Cesare, following instinct rather than logic, moved to block her from Paul’s view.
A view that, mad or not, was well worth looking at—and Cesare did! The tight jeans emphasised the tight curves of her delicious bottom and the fluffy sweater, a shade slightly lighter than her eyes, bore a slogan across the chest that invited the observer to save the forest for the future. Cesare considered the chances of any man reading that instruction and thinking about trees fairly negligible.
‘Can this wait?’ Her face was bare of all but the lightest dusting of make-up, but it was tinged pink and glowing from the fresh air. She looked sexily wholesome.
Anna’s delicate jaw tightened. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you but I saw your car and realised you were back,’ she remarked in a voice that dripped insincerity like honey. ‘But as you want all major decisions run by you I thought I’d better consult you. We bumped into Samantha and her mum while we were walking the dogs and they invited Jas to a sleepover. I explained I’d have to check with you as I’m only the babysitter and I wouldn’t want to exceed my authority.’
‘Yes, fine.’
Anna’s jaw dropped; the anticlimax was intense. She felt like someone all dressed up with nowhere to go. ‘Fine?’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘But—’ She stopped. What did she want from him? Rudeness, anger? Bottom line she realised that what she was asking for was to be noticed by Cesare. Being ignored hurt a lot more than cross words or insults.
When did she get this pathetic and needy? she asked herself in disgust.
‘Is that all?’ he rasped impatiently.
She took a deep breath and huffed it out slowly, then, with a shrug she hoped matched his indifference, tipped her head. It was crazy to be hurt because he had better things to do than argue the toss with her.
‘Yes, fine, I’ll let them know.’ Focusing on a point beyond his shoulder now, she caught a movement.
Cesare, arms folded across his chest, took a step towards her. ‘That will be all, Miss Henderson.’
The peculiar intensity of his harsh tone brought her attention back to his face. As she noticed for the first time the lines of tension that bracketed his mouth her brow furrowed. Were this and the accompanying general taut quality of his tense body language connected with Louise? Had the row she had taunted him with been serious? Were his intentions towards the blonde serious?
Neither possibility gave her much pleasure, just a horrible sick feeling low in her belly. Before she could analyse it a figure rose to his feet from the sofa and moved with the over-cautious gait of someone not quite sober towards the open bottle on the bureau, glass in hand.
Slightly to her right, she didn’t need to see Cesare just outside the periphery of her vision to feel the tension flowing off him in waves.
‘Oh, sorry.’ Feeling awkward, she flashed a look towards Cesare that just stopped short of being an apology. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
Cesare took a step towards her, the expression on his face as he moved from her to his mystery guest odd. She couldn’t put a name to it. Had she just interrupted a crucial moment in a business deal? Not likely, considering the measure of whisky the stranger was pouring into his glass, but it was clear from the atmosphere that she was intruding.
‘I’ll go and help Jas pack her bag.’
‘You do that.’
* * *
Cesare waited until the door closed.
‘What the hell was that about?’
‘What about?’
‘Anna.’
‘Rose—I think she was the love of my life. If Clare hadn’t been pregnant... I told Rose if she wanted to keep the baby I’d help, though maybe it was for the best that she lost it.’
‘She was pregnant?’
‘Probably a false alarm.’
‘You didn’t go to the trouble of finding out?’
‘Clean break, you said. The girl...red hair...I suppose she does look like Rose,’ he conceded. ‘I admit for a split second there I thought that girl was Rosie.’
Cesare gritted his teeth, frustrated by this display of ignorance on both their parts. ‘That girl is Rosanna Henderson.’
Paul focused his bleary glance, tilting his head to look up at his taller friend before he slopped down on the leather sofa. ‘Quite a coincidence, but she’s not my Rose. My Rosie was taller, slimmer, figure like a wand,’ he recalled. ‘And no freckles, skin like a pearl.’
Finding himself on the point of defending, even waxing lyrical on, the subject of Anna’s skin, which was to his mind several shades above perfect, Cesare stopped. What was he saying? Paul was drunk but not that drunk. For the first time he began to consider the crazy possibility that the ignorance on both their parts wasn’t faked.