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He glared at her. ‘Maybe I should!’
Her voice dipped into an angry whisper. ‘Why did you bother coming at all, when you’re in such a filthy mood?’
‘I suppose I wanted to support you.’
‘Forgive me for saying so, Salvatore, but this doesn’t feel remotely like support.’
He knew that. He knew it, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from the bitter words which were tumbling out from somewhere deep and dark within him. Because something bitter had begun to harden inside him. Something which was making it difficult for him to breathe. He looked around to where one of Siena’s assistants was standing in front of a queue of people, tapping out frantically on her tablet—presumably compiling a wait-list.
‘You’ve come a long way from the woman who just wanted to make a living,’ he observed softly. ‘You’ve changed, Lina.’
She was shaking her head as if she couldn’t quite believe wha
t he was saying. ‘Of course I’ve changed,’ she whispered. ‘I had to. Didn’t you change when you came here? Didn’t you feel you had to do that, so that you’d blend in? Or do you think I would have fitted into this glitzy city if I’d just bombed around on my little bike, wearing dusty old sneakers and frumpy clothes? Maybe that’s what you would have preferred me to do?’ she added, into the charged silence which seemed to have enveloped them. ‘To have stayed exactly the same as I was.’
He stared at the tight shiny spirals of black hair which were coiled on top of her head. At the heavy satin gown which effectively ironed out every one of her luscious curves. At the diamonds which dazzled at her neck and her wrist, their blue-white fire almost as bright as the photographer’s flash.
‘Yes,’ he ground out. ‘That’s what I would have preferred. Because you don’t look like Lina any more.’
‘And yet when I did look like Lina and behave like her—doing that very traditional thing of cooking a Sicilian meal for you as a surprise—that wasn’t right either, was it?’ she questioned. ‘In fact, you acted as if I had committed a terrible crime.’
‘Because I didn’t sign up for domesticity!’ he retorted. ‘I didn’t want some West Coast recreation of a life I left behind a long time ago!’
She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Do you want to know something?’ she said, at last, her voice low and trembling. ‘That I had stupidly started to care for you? Yes, I admit it—even though you had warned me against doing so—I had fallen into the same trap as so many others! I cared because I liked the man you were underneath all the trappings. In fact, sometimes I found myself wishing you didn’t have all that damned money, because it suits you to think women are only interested in your wealth, doesn’t it? Just like I wish your mother hadn’t deserted you and your father hadn’t neglected you afterwards. But we can’t rewrite history, Salvatore, no matter how much we’d like to. And you will never heal from the wounds of your past—because you’ll never allow yourself to!’
‘That’s enough,’ he snarled.
‘No. No, it’s not enough. I’ve listened to you often enough when you laid down all your terms. The least now you can do is to hear me out. Because no woman is ever going to be right for you, are they? There is no female on earth who could possibly fulfil your exacting and contradictory demands—because they are unachievable!’
‘Too right, they are. And do you want to know why?’ He stabbed his fingers into the air, in a way she’d seen him do once before. ‘Because I don’t want all that stuff! I don’t want domesticity and living by the clock. And I don’t want children, either—do you understand? Children who become the unwilling victims of the mess their parents make of their relationships! I’m not seeking the chains which other men strive to anchor themselves with. So why don’t you do yourself a favour, Lina—and stay away from me?’
Lina’s throat was so dry she could hardly breathe and the fitted dress felt as tight as a shroud. She would have run out of there—she wanted to run out of there—but she couldn’t. Not with these stupidly high heels and a wall of people in front of her. But importantly, she knew she shouldn’t run away, even if it were physically possible. Not with her potential future lying in front of her. Here there were potential clients and potential backers and she couldn’t just storm out of there because her heart felt as if it were breaking. Siena had taken a chance on her and given her the opportunity of a lifetime and now her efforts were finally beginning to bear fruit. And this had been what she’d wanted, hadn’t it? In fact, her ambition had over-vaulted itself and not only had she achieved far more than she would ever have believed possible, but Siena had told her that a lot more lay ahead.
More than that, she had learned something about herself along the way. In her eagerness to please people and keep the peace, Lina had allowed herself to ignore the way they were treating her. She had pretty much always fallen in with other people’s demands. Her mother had done it and now it seemed she was in danger of letting Salvatore do it, too. He wasn’t interested in what she wanted—only in his own closed and selfish agenda.
And suddenly, she could feel her nerves and her fears slipping away from her. Somehow she would get through the rest of the evening and the rest of her life, just not with Salvatore. Never again with him. Why try to cling to a man who could be so hurtful? Why chase after something he would never be prepared to give her? Because she had wanted this. Worked hard for it. Was she really going to let it slip away because she was pursuing someone who had always been beyond her reach? She owed herself more than that.
So, although her heart was beating so hard that it hurt, she tilted her chin and fixed him with a cool look. ‘Look, you’re clearly not enjoying yourself and I really ought to circulate. So why don’t you go on ahead? It looks like I’m going to be here for some time.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll wait,’ he said.
‘No.’ Her voice was quiet, but determined. In fact, she’d never felt quite so determined in her life. ‘Honestly. Just go. I really don’t need you here.’
He opened his mouth as if to object, as if her sudden poise had perplexed him. As if he were the only one in this doomed relationship who was allowed to make decisions. But what could he possibly object to, when she was giving him everything he wanted?
He’d provided her with an escape route, hadn’t he?
Surely now she could return the favour.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SALVATORE STARED AT the newspaper which had been placed neatly on his desk and the anger which had been smouldering inside him since he’d got out of bed that morning now threatened to combust. Splashed all over the inside pages was a feature about last night’s launch party for Lina’s handbags, with the usual shots of seasoned attendees presenting their best sides to the camera, their posed smiles in place. But it was the photograph of him with Lina which disturbed him most, the one with her hand on his arm, which had inspired the excruciating headline speculating on whether San Francisco’s most famous bachelor had finally lost his heart to a woman from his homeland. Which made a pulse begin to flicker at his temple.
If he looked closely—which he seemed to be doing, despite his initial inclination to crush the offending journal in his fist—then he could see something in her unguarded expression which disturbed him. Which seemed to vindicate his determination to move on from her. He swallowed. For wasn’t her Madonna-like face soft as she looked at him, her dark eyes full of the care she’d confessed she felt for him? He felt his heart clench with something which felt like pain, but instantly he blocked it out. Because he didn’t do that kind of pain. Not any more.
Pushing the paper away, he looked up at his assistant who had appeared at the door, carrying a tiny cup of super-strong espresso, her sharp attention immediately drawn to the article in front of him.
‘You’ve seen it?’ she said. ‘I thought it best to draw your attention to it. I know you never usually read that rag.’
