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His lips compressed as though he were fighting himself, battling with the words he was saying and his ever-present desire to push her away.
“What did you think?” She was asking for a compliment, and she hated herself for that, but her battered ego needed something from this behemoth of a man.
His knowing smile showed that he understood what she was asking of him.
“I think vegan moussaka sounds like an oxymoron.”
She let out a small laugh. “It was a viewer request.”
“You’re not vegan.”
“Heck, no.”
“Good.”
It wasn’t the approval she’d been hoping for but it didn’t matter. The small word still burst through her like sunshine on a frigid day. It relaxed her too, so she found herself blinking up at him and feeling more like equals and even friends, rather than strangers.
“I’m sorry about last night.”
His demeanour immediately shifted. His features tightened, his chest seemed to grow bigger and broader. “Are you?”
It was something else she hadn’t expected.
“Are you sorry for kissing me?” He prompted, and the same challenge in his eyes made it impossible for her to lie.
She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t know how to answer that. Because even though she’d woken with a sense of shame and mortification licking the soles of her feet, she couldn’t say that she wished she could take the kiss back.
“Are you sorry I kissed you back?” He demanded, more gruffly this time, his fingers feathering over hers, the touch simple and light but enough to send lightning bolts through her system.
“I’m just sorry that I –,” she searched for words, her eyes pleading with him to understand, but he gave her no lifeline, no chance not to say what she was thinking. “I overstepped the mark,” she finished quietly. “I’m a guest in your house – well, as you’ve pointed out, more of an intruder, really. I should have respected your wishes and stayed away, instead of –,”
Again, he waited, not rescuing her by supplying the end of her sentence, nor allowing it to dwindle by moving conversation onto new ground.
“Attacking you.”
Her honesty was rewarded with a half-smile, but it was gone in an instant, his expression unreadable once more. “You should have stayed away,” he agreed.
She sighed softly, her eyes falling to the coffee cup.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
His finger pressed into her chin, lifting her face to his, and desire arced between them, as real as any electrical current running through the walls of this house. “So am I. I tried to ignore you, Isabella Moss, and then you kissed me and now I find I can’t get you out of my head. That is a problem for both of us.”
Her only reply was a short gasp. He dropped his hands, dismissing her with a tight smile as he turned to lift his own coffee cup. He stood holding it, his eyes boring into hers, watching her, waiting for her to say something that might indicate how she felt about that.
But Isabella’s mind was spinning, desire making it hard to think straight, a sense that she was misunderstanding him in some way making her quite numb.
“Why did you come to Italy?”
It was a welcome change of subject, and yet it wasn’t. The truth was something she hadn’t shared with anyone, for fear of how stupid it sounded. But there was something about Gabe – no. Not about Gabe himself, per se, so much as the fact they were closed off from the rest of the world. It all felt like it was a million, trillion miles away, reality a very distant consideration on the edge of another galaxy.
She sipped her coffee, taking a small step away from him, even when her body complained about that, needing to be closer to him, not further away. Her heart was stuttering in her chest.
“It’s a long story, and I’m sure you have more important things to do than listen to me.”
He lifted his shoulders. “I asked the question, didn’t I?”
Warmth lifted her soul. She knew she was crossing a one-way threshold, and
