don't believe you.' The deep voice was perfectly calm. 'You were enjoying yourself there for a time during the meal, weren't you? What is wrong with that?'
'Nothing—'
'And then you scuttled back behind that inch-thick armour with almost indecent haste,' he continued mockingly. 'Even fierce career women are allowed a few hours off occasionally, or hasn't anyone told you?'
He thought her retreat, which on reflection had been a little obvious, was down to her concern about her image? She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or vexed that he considered her so shallow. Vexation won, and her voice was sharp when she spoke. 'Do you really like going to places like that, where you are made such a fuss of?' she asked tightly. 'Is that sort of thing important to you?'
'You think I took you there to make some sort of impression?' he asked, with a silky note to his voice that fooled her for a moment, until she glanced at his hard profile and the straight line of his mouth. 'Is that what this is all about?'
'I didn't say that.' Oh, hell, why hadn't she kept her big mouth shut? she thought despairingly. She was going to look an idiot however this conversation went.
'I see. So you were just enquiring as to my ego level for the sake of social intercourse?' he drawled derisively. 'Your own special type of after-dinner conversation, I presume?'
