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She had thought Vicè would be asleep. But he was not only very much awake, he was standing in front of her. In boxer shorts. Extremely wet boxer shorts.
Her stomach flipped over and for a heartbeat she couldn’t move. She no longer seemed to know how to make her legs work. But she did know that no good would come of her staying there.
‘Imma. Please, wait—’
Against her will, against every instinct she had, she made her body still. With an effort, she turned to face him. ‘Why? So you can make me feel stupid? You don’t need to bother, Vicè. Really. I’m already doing a great job of that all on my own.’
He took a step towards her. ‘I don’t want to make you feel stupid. I just want to talk.’
She looked away, swallowing against the ache in her throat, feeling trapped again. ‘Well, that’s a lovely idea, but we don’t talk. We argue. And I’m tired of arguing.’
‘We do talk,’ he said quietly. ‘That first night at your father’s villa we talked a lot.’
She stared at him in confusion. But he was right. They had talked that night about lots of things. Actually, she had talked—and that in itself was remarkable.
Usually, she was the listener. When it was just the two of them, Claudia would always be the one chattering on about some recipe she was going to try, and at work, with her father’s shadow looming large over everything, her opinions were politely ignored. As for Cesare himself—like most rich, powerful men, he was far too convinced of his own rightness to invite other viewpoints.
A lump of misery swelled inside her. She was getting distracted. At her father’s villa, Vicè had a reason to listen to her.
‘That wasn’t real,’ she said flatly. ‘None of this is real.’
‘I am—and you are.’ His eyes held hers. ‘And so is this thing between us.’
She shook her head. ‘There is no thing between us, Vicè.’
But of their own accord her eyes fixed on his chest. For a few half seconds she stared at the drops of water trickling down over his smooth golden skin, and then she looked away, her breathing ragged, her denial echoing hollowly around the empty terrace.
She had taken him back to her father’s villa thinking that one night with him would give her the answers she needed. Instead it had simply raised more questions. Like what kind of woman could still want a man like him? And how—where—was she ever going to find another man who would override the memory of his touch, his kiss?
‘Even if there is, we’re not going to do anything about it.’
His eyes were steady and unblinking. ‘We already have. So why are you still denying how we both feel?’
‘Because it doesn’t make any sense,’ she mumbled.
‘Does it have to?’
She looked up at him, made mute by the directness of his words and the complicity they implied.
He was silent for a moment, and then he sighed. ‘Look, Imma, I don’t want to argue any more than you do, so could we call a truce? Please?’
Her heart contracted. ‘Forget the past, you mean?’
He stared at her. ‘Not forget it—just put it on hold.’
She frowned. ‘We’re not talking about a nuisance call. This is my sister’s life—her heart.’ My heart. Her eyes were filling with tears. ‘She doesn’t deserve what your brother has done to her.’
‘Oh? But my father did deserve to be hounded in the last few months of his life?’
His voice was suddenly hard, his eyes even harder. So much for a truce, she thought.
‘And my mother? She deserved to lose her home? Her husband?’
His tone made her shiver.
‘Of course not.’ She hesitated. ‘Is that why you want the business back? For her?’
For a moment he seemed confused, as though he didn’t understand her words.
