‘Maybe.’ She picked up a wedge of Camembert cheese and looked at it balefully. ‘There’s more fat in this piece of cheese than in that whole plate of sandwiches.’ She gave a deep sign and put the cheese back down. ‘No. I’d better be good.’
Luiz picked up the cheese and held it in front of her mouth. ‘Be bad. Be very bad.’
Her eyes twinkled as she opened her mouth for him to pop the cheese in. ‘Mmm. That is soooo good.’
He wiped a tiny crumb from the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb, trying his best not to think of her mouth feasting on him. His attempt to keep a lid on his desire for her was taking a battering. Everything about her turned him on. The way she spoke in that husky tone. The way her eyes kept slipping to his mouth as if she couldn’t help herself. The way she stood so close to him he could feel the warmth of her body and could smell the fragrance of her perfume like a sensual mist teasing his nostrils.
He gave himself a mental shake and reached for the champagne bottle. ‘Top up?’
She put her hand over the top of her glass. ‘And have me spilling all my secrets without you telling me one of yours? Play fair. How about you tell me something you haven’t told anyone else before?’
Luiz pushed his lips from side to side, weighing up whether to take up her challenge. Hadn’t he already told her more than he’d told anyone else? But something about her cute dimples and pretty blue eyes made him give in. ‘OK.’ He took a deep breath and slowly released it. ‘I hate spiders.’
Her eyes rounded. ‘Really? Like totally freaked out, stand screaming on a chair hate them?’
He gave her a look. ‘No. I can actually manage to remove them without any outbursts of hysteria.’
She screwed up her nose. ‘You mean like…pick them up?’
Luiz suppressed the urge to brush the skin of his arms. Talking about spiders always made him feel as if a dozen of them were tiptoeing over his flesh. ‘Not with my bare hands. That’s what a vacuum cleaner is for.’
‘But you’re six foot four tall. What’s a teensy weensy little spider going to do to you?’
‘Some of them are poisonous.’
She perched on the arm of the sofa, her mouth wreathed in a teasing smile. ‘Don’t worry. If a big, bad old spider comes sneaking in I’ll save you from it.’
He drained his glass and set it back down. ‘Thanks. Appreciate it.’
‘I suppose you don’t run across them all that often in penthouse suites.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
She twirled her glass for a moment. ‘I guess you must have felt so frightened and anchorless when your mum left.’
Luiz shrugged. ‘I got over it.’
‘I was devastated when my mum was killed.’ She put her glass down and looked at him again. ‘I didn’t believe it at first. I thought my dad was lying. I thought she’d left him as she’d threatened to do a couple of times.’ Her gaze fell away from his. ‘But then I saw the police arrive…’
Luiz put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I’m sorry.’
She looked up at him again. ‘Do you know what was really awful?’
‘What?’
‘My father refused to allow me to go to the funeral. I begged and pleaded but he wouldn’t listen.’ Her frown was so heavy it made her look fierce in a cute and endearing way. ‘He said a funeral was no place for a child. So I held my own for her. I got all my dolls and toys and took them down to the rose garden. I even made a special shrine for her out of modelling clay. I had to make the gardener, Robert, promise not to tell my father. We hid it behind her favourite rose bush. It’s still there.’
‘You must have loved her very much.’
She smiled a sad-looking smile. ‘Yes, but don’t all children love their mothers?’
Luiz thought of the shallowness of his mother. Of the way she cut down his brother every chance she got. Of the way she had insulted Teddy at the cocktail party Luiz had held recently, seeming to enjoy the hurt and cruelty she inflicted. How she publicly fawned over him as if he could do no wrong, treating him like a favourite toy instead of a son she would give her life for. ‘Not all.’
Daisy put her hand over his on her shoulder. ‘You hate your mother?’
Luiz gave her a rueful look. ‘So, Miss Daisy, you’ve uncovered another well-kept secret.’
She brought his hand down to her lap, stroking the back of it with her soft fingers. ‘Maybe she can’t help being the way she is. Some people are not good at being parents. I see it all too often. They have this idea of how their child will be but the child is someone else entirely. They’re not blank slates when they’re born. They’re their own little person. You can’t make them into something they’re not.’