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Her father’s household staff was well-trained, and she had arranged for her own coordinator to supervise things.
The drawing room was filled with light from half a dozen magnificent chandeliers; gold-rimmed champagne flutes and wine goblets that had been in the family for almost two centuries glittered on the enormous sideboard alongside an array of bottles that ranged from Cristal champagne to vintage Brunello di Montalcino, the incredibly expensive red wine for which the area was known.
The dining room table, set for twelve, was a masterwork of floral centerpieces, antique silver candelabra, her great-great-grandmother’s china and sterling flatware that dated to the eighteenth century.
Alessia straightened a plate here, moved a fork there but the truth was, there was nothing for her to do….
Nothing except finally admit that her nerves had nothing to do with this dinner party and everything to do with Nicolo.
She had not seen him for hours.
They’d driven back to the villa from the hillside in silence. She hadn’t known what to expect. Would he try to take her in his arms again? She was not ready for that. In fact, by the time they’d returned, she was stunned at what she’d said to him about wanting to be with him tonight and convinced she was not ready for anything to happen between them, now or ever.
The drive back had given her time to think.
What am I doing? she had thought.
Nothing sensible, that was certain.
Why would a logical woman even consider getting involved with a man she didn’t know or want to know? Nicolo Orsini wore the right clothes and said the right things but that didn’t change what he was.
Or what she became in his arms.
She had turned into someone else on that hillside, losing her sense of self, of decorum, of—of morality. To have kissed him with wild abandon, to have begged him, Dio, begged him to take her…
All those thoughts had whirled through her head as they drove to the villa, but when they reached it, Nicolo had been the perfect gentleman. He’d helped her from the Massif, brought her hand to his mouth and lightly brushed a kiss over her knuckles.
Then he’d gone to his rooms and she had gone to hers. She had not seen him since, which was not what she’d anticipated. Despite their agreement that he would not make love to her in the Antoninni villa, she’d expected him to want to take her to his rooms, or to hers.
In fact, for the next couple of hours, each time she’d heard a footstep in the hall she’d felt her heart race, her mouth go dry because that footstep might be his, because she’d thought he might have been coming to her, coming for her to complete what they had started under that tree.
Just the thought had been enough to start her trembling….
As she was trembling now.
Alessia went to the mahogany bar in the drawing room and poured herself a glass of wine.
The porcelain mantel clock softly ticked away the minutes. Soon, Nicolo would come through the doorway. She had learned enough about him to know that he was a man who understood the unwritten rules of business, and this was a business dinner. She had to remember that.
/> There was nothing of a social nature to it.
He would be on time. And she would tell him that what had almost happened today had been a mistake.
Her hand shook. Carefully, she set the glass on a small table. It would not do for the Princess Antoninni to greet her guests with wine stains on her gown.
Her gown.
Another mistake. Why had she let her friend, Gina, convince her to wear it? It was beautiful, yes, the most beautiful gown her friend, an up-and-coming young designer, had ever made.
But it was wrong for this occasion.
Last week, over a pick-up meal of cheese and salad in Gina’s Roman atelier, she’d told her friend about the dinner party she had to preside over in honor of an American investor of her father’s acquaintance.
“An American investor,” Gina had said brightly. “Is he young and good-looking?”
“For all I know, he looks like an ape,” Alessia had said glumly.
“But he’s filthy rich?”
