She was fingering the rim of her wine glass, gazing at him contemplatively. “Breaking the rules of the ball?”
He inched forward. “Some rules demand to be broken.”
There was another flicker in her dark eyes. Creamy golden cleavage and shoulders rose. Her graceful throat moved. “Who determines which rules should and shouldn’t be broken?”
He put his mouth to her ear and inhaled her skin.
She smelt like heaven.
“I do,” he whispered.
She drew back. The pulse at the base of her neck was jumping. “Youchoose?”
“I choose which rules I’m prepared to break. It is for others to choose their own.”
Fresh glasses were placed before them. After red wine had been poured, Gennaro lifted his glass. “To breaking rules.”
Only by sheer strength of will did Luisa raise her glass without her hand shaking. “To choosing which rules one is willing to break.”
The glimmer of a smile played on his lips. “Touché.”
They clinked their glasses together and drank.
“Tell me,” he said, “What did your last dining companion say that made you laugh?”
“You’ve been watching me?”
Of course he had. Luisa had felt Gennaro’s stare on her with every mouthful of food she’d forced into her tight stomach. When their main course had been cleared away and he’d risen to his feet, she’d known he was going to come to her even before he’d crossed the huge dancefloor. There had been such purpose in his steps and in his eyes that everything she’d managed to eat had churned violently.
And now he was sat beside her, a gold and black Venetian mask hiding much of his features, but, for the first time since she’d entered her parents’ living room to be given his proposal of marriage, the mask he’d always worn around her had been stripped away.
His black eyes were blatant in their intent and the intent was seduction.
Gennaro intended to seduceher,she could feel it right to the core of her being, could hardly breathe through the thrills of excitement rousing themselves in her.
Subconsciously, she’d known this was going to happen. Sick anticipation had been a living thing since that lastlingering gaze in the bistro. And fear. Fear at how badly she wanted it to happen.
“I don’t imagine there’s a man here who hasn’t been.” His black eyes glimmered. “You are entirely ravishing… So tell me, what did he say to you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because you’re beautiful when you laugh.”
She arched an eyebrow and somehow managed to stop her thrashing heart from sounding in her voice. “Ravishing and beautiful in two sentences?”
“You don’t like compliments?”
“It depends on the context.”
“In what context do you like them?”
“I like them when I believe they’re coming from a place of sincerity.”
“As opposed to…?”
She forced herself to hold his stare and her composure. “As opposed to coming from a place with an end game in mind.”
“Everything a person does is with an end game in mind but that doesn’t mean compliments given to achieve an end game aren’t sincerely meant.”