‘My mother does not live any place for long.’ He gave a quick smile but his voice was hard as he added, ‘She has a very low boredom threshold.’
Anna recalled Angel using those exact same words. ‘You must have missed your father after the divorce.’
The housekeeper normally guarded the family secrets as if they were the crown jewels, but in a rare garrulous moment Mrs Mack had unbent enough to reveal that Cesare had been nine when his parents had split up.
‘My mother was granted custody but Dad got us in the holidays.’
‘It must be hard for a woman to be apart from her children.’
‘My mother never had much time for her children.’
It was the casual way he said it that shocked Anna almost more than what he said.
‘She only took us because she knew our father wanted us. Our wishes never even crossed her mind. When we were younger she treated us like fashion accessories and when we were older and less cute we were more encumbrances. But, unlike Angel, I was not competition.’ He stopped abruptly and Anna saw shock move across his lean face.
He read the sympathy glowing in her expressive eyes and visibly winced. He did not invite sympathy; he was allergic to it.
Anna could almost hear the sound of the shutters falling in place.
‘So I will leave you to get some sleep.’ It was a plan, definitely a plan, but somehow his feet stayed where they were.
‘I’m awake. You were right, you know, you do never know when it’s going to happen. I could walk under a bus tomorrow.’
‘I think it unlikely.’ There was a glitter in her eyes that he had never seen before. He found it mesmerising.
‘But it could happen. Perhaps it is a good idea to treat every day as though it’s your last?’
‘I didn’t say that, and you are not going to die tomorrow.’
‘But if I did,’ she mused, looking up at him through her lashes, ‘I’d be a virgin.’ She took a deep breath and lifted her chin, delivering a direct look. ‘I don’t want to die a virgin, Cesare.’
‘I think that unlikely,’ he rasped thickly. The seconds ticked by and Cesare could feel his control trickling away, like water down a drain.
‘Anna,’ he warned as she got up from the sofa. ‘Just stay over there, don’t...’ She didn’t stop, she just carried on coming until she was standing right there beside him. ‘This is a very bad idea. I’m not the sort of man—’
‘I know what sort of man you are, Cesare,’ she cut in, thinking how weirdly calm she sounded. Inside she was anything but. Inside she could not believe she was saying these things; she could not believe the person she was saying them to.
He was the exact opposite of everything she found attractive in a man. She didn’t even like him yet she had fallen in love with him.
‘I’m a virgin, not stupid. Relax, I’m not asking you to marry me. I don’t want your mind or... Just have sex with me.’ She caught her plump lower lip between her teeth and husked, ‘If you want to?’
The throaty whisper, the sultry pout... Want? Considering the need that was pounding through his body, under other circumstances he might have laughed, but he couldn’t even manage an ironic smile. His facial muscles were locked tight. It was taking every last ounce of his will power not to deliver what she was begging him for. This might be many men’s secret fantasy but not his. The reminder did not reach his raging arousal.
‘It’s not a question of want, Anna.’ But he did want her with an intensity that he had not felt in a long time, if ever. He struggled to think past the relentless raging need to touch, taste, possess.
Anna shook her head, her eyelashes fluttering against her warm cheeks as she swallowed the hurt, hearing only irritation in his harsh response. ‘Fine, forget I said it.’
Later he told himself that it was the shadow of uncertainty he saw deep in her violet-blue eyes, the realisation that her confident act was not even skin deep, that broke him.
He allowed himself a mental image of them together in bed. He met the blue eyes lifted to his and, no longer thinking, just acting—Dio, but it was a relief to let the constraints go— he stepped towards her, bringing up one hand to rest on the indent of her waist as he brushed the knuckles of his free hand along her cheek. He felt her gasp and tremble.
Anna watched his eyes darken with predatory intent and could hardly breathe, the excitement fizzing through her veins was so intense. She met him halfway as he pulled her into his body, letting her feel how much he wanted her.