But it hadn’t been an appeal that would last.
Not beyond the affair he’d indulged in.
His eyes rested on her now, in an understated jade-green ensemble that offset her Titian hair, which had been styled with casual elegance. Her make-up was minimal. She looked so very different from how he remembered her.
She held a very different appeal…
But she was still as stunningly beautiful…
No.The guillotine sliced down. He took another forkful of his lamb, took a breath. Made himself address the only subject that had any relevance to them now.
‘We’re going to have to discuss how we handle this ludicrous situation.’ He kept his voice matter of fact.
Bianca looked up. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked shortly. ‘What situation?’
‘Thesituation,’ Luca said with sardonic emphasis, ignoring the flare in the green eyes levelled on him, ‘in which Matteo thinks we’re engaged to be married.’ His voice tightened. ‘We will have to put on some kind of show for him.’
He saw colour stain her cheeks, but then it was gone.
‘No, we won’t,’ she rebuffed. ‘All you have to do,’ she told him tersely, ‘is clear off. Go back to Rome. Better still, take yourselfoff on some business trip—New York, China… The further the better!’
Luca frowned. ‘You think it’s that simple?’
‘Of course it is! My poor uncle isn’t going to think anything of it. And I’ll keep up the farce this end until—’
She broke off. Reached for her wine glass and took a gulp, set it back defiantly on the table. Then she lifted her chin and looked straight at him.
‘I don’t want you around, Luca. This whole thing is a nightmare. I’ve agreed to this hideous lie simply for my uncle’s sake…so that he can die happy.’
‘And you think I haven’t done so for exactly the same reason?’ he retorted, not hiding the blade in his voice.
He saw her face darken. ‘You don’t need to tell me that! I know your opinion of me—you made it crystal-clear six years ago! I was dirt beneath your feet. Good enough for sex, but nothing else.’
‘Don’t speak like that!’ His remonstrance was harsh.
Anger flashed in her eyes, emerald-hard. ‘Why not? It’s only the truth.’ Her voice twisted. ‘And even if I was ever stupid enough to think otherwise, you damn well showed me again last night! Thinking you could just help yourself to me!’
Luca’s expression steeled. ‘Last night was a mistake—’
‘Too damn right it was! The whole damn time I spent with you six years ago was a mistake! I was just too blind, too besotted, to see what you really thought of me! To realise you’d just gone slumming it with me!’
It was Luca’s turn to reach for his wine. As he set the glass back she resumed eating, a set look back on her face, her movements jerky.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he began stiffly.
Her head flew up, eyes flashing again, turning them into green fire.
‘Don’t give me that! It wasexactlylike that! You said I was a common-as-muck, pig-ignorant, low-class nobody, dragged up in the East End of London—’
‘Ineversaid that!’ Anger was open in Luca’s voice now.
She cast a vicious smile at him. ‘Oh, no, of course you didn’t! You said,’ she went on savagely, ‘that we came from “very different worlds”, that we’d had “a good time” together, but now it was over. You were going back to your ancestral palace and I would go back to being a barmaid pulling pints. Believe me, I didn’t need a translation—I got the message!’
Luca’s mouth compressed. He didn’t want to be reminded of how their affair had ended. How difficult she’d made it for him. How brutal he’d had to be.
He picked up his knife and fork again, attacking his lamb with displaced ferocity. He could do without her riling him—he really could do without it.
‘The past is gone, Bianca,’ he said repressively. ‘It’s the present we have to deal with. Matteo will want more than he got this morning—he’ll want to go on indulging in his fantasy. He won’t be confined to bed indefinitely. The moment he feels strong enough he’ll be downstairs, wanting evidence.’