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“Yes.”
She reached for a menu, holding it in her fingertips.
“Fiero says you are very good,” he said, referring to his brother.
She swallowed, her eyes focussing on the writing without really seeing. “Oh?”
“He says you were wonderful when Jack cut his forehead.”
A smile – easy and relaxed – lifted her lips. A natural fondness for the little boy – Fiero’s son and Max’s nephew – was impossible not to react to. “Well, Jack is a perfect patient.”
“I would have thought he was incredibly difficult, actually,” Max laughed.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he hates to sit still for more than two seconds?”
“True,” she lifted her eyes then wished she hadn’t when a spark of fire flew between them. She jerked her attention back to the menu.
“This is when you met Maddie? The day Jack hurt himself?”
“Yes.” She ran a finger down the page of her menu. “What are you going to eat?”
“I always have the chef bring what he wants.”
She lifted a brow. “That seems oddly trusting for someone with your personality type.”
“And what is my personality type?”
A smile quirked her lips. “Are you sure you want me to answer that?”
He dipped his head in a silent invitation.
A wave of things she could say almost swallowed her whole, but she kept it limited to, “A control freak.”
He considered that. “I exercise control,” he agreed. “To a normal degree.”
“No,” she laughed in an automatic rebuke. “I exercise control to a normal degree. You’re a bonafide control freak.”
“How can you say that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about our marriage back then?”
His features tightened. “You didn’t need to know.”
“I deserved to know,” she said flatly, rejecting his assessment in its entirety. “But you knew that there was a chance – a good chance – that if you were honest with me about the reasons for our marriage, I’d turn you down.”
His jaw tightened.
“And you didn’t want to risk that, so you controlled the situation – me – to make sure you got the result you wanted.”
A waitress appeared now to take their order. “I’ll have the chicken, thank you,” Alessia passed the menu over, purposefully choosing something different to what she’d had the night of her twenty first birthday.
“Whatever Dominique suggests,” Max’s words were terse – the poor waitress was catching the splashback of Alessia’s argument. “And tell him my wife is pregnant.”
“Thank you,” Alessia said pointedly, flashing an overbright smile at the waitress.
Max appeared not to notice. “Fine. I have already accepted your feelings on this – I was wrong. But can you at least do me the justice of seeing why I did so? I couldn’t afford for your father to say ‘no’. Do you have any idea what he was on the brink of doing?”
