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‘I’m freezing—’ she began and he nodded towards the cupboard.
‘There are towelling robes in there. Change out of your wet things. I don’t want you catching cold.’
‘Larenzo...’ Emma began, although she didn’t know what she was going to say. Why was she protesting so much, anyway? Chatting in the moonlight with a devastatingly attractive man was no hardship. And it wasn’t as if Larenzo was going to make a move. He might have dared her to jump in the pool, but she was pretty sure her boss didn’t mix business with pleasure.
Even if she wanted him to...
‘Fine,’ she said, and retreated to the towelling cupboard. With the door serving as a screen between her and Larenzo, she tugged off her wet clothes and wrapped herself in the heated dressing gown. The sleeves hung past her hands and the sash trailed the ground, but at least she was warm again. She doubted she’d provide any sort of temptation to Larenzo now.
‘Tell me your favourite place you lived in as a child,’ Larenzo commanded as she sat down across from him and picked up her wine glass—he’d filled it again, while she’d been changing.
Emma considered for a moment. Answering questions, at least, kept her from gawping at Larenzo’s chest. Why on earth she was feeling this unwelcome attraction for him now, she had no idea. Perhaps it was simply the strangeness of the evening, his unexpected arrival, his demand for her company. ‘Krakow, I suppose,’ she said finally. ‘I spent two years there when I was ten. It’s a beautiful city.’ And those years had been the last ones where she’d felt part of a family, before her mother had announced her decision to leave. But she didn’t want to think, much less talk, about that. ‘Where did you grow up?’ she asked, and Larenzo swirled the wine in his glass, his expression hardening slightly as he gazed down into its ruby depths.
‘Palermo.’
‘Hence the villa in Sicily, I suppose.’
‘It is my home.’
‘But you live most of the time in Rome.’
‘Cavelli Enterprises is headquartered there.’ He paused, his shuttered gaze on the darkened mountains, the moon casting a lambent glow over the wooded hills. ‘In any case, I never much liked Palermo.’
‘Why not?’
He pressed his lips together. ‘Too many hard memories.’
He didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, and Emma eyed him curiously, wondering at this enigmatic man who clearly had secrets she’d never even guessed at before.
Larenzo gazed round the terrace, the patio furniture now no more than shadowy shapes in the darkness, and then turned to look once more at the mountains. ‘I’ll miss it here,’ he said, so quietly Emma almost didn’t hear him.
‘So you are thinking of leaving,’ she said, and Larenzo didn’t answer for a long moment.
‘Not thinking of it, no,’ he said, and then seemed to shake off his weary mood, his gaze snapping back to her. ‘Thank you, Emma, for the food and also for your company. You’ve done more for me than you could possibly know.’
Emma stared at him helplessly. ‘If there’s anything else I can do...’
To her shock he touched her cheek with his hand, his fingers cool against her flushed face. ‘Bellissima,’ he whispered, and the endearment stole right through her. ‘No,’ he said, and dropped his hand from her face. ‘You’ve done enough. Thank you.’ And then, taking his plate and his glass, he rose from his chair and left her sitting on the terrace alone.
Emma sat there for a few moments, shivering a little in the chilly air despite the dressing gown. She wished she could have comforted Larenzo somehow, but she had no idea what was going on, and she wasn’t sure he’d welcome her sympathy anyway. He was a proud, hard man, caught in a moment of weakness. He’d probably regret their whole conversation tomorrow.
Sighing, she took the wine bottle and glasses from the table and headed inside. Larenzo had already gone upstairs; the lights were off, the house locked up. After rinsing out the dishes and switching on the dishwasher Emma went upstairs as well.
She paused for a moment on the landing; Larenzo’s master bedroom was to the right, her own smaller room the last on the left. She heard nothing but the wind high up in the trees, and she couldn’t see any light underneath Larenzo’s doorway. Even so she had a mad urge to knock on his door, to say something. But what? They didn’t have that kind of relationship, not remotely, and knocking on Larenzo’s bedroom door, seeing him answer it with his hair rumpled and damp, his chest still bare...
