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“Aren’t you the black sheep,” she mused. “Why not go into the family business?”
His face darkened and his back stiffened against the straight-back chair. “I did. It didn’t work out.”
Okay… She reached across the table and covered his much larger hand with hers. “Well then, I am a very lucky woman, because where would I be now without you?”
The tense muscles in his fingers relaxed beneath hers. Something thickened the oregano-tinged air around them, thickening the moment and sending her heart on a roller-coaster ride. Seemingly of their own accord, her fingers slid between his, wrapping around his strong digits. Sucking on her bottom lip, she looked up to his face.
His brown eyes darkened to deep umber under his heavily fringed lashes, and his broad shoulders slanted forward. His gaze, as tactile as a touch, slid across her skin, leaving a blaze of hunger in its wake that no amount of divine pasta could satisfy.
Her nipples pebbled against her lace bra, so much tighter than it had been a moment ago. The material scratched against her sensitive flesh. Lips parted, hungry for the taste of him, she leaned forward until she was so close that his soft breath caressed her cheek. Only a few inches of charged air separated them and she desperately wanted to breach that chasm. The unyielding table edge pushed against her hips as she stretched forward and her eyelids drooped.
Tony’s chair screeched against the tile floor and his hand jerked away from hers. Her eyes snapped open. He stood next to the table, evidence of his arousal clear from the impressive bulge straining against his zipper. Slowly, her mind processed the deadly grip with which he held his empty plate and the stubborn set to his jaw.
“It’s late. I’ll take care of the dishes.” He pivoted on his heel and beelined it to the sink.
With the effectiveness of double-layered shapewear, mortification squeezed the air out of her lungs. “Look, I’m not sure exactly what happened here.”
“I shouldn’t have moved in like I was going to kiss you earlier. It made you assume that this”—he waved his hand in the air— “could happen. But your life’s on the line, Sylvie, and I can’t afford to lose sight of that.” He shoved a plate into the dishwasher.
Chaos reigned in her thoughts as she regarded him. “The timing sucks, but I don’t understand—”
“You wouldn’t understand.” He whipped around, anger burning in his expression. “Not someone with your charmed existence. But I lost focus once and it cost my partner his life. He died because I didn’t bring my A-game to the job. I can’t let that happen again. I won’t. Boundaries are necessary so I can concentrate on catching this creep.”
Yes, boundaries she understood. All too well. To-do lists, checklists, and memorized lists of appropriate behaviors. Once Henry and Anton had welcomed her home to a pink, girly room with her name stenciled in lemon yellow on one wall, she’d sworn never to disappoint them. Never to let them wonder if they’d made the right decision in adopting her and Anya. For the most part, she’d accomplished that, but the insidious fear of making them shake their heads at their grievous error never completely left her.
Unable to regain their earlier natural ease, and confused as to why it even mattered so much, Sylvie gathered her dishes and deposited them on the counter.
In silence, he rinsed her plate, his jaw as rigid as concrete. The red sauce circled the drain before disappearing as if it had never been there. In two minutes, all evidence of their cozy dinner had been washed away, leaving them uncomfortably alone together in the brightly lit kitchen.
Her chest ached with the finality of his dismissal
and his total lack of understanding of her. Like so many others, he couldn’t see beyond her name to discover the person she really was. She’d been stupid to think he’d be different.
“We’re all broken, Tony,” she said stiffly. “Some of us on the outside. Some of us in the deep, dark places inside where no one can ever reach.” Where no one even tries. She pushed past the tightness in her throat threatening to strangle her words before she could finish. “No one is whole. Not even the supposedly charmed ones. Not in this fucking world.”
Turning, she fled the kitchen.
“Sylvie.” His tortured voice stopped her in the doorway. “I’m sorry.”
Something in his voice hinted at more than just his apology, but she couldn’t stop to question it. She had to get out of there before he saw the wet evidence of how much his misjudgment had hurt.
Chapter Six
“Bravery never goes out of fashion.”
—William Makepeace Thackeray
The Darling House sat across the street from Chantal’s glass-and-steel high-rise on the ever-bustling Louis Street. As always at noon, the Chinese restaurant was packed with the fashion media’s minions picking up takeout for their well-heeled bosses, as well as editors and stylists hungry for a bit of gossip.
Sylvie scanned the dimly lit dining room, searching for Ivy Rhodes’s splash of red hair highlighted by the glow of her ubiquitous laptop. Ivy never missed her lo mein lunch.
“This is supposed to be an accidental meet, remember?” Tony’s words tickled her earlobe. “You’re just here for a quick lunch with your new boyfriend.”
Awareness trickled across her skin. He stood so close she couldn’t help but inhale his freshly scrubbed scent. The image of his taut muscles covered in soapsuds, his dark chest hair peeking through the white bubbles, made her mouth go dry. Clenching her jaw, she shoved the mental picture out of her head. He could not have made his intentions—or lack of them—any clearer last night. God, how many times did she have to make an idiot of herself before she stopped chasing men who didn’t want her? Wasn’t her misery box full enough after Daniel?
The hostess picked that moment to pop over, but her hot-pink plaid uniform failed to elicit Sylvie’s usual grin.
“Two for lunch?” the hostess asked.
