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“I’m not in Venice, tesoro. I’m in New York City. Among the reasons I’m calling you is to tell you all the US-based Accardis are anxious to meet you. They’re holding a reception in your honor in our main ancestral home here.”
She almost blurted out a refusal. Not that she expected such an event to be unpleasant. So far every Accardi her father had introduced to her had been gracious and welcoming. Either her mother had falsely advertised the family in order to explain why they never had anything to do with them, or they were accommodating her father’s fervent desire to include her in their exclusive ranks. Up till now, though, she’d met the Accardis one or two at a time. The idea of meeting them en masse was enough to give her performance anxiety.
“Is this weekend good for you?”
“No.” The response came out far sharper than she’d intended. Biting her tongue, she tried again. “I...have work to do.”
“On the weekend?”
Her gaze again clashed with Antonio’s watchful one, then saw the satisfaction there. Her blood heated to the point where she felt steam rising off her body.
“Our lab has been taken over, and our new taskmaster has turned things upside down. I’m behind in my schedule because of his antics, and I have no idea when I’ll get caught up.”
Antonio’s grin became as wide as she’d ever seen it as he beckoned to a waiter bearing champagne chilling in an ice-filled antique silver bucket.
Narrowing her eyes, she moved to end the call. One turmoil-inducing man at a time was her limit.
“Please let them know I’m unavailable this weekend before they put any plans in motion. When I sort out my stuff here, we’ll discuss this further, okay?”
“Certamente, tesoro. Call me whenever it’s convenient for you. Don’t worry about the time difference or any other considerations. Wake me up, interrupt my meetings, anything at all. Talking to you is far more important than anything else. I have a lifetime of unmade calls I need to make up for.”
To that she grumbled something vague around the lump that suddenly filled her throat and ended the call.
As she put her phone away, struggling to swallow through the tightness, Antonio poured champagne in her crystal flute and handed it to her.
“Your father?”
She grimaced. “Rhetorical questions fall under my redundancy ban. My father was so loud you must have heard his every word. And you heard me call him Father.”
He also no doubt knew everything about her personal life, such as it was. Who her father was and that she’d grown up without him must have been the first things in the dossier he must have on her as he had on everyone in his employ. He probably knew the recent developments, too. He just wanted her to elaborate with her own version of details and updates.
At his unrepentant, probing stare, she sighed. “Yeah. My father. Long-absent and recently very much present. Therefore the extreme enthusiasm. He’ll cool off, eventually. But for now I’m the daughter he reconnected with, all grown-up minus the hassle of years of teething, tantrums and teenage angst.”
That still, strange expression on his face deepened before he exhaled. “This is another thing that proves we’re not two different species at all.”
“What? That I happen to have an Italian father, too?”
“And that you grew up without said father.”
“You...” Suddenly the lump was back in her throat. It was ridiculous, when she’d never really considered herself unfortunate, but imagining the boy Antonio had been growing up fatherless...hurt.
It was clear he wasn’t going to elaborate. Which was fine by her. Though curiosity burned inside her, she didn’t want to learn anything that would make her stupidly ache more on his behalf.
To assuage the pain she suffered now, she gulped a big mouthful of silky champagne. “That sort of barely puts us in the same genus.”
He toasted her with his flute. “At least it’s a step up the ladder toward us occupying the same evolutionary status.” Taking a sip, he put his glass down. “But we do share far more than that. We’re both doctors—”
“Who’ve trodden diametrically different paths, have opposing approaches, and reached incomparable results.”
Undeterred, he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him in this volleying rhythm between them they seem to have perfected. “We’re both unyielding—”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m sitting here having lunch with you in this top secret hideout for billionaires and spies and not watching my sitcoms as I wanted.”
“And that’s why you made me bow to your demands without any of my own objectives realized in return.”
Her lips twisted. “So you say.”
“So it is. This round is all yours.” He beckoned to the maître d’ without taking his gaze off her, a new heat entering his eyes. “But don’t think you’re going to win every time.”
