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Draco’s smile faded. “I was not—what did you call it? I was not cool, Anna.”
Her smile faded, too. “Draco,” she said softly, “I’m sorry. I should have realized. It must have been hard. Your father, your grandfather, whatever they’d done to lose everything …”
Had he told her about that? Yes. He had. What for? He didn’t talk about his childhood, his family … Except that now, without planning to, he found himself talking about all of it.
About his mother, who’d never been a mother to him at all. About his father, who had, literally, never noticed if he was there or not. About boarding school, and what it had taken to survive it …
Finally he ran out of words.
He fell silent. So did Anna. He couldn’t read her face at all.
“Well,” he said after a minute, trying for a laugh he couldn’t quite muster, “so much for ruining the evening.”
Anna shoved back her chair. A second later she was crouched beside him, her eyes suspiciously bright.
Draco looked around. A score of interested people looked back.
“Damnit, Anna,” he said.
“Damnit, Draco,” she replied, her voice as soft as the petals of a flower, and right there, on the crowded terrace of a crowded restaurant, she clasped his face with her hands, brought it down to hers and put her lips against his.
That was the moment he knew he could not possibly let her leave him at the end of the week.
He lay awake that night long after she fell asleep.
Two more days. Then Anna would fly to New York. She had a return ticket, she’d said when he’d suggested she use his plane, which was finally back in service. He’d argued, then given in. She was so damned stubborn, too stubborn even to agree to something when anyone could see that doing so would make sense.
As for him, he’d stay on in Rome for a few days, take care of some business. Then he’d fly to San Francisco. And the week they’d spent together, their affair, if you could call seven nights and two days an affair, would be history.
They would still see each other, of course. He’d fly east, she’d fly west. A weekend here, a weekend there. It was doable.
For a while.
Well, so what?
These relationships never lasted. Hell, why would he want them to? The sex lost its excitement. Conversation lost its luster. Yes, this week had been different. Morning conversation. Late-night kisses. Things he’d never even considered with other women had become not just enjoyable but important.
Damnit. He was not ready to let Anna walk out of his life.
New York. San Francisco. Three thousand miles. If only his offices were on the East Coast, or hers on the West. He could not change that. He’d spent years building his company. Hundreds of people worked for him. Anna, on the other hand …
Wait a minute.
What had she said about her work? A hole-in-the-wall office. Sleazy clients. A walk-up flat.
What if she had another opportunity? A much better one? She would, of course, accept it …
And just that quickly, Draco knew what to do. And how to do it so it wouldn’t make her hackles rise. Underhanded? No. Clever, that was all. Clever and logical.
Carefully he eased his arm from her. “Mmm.” She sighed, and he smiled, thinking of how now he’d be sure to hear that soft whisper again.
He rose, pulled on his discarded trousers and went through the villa to his study. It took a while to make the necessary phone calls. Two hours, to be precise.
And then the deed was done.
No more East-Coast, West-Coast conundrum. One coast was all they’d need.
A few days from now, Anna would be headhunted by Vernon, Bolton and Andover, a top-flight San Francisco law firm. The firm he used, as a matter of fact. They’d explain that they’d decided to expand their pro bono cases and they needed an experienced litigator. They’d offer her four times her current salary, a staff and all the indigent cases they believed had merit.
