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Salvatore was still looking doubtful.
‘I’m not sure it suits me,’ she said, thinking that the same thing certainly couldn’t be said for him. With a dark dinner jacket clinging to his broad shoulders and impeccably cut trousers emphasising the length of his powerful legs, the Sicilian tycoon looked cool, handsome and impossibly inaccessible.
‘You don’t like it,’ she continued when he failed to contradict her, her hands falling to her sides and brushing impatiently against the heavy material.
‘I didn’t say that. You look chic and sophisticated,’ he amended smoothly. ‘Wasn’t that supposed to be the whole idea?’
‘I guess so,’ she said, but suddenly Lina felt like a fool. In principle the idea had seemed so simple—in reality, less so. Buy a poor girl a fancy dress and then take her to the ball. Why hadn’t either of them stopped to consider that a Cinderella-type transformation might not work in her case, since the raw material was too rough to ever be properly smoothed off at the edges?
He glanced at his watch. ‘Since we’re already fashionably late and the car is outside, we really ought to leave. Are you ready?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to go. You go without me. You’ll have a better time.’
‘Falling at the first hurdle?’ His blue-hued gaze was direct and mocking. ‘I thought you were made of stronger stuff than that, Lina. Or have you had a sudden personality change from the woman who begged me to take her to America so she could start a whole new life? Isn’t this what you wanted?’
On one level she was aware he was goading her, but somehow it worked. Because what else was she going to do, if she pulled out? Hang around the estate all evening and risk annoying Henry, or ruffling the feathers of the chef, who wasn’t expecting either of them to be home this evening?
‘It’s true. I can’t back out now.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘You’re right.’
‘I nearly always am.’
His arrogance almost made her smile and, ignoring the matching cobalt clutch bag which the in-store dresser had insisted on foisting upon her, Lina grabbed one of the embroidered velvet bags she’d brought with her from Sicily. With its distinctive beading and flouncy tassel, it was obviously home-made and didn’t particularly match the severe dress she was wearing. But at least it was hers—she had made it herself—and right now it felt like the only authentic part of her appearance.
The waiting limousine purred them through the steep streets until they reached a luxury hotel, not far from the glittering waterfront. Soaring up into the starry sky, its floodlit pillars reminded Lina of a Grecian temple she’d once seen in a book. Outside, thick scarlet ropes kept back hordes of onlookers brandishing cell phones, and the whole scene was illuminated by the bright flash of paparazzi cameras.
She could feel herself freezing, wondering how on earth she was going to get out of the car in front of such a massive crowd of people. Her legs were so wobbly that, once again, she was paralysed by fear. She shook her head. ‘I can’t go in there,’ she husked.
‘I thought we’d already had this conversation,’ he said, not bothering to hide the boredom in his tone. ‘Of course you can.’
‘My heels are too high.’
‘They look pretty good to me.’ She saw the glint of something vaguely unsettling in his eyes as he focussed his gaze on her footwear. ‘You can hold onto me if you’re worried about your balance.’
‘Salvatore, you don’t understand.’ Lina clutched the handle of her little velvet bag. ‘I’ve never been anywhere like—’
‘I understand better than you think.’ He cut across her words. ‘Don’t you think I’ve experienced exactly what you’re going through right now, Lina? Or do you imagine I was admitted to these types of glittering affairs with open arms? That society matrons didn’t feel they had to lock up their daughters whenever I put in an appearance, while their billionaire husbands nervously watched their backs in case I deposited a blade in between their shoulder blades?’
‘Did they?’
‘Yes, they did. They saw me as a threat.’ His mouth twisted into a grim smile. ‘Because I was. My hunger to succeed made me ruthless and my determination to escape the shackles of my past drove me on. I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way to get what I wanted.’ There was a flicker of a pause. ‘Can’t you try and do the same?’
Lina shook her head. ‘That’s easy for you to say. People don’t judge you on your appearance or whether you can walk straight in a pair of shoes so high you feel as if you’re on stilts. You’re a man.’
‘Then don’t let yourself be judged,’ he urged. ‘Wasn’t that one of the reasons you left Sicily? Don’t forget how much you wanted to get out of there. It’s not going to work for you unless you’re prepared to be brave.’
It was difficult to think of bravery when he was sitting so close to her, making things more complicated than they needed to be. She thought how much simpler it would be if she hadn’t had sex with him. Wouldn’t that have made it easier to concentrate on what lay ahead, rather than on the tingling sensation that his hard thigh was mere millimetres away from hers?
‘Maybe I should just have stayed where I was in Caltarina and ridden out the storm,’ she said.
‘And done what? Carried on slaving away doing something you didn’t really like, for a woman who took you for granted? Squandering your youth and your beauty while the years passed you by?’ Suddenly he put his hand on her forearm, but with the impersonal touch of a dentist patting a child’s arm and reassuring them that it wasn’t going to hurt. ‘You don’t have to do that any more, Lina. You have a chance to make something of yourself here. A career, most certainly, if you’re prepared to work. And a husband, perhaps, in time. Isn’t that what most women of your age want? Some all-American boy who can provide you with the white picket fence and roses round the door.’
Lina could tell he was trying to reassure her and supposed she should feel grateful for that, but the stupid thing was that his words hurt. They hurt far more than they should have done. She turned her head to stare fixedly out of the window, blinking furiously, terrified by the sudden threat of incipient tears. How dared he talk so casually about the husband she might or might not one day have, as if he didn’t care about her? To paint a picture of a future which most definitely didn’t include him?
Because he doesn’t care.
He’d made that clear. Right from the start.
He had told her very definitely she was not what he was looking for. That no woman could give him what he wanted other than sex. So maybe it was time she started believing him.
