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‘I guess.’ She hesitated. ‘She seemed particularly interested in the fact that I was living with you.’
He frowned. ‘But you made it clear that we’re not actually living together?’
‘Of course I did,’ she said, and hesitated again. ‘It just made me wonder...’
His gaze bored into her. ‘What did it make you wonder, Lina?’
She had started pleating the edge of her napkin now, as if unable to keep her fingers still.
‘If you’d ever been in a relationship with her.’
‘No. I’ve never been in a relationship with Siena,’ he said slowly. ‘Would it bother you if I had?’
Abruptly, she stopped pleating and looked up. ‘It’s nothing to do with me who you’ve had a relationship with.’
‘So you wouldn’t mind if I brought a woman back to the house?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t.’
‘Liar,’ he said softly.
Lina stared at him, shaking out her napkin in an attempt to remove the pleats. She had been finding the whole situation daunting, even before he’d said that. The fancy restaurant with a terrifying amount of cutlery. The other diners, who were watching them while pretending not to—or, rather, watching him. The realisation that once again they had slept together last night and indulged in all kinds of delicious intimacies. And now he had accused her of lying. ‘Excuse me?’
‘It would bother you, Lina. It’s bothering you right now just to think about it—it’s written all over your face. But that’s okay. It’s perfectly normal to feel sexual jealousy in a situation like ours.’
She told herself to leave it. That his use of the word ‘ours’ was not meant to be inclusive and it certainly wasn’t meant to give her hope—and bearing in mind how arrogant he could be, she was amazed that she even wanted to be hopeful where Salvatore di Luca was concerned. But wasn’t it funny how all the reasoning in the world didn’t stop you yearning for something you knew was ultimately futile, so that you came out and asked the question anyway? ‘And what exactly is our...situation?’
‘Difficult to define,’ he said, his blue gaze splintering through her. ‘I wasn’t intending for us to continue to be lovers once you came to America. I thought it was better if our relationship became platonic since you were going to be living on my property, but that clearly hasn’t been the case.’
Lina told herself to leave this one, too. To maybe change the subject and ask him about that woman on the far side of the restaurant who was clearly trying to catch his eye. But the newly liberated Nicolina Vitale wasn’t intending to spend the rest of her life being a moral coward by avoiding subjects which had the potential to be tricky, was she? Hadn’t she done that too often in the past, with her mother? Played safe to keep the peace—and look where that had got her.
Last night in bed, she had felt like Salvatore’s equal—and wouldn’t someone who was truly equal refuse to be a coward and ask the difficult questions, questions that previously she wouldn’t dare ask, just in case she didn’t like the answers? She lifted her water glass and took a sip from it. ‘Why?’
He said nothing more until the waiter had placed the food in front of them and, although he gestured for her to help herself, Lina didn’t move.
‘I think we both know the answer to that. Because it’s pretty obvious to me, at least, that I can’t seem to resist you, despite all my best intentions.’
‘Okay...’ she said uncertainly, wondering why his words sounded more like an insult than a compliment.
‘But you’re worlds away from my usual kind of partner, Lina.’
Lina had been about to help herself to a portion of avocado, but now she put the serving spoon down, strangely repulsed by the sight of all that glistening green flesh. ‘And what’s your usual kind of partner?’
He picked out every word with forensic care. ‘Women who know the score. Who understand the way I operate.’ His blue eyes darkened, like sudden storm clouds appearing on a summer’s day. ‘And if we are to continue like this as lovers, you need to know the score too. I can offer you fidelity and generosity for as long as we’re together, but commitment is a non-starter. So if you think this is going to end with a golden band gleaming on your finger, then it’s over as of now.’
It took Lina a moment to realise what he meant. ‘And you think all women want to marry you—is that what you’re trying to say?’
‘In my experience, yes.’
Lina shook her head because his poise was breathtaking, as was his cool arrogance—unless he was simply telling her the facts as he saw them. But maybe it didn’t matter what motivated his words, she either agreed to his terms, or he walked. He would and could do that, she realised. Despite all the push-me, pull-me stuff he’d been doing these past few days—if he thought she was getting serious, she wouldn’t see him for dust. Even if he missed the sex, it wouldn’t be for long. You only had to look at the expressions of some of the women in this restaurant to know that here was a man who was universally lusted after. He would soon replace her with someone else, someone who was more his ‘type’.
And Lina wasn’t ready to let that happen. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to turn her back on this incredible awakening, because of some kind of misguided idea that deeper emotions had to be involved. You didn’t have to be in love to do what they were doing. Those kinds of beliefs belonged in storybooks, or within the repressed confines of the tiny village into which she had been born. Hadn’t she come to America to shake off those old-fashioned assumptions?
‘Well, I don’t want to marry you,’ she said, making sure she kept her voice very quiet in case someone overheard and thought he was actually proposing to her. ‘That’s not the reason I’m here. I told you back in Sicily that I had dreams and they haven’t gone away. And Siena has shown me that I might be able to make those dreams a reality. I’m never going to conquer the world, I’m sensible enough to realise that, but if I can make a decent living for myself, then I’ll be satisfied.’
She could see the sudden hard burn of his eyes. The sudden tightening of his lips. ‘I’m glad we understand each other, Lina,’ he said softly, casting a rueful glance down at the untouched food in front of them, before lifting his charged blue gaze to her. ‘And since you’ve brought up the subject of satisfaction, let’s take it one step further. It doesn’t look as if either of us are going to do this meal justice—so what do you say we get out of here so that we can spend the rest of the afternoon in bed?’
Lina’s heart was thumping as she stared back at him across the table. He had suggested going back to have sex as coolly as if he were calling for the bill, and part of her wanted to do that, despite the callous things he’d said. Because now she knew something about his background, didn’t that make his cynicism more understandable? He’d been lied to and deserted at an impressionable age by his mother—the one person he should have been able to rely on above all others. Why wouldn’t he develop an aversion to close relationships after an experience like that? Then he had grown spectacularly successful and perhaps been targeted as much for his wealth as his rugged beauty, though she would have desired him just as much if he’d been a poor fisherman, like his father. And wasn’t there a part of her which wished he were? That he came unencumbered, without all the homes and staff and fancy aeroplanes.
