Читать книгу One Night In… - Кейт Хьюит, Оливия Гейтс - Страница 24

‘NO.’ MEGHAN said the first word that came to mind, desperately wanting it to be true. ‘No, no, no.’

‘Yes.’ Alessandro smiled. He seemed pleased. Far too pleased. As if he’d given her a gift, a pleasant surprise. A treat.

‘You hired me to be a waitress,’ Meghan pointed out in what she hoped was a reasonable tone. ‘For a dinner party. That’s why I’m here.’

‘I hired you,’ he agreed, ‘but, as you remember, it was for a quiet dinner for two. There are two of us in this room right now.’

His words drenched her in icy shock. Meghan stared incredulously. ‘You never even intended for someone else to come? What about the man you ate lunch with?’

Alessandro’s expression hardened. ‘He has other plans for the evening. He is a business acquaintance, nothing more.’

‘And what am I?’ Her voice rose shrilly, and she pressed a fist to her lips. She moved around the room restlessly, seeking escape, but there was none. She didn’t have a car. She didn’t even know where the villa was. She had no place to go in Spoleto. And Alessandro was blocking the door.

She’d walked straight into a trap. She’d agreed to it willingly. Who wouldn’t think she deserved this, that she wanted this? Disgust roiled through her, washed over in sickening waves. Terror followed on its heels. She closed her eyes, struggling for composure. Control.

She opened them, saw Alessandro regarding her with a mixture of curiosity and compassion. She took a deep, shuddering breath. There was always Ana in the kitchen. She could handle this. She had to handle this.

‘Whatever you thought about me, it’s wrong. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to have dinner with you. Take me back to Spoleto now or I’ll press charges.’

Alessandro raised his eyebrows, taking in her words with a thoughtful nod. ‘You’re scared,’ he said after a moment.

Meghan laughed shrilly. ‘Of course I’m scared! A strange man—a powerful man—has trapped me in his house, alone! Under false pretences! Now, let me go.’

He continued watching her, his expression assessing but not without compassion. Meghan didn’t care. Couldn’t think. She paced the room, caged and desperate.

‘Why weren’t you frightened,’ he asked after a moment, ‘when you believed I’d hired you to serve my lunch guest and me? Then there would have been two men here with you. Shouldn’t that have been twice as alarming?’

Meghan whirled around and glared at him, fear replaced momentarily by anger. ‘It was a business arrangement.’

He shrugged. ‘Then consider this such an arrangement as well. I’ll pay you the same rates. I just want to have dinner with you.’

‘I don’t want to be paid!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a whore!’

Alessandro stilled, his expression chilling. ‘I don’t remember calling you that.’

She closed her eyes, pressed a hand to her chest as if she could still the frantic racing of her heart. ‘If you wanted to have dinner with me,’ she said after a few seconds of silence, her breathing ragged, uneven, ‘then there are more normal ways to have gone about it. You could have asked me straight out. It’s called a date.’

‘Admittedly I’ve used unconventional means.’ He shrugged, unperturbed. ‘I had to.’

‘Oh? And why is that?’

‘I’m a powerful man, Meghan. You remember that power can be abused? It works both ways.’ He smiled softly. ‘Picture this. A man is charmed by a pretty young waitress when he sees her in a restaurant. He likes her smile, and the way her eyes remind him of sunlight. He wants to get to know her better, but he also understands that his position and wealth either frighten women off or attract the wrong kind. So he makes up a little pretence to bring this woman he desires to his house. Nothing far-fetched, nothing sordid. And when she arrives, he intends to surprise her with a quiet, romantic dinner. A chance to know her, and for her to know him. And then he drives her home.’

Meghan stared at him, arrested. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Her mind whirled, thoughts twisting away before she could snatch them, drag them to clarity. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Wasn’t it?’ Alessandro’s quiet, sad little smile made her heart ache with regret and wonder.

It wasn’t like that.

She shook her head. She couldn’t believe. Couldn’t let herself. ‘You can romance it up all you want now, because you think I want to hear those silly pretty words. But you as good as admitted what you really want … what you really think of me. We both know that.’

‘What I want to know,’ Alessandro said softly, ‘is why you think so little of yourself.’

‘I don’t,’ Meghan snapped—a matter of instinct, yet her words sounded hollow. She turned away. ‘Why can’t you just take me home?’

‘Because I don’t want to.’ Alessandro sat in an armchair, ivory silk striped with gold, his legs elegantly crossed, his body relaxed. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘Why have you been travelling around Europe? Waitressing to pay your way, I presume?’

‘Stop it.’ She shook her head. ‘This is a farce. I’m not sitting here talking with you, discussing my life with you.’

‘It would perhaps make things more pleasant.’

‘I don’t want things to be pleasant,’ she snapped. ‘I want to leave here. Now.’

‘Then answer my questions. Ask some of your own. It’s called making conversation, you know.’

‘All right.’ She dropped her hands, took a deep breath. ‘Here’s a question … Alessandro. If I have dinner with you, will you drive me back to Spoleto afterwards?’

‘If that’s what you want.’ The implication was obvious. Dinner would be enough to make her change her mind. He smiled; it felt like a caress. ‘I like the way you say my name.’

Meghan stared at him, watched as the heat in his eyes flared, turning them from steely-blue to indigo, and she wondered helplessly, hopelessly, if dinner would indeed be enough.

‘You do not need to be frightened,’ Alessandro said quietly. ‘That was never my intention. You can trust me.’

‘You told me not to,’ Meghan snapped, and Alessandro’s expression hardened for a moment.

‘I told you there was no reason to. Now there is.’

‘Oh, and what is that?’

He smiled, although his eyes remained flinty. ‘Because I said so.’

She opened her mouth to utter some scathing reply, the words not yet formed in her head, but then something left her. Her energy, perhaps, or at least her self-righteousness. Her ability to continue a verbal battle with this impossible iron-willed man. And her fear.

She sank onto a cream leather sofa and leaned her head against its soft back. ‘You speak English very well,’ she said after a moment.

‘Thank you. I should. I spent most of my boyhood in England.’

‘Why?’

‘I went to boarding school at seven, in Winchester,’ he explained. ‘All of my siblings did.’

‘You have brothers and sisters?’

‘One sister.’ He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it abruptly. Meghan almost asked what he’d been going to say, but the shuttered look in his eyes made her realise that topic was now off limits. All of his siblings had gone to boarding school, yet he only had one sister? Something didn’t make sense.

‘Who are the di Agnios, anyway?’ she asked. ‘Something big, obviously, but what do you do?’ She sat up straight, the thought of the Mafia suddenly shooting through her. Surely not …

‘We’re entrepreneurs.’ The rich laughter lacing his words showed he knew exactly where her train of thought had led her. ‘Primarily jewellery, but we’ve branched into property, finance— a bit of everything really.’

‘Di Agnio …’ With a jolt Meghan remembered passing boutiques of that name, shops with locked doors and luxurious velvet cases in their display windows. As far as jewellery went, it was strictly top-shelf. ‘It’s a family business?’

‘Yes. I am the CEO.’

Well. She sat back again, realising sickly the kind of life he must lead—so different from hers. It would be nice, to have that kind of wealth, power, control. Safety.

She took a deep breath, let it out. ‘All right, then. Let’s have dinner.’

Alessandro grinned, and the effect was quite devastating. Meghan drew in a shaky uneven breath at the sight of him, the harsh lines of his face relaxed into laughter, the whiteness of his smile contrasting with his tanned skin and navy eyes, now glinting with humour.

When Alessandro di Agnio frowned he was forbidding. In repose he was handsome, even beautiful. But when he smiled Meghan wanted to walk straight into his arms.

And that was a place she could not go.

‘Then you take me home,’ she added, and he nodded.

‘Of course. If you wish.’

‘I will wish it,’ Meghan snapped, and he merely chuckled.

Damn him. Damn his arrogance, and damn him for being right. Already she felt herself wondering, weakening.

Wanting.

A smile played about his mouth as he held out his hand. ‘Shall we?’

She still had things to prove. She would still walk away with her dignity, her pride, her heart.

Her heart? The last thought, slipping treacherously through her numb brain, made Meghan almost gasp in surprise.

There was no way her heart was involved with this man.

‘All right,’ she agreed tonelessly.

She walked past him, towards the kitchen, but Alessandro pulled her back gently, his hand warm and firm on her elbow.

‘Wrong way, gattina.’

Meghan jerked. ‘What did you just call me?’

His lips quirked in a smile. ‘Gattina. It means kitten.’

‘I don’t like nicknames.’

‘It was meant to be an endearment.’

‘As in sex kitten?’ she said contemptuously, and Alessandro shook his head.

‘I was thinking more of an actual kitten, baring her tiny, tender claws.’ He trailed his fingers from her elbow to her hand, stroking the tender palm, electrifying her skin with the lightest of touches. He raised her palm to his lips, gave it the barest brush of a kiss. A promise. Mesmerised, Meghan could only watch. And feel.

This was a bad, bad idea.

‘This way,’ Alessandro said, sounding faintly amused, and gestured to the other set of double doors leading into the foyer.

Numbly she followed Alessandro through the foyer and into a mahogany panelled dining room. Candles were lit, casting flickering shadows on the dark walls and tiled floor.

The green salad she’d seen earlier in the kitchen was now placed on an imposing table, one corner set intimately for two.

Meghan swallowed, and the gulping noise was loud in the room, where the only sound was the guttering of flame.

Alessandro laughed softly. ‘Come here. I don’t bite.’

Reluctantly Meghan moved towards him on wooden legs. ‘Are you trying to seduce me?’ she whispered. Because it just might be working.

‘No. When I seduce you, you’ll know.’

The languorous promise in these words sent both panic and anticipation fizzing through her in dangerous bubbles. ‘I don’t want to be seduced,’ Meghan said, and knew how feeble her voice sounded.

‘You don’t want to be hurt,’ Alessandro corrected. ‘There’s a difference.’

She lifted her chin. ‘Is there?’

‘I believe with me there is.’ His voice, though gentle, allowed no argument. ‘Now enough about seduction. Let us turn our attention to eating, which in Italy is just as sensual an art.’

Meghan sat at the table, watched as Alessandro poured wine from the bottle chilling in a bucket and served her a generous portion of salad bursting with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella.

‘This looks delicious—thank you,’ she murmured, and Alessandro smiled, a wicked, teasing glint in his eye.

‘Is there anything else I may get for you? Ana will bring the antipasti later.’

With a start, Meghan realised Alessandro was the one serving her. Everything was mixed up tonight. She moved as if to get up, although she wasn’t sure what she intended to do. Pour the water? Run to the kitchen? Curtsey?

He shook his head. ‘The only thing I want you to do now, Meghan, is to enjoy.’

She opened her mouth to issue a sharp retort, the stinging reply that had become her habit, her defence. Alessandro watched her with an expectant little half-smile on his face, and Meghan hesitated.

She’d spent the last six months holding herself apart—apart from men, from pleasure, from life. Sometimes it felt as if it was the only way to get through each day—and, more importantly, to get back the dignity and self-respect she’d lost in Stanton Springs, Iowa.

Yet now, for one evening, even just one moment, she wanted to let go. Not completely, not out of control, because she knew she wasn’t ready for that.

She just wanted to enjoy … something.

Food.

She sat back in her chair, managing a rather stiff-lipped smile. ‘All right.’ She took a bite of salad, felt the burst of tomato on her tongue. It felt different. Sweeter. The room seemed different. More vivid. And she felt different. More alive.

Alessandro watched her with an indulgent, affectionate smile, and Meghan took a sip of wine, the taste sharp and tangy.

Her senses were heightened to the feel of the cool, smooth wine glass in her fingers, the cotton shirt against her arms, her breasts. She saw Alessandro’s languorous gaze, the way he watched her move, sleepily, yet with a flared awareness in his eyes that thrilled her.

This was so dangerous.

She knew Alessandro would not abuse her. He wouldn’t spread malicious lies or treat her with cruel contempt.

But he would hurt her. Meghan put her wine glass down with an unsteady clatter. Yes, he would hurt her if she let him … if she gave him her heart.

Alessandro watched Meghan eat with a pleasure he normally reserved for more physical activities. He enjoyed seeing the way her eyes widened, the slow smile that spread over her features at the simplest of pleasures.

He’d no doubt that she was unaware of how sensual, how desirable she looked simply eating a tomato. She was, he was beginning to realise, quite unaware of her effect on him.

If only he was as unaware. The desire—the need—for her pulsed through him, an ache, a hunger that made him want. Yearn. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to want anything—certainly not a woman from nowhere who looked at him with her heart in her eyes, shadowed by both fear and desire.

She was the last thing he needed.

Yet he wanted her.

And she wanted him. She was denying it with nearly every fibre of her being, but he saw the way she looked at him, the way her eyes flared and her lips parted.

She was afraid. The realisation humbled him. He would have to tread carefully.

Still, it was only a matter of time.

The thought pleased him, yet as he cradled his wine glass between his palms he felt a ripple of unease. Guilt.

He wasn’t in the habit of buying women. And certainly not of lying to them. Since taking over Di Agnio Enterprises two years ago Alessandro had become known for his no-nonsense demeanour, as well as the brutal honesty he favoured with clients and friends alike.

Two years ago, on a chilly spring evening much like this one, he’d put away the trappings of a different life, the sweet-talking lies that had smoothed the already slippery path to pleasure.

He’d put them away for ever, even if some still wondered. Doubted.

Even if he did.

He lived for his work now, for seeing Di Agnio Enterprises rise in stature and earnings, for seeing his family name respected once more.

He did not live for pleasure.

He no longer cared about desire.

So why had he lured—and he knew that truly was the word for it—Meghan to his villa?

For seduction?

The thought made him frown, and he saw Meghan’s gaze flicker uneasily over his countenance. She was as attuned to the variations of his mood as he was to hers.

He smiled. ‘Have some pasta.’ Ana had brought in the pasta dish a few moments earlier, her lips pressed in a thin line of disapproval, although she’d restrained herself from saying anything.

Alessandro had watched Meghan flush and look down at her plate, clearly embarrassed.

It was his fault she felt humiliated. He’d never meant her to feel so shamed, yet he knew he’d assumed things of her … things that he still wasn’t sure were true or not.

Had he brought her here simply for pleasure?

For sex?

Was that what he wanted? Was that the kind of man he was … still?

He didn’t know. Didn’t know what to think of her, of himself. He took a sip of wine. When he’d seen her at Angelo’s she’d seemed like any other of the many women he knew. Women who were free and easy with their favours, their bodies. There was no shame in that these days, although Alessandro recognised in himself a deep-seated disapproval of the freedom in women which he himself had enjoyed.

You didn’t marry women like that.

He wouldn’t marry a woman like that.

But was Meghan that kind of woman? He’d assumed it, and strangely she seemed to have assumed it.

But was it true?

And why had he brought her here?

Frowning again, Alessandro realised he couldn’t answer those questions. Not yet. Which meant Meghan had to stay a bit longer. Until he discovered why he’d brought her here. Until he discovered why he needed her.