‘Are you sure?’ she asked suspiciously.
He thought of what they had cost compared to his vast fortune. ‘Yes,’ he reiterated.
Only then, with the utmost care, did she take them from their velvet home and put them in her ears. She didn’t even check in the mirror to see how they looked. They swung and shone against her pale skin, standing out brilliantly.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
‘You’re welcome.’ Vicenzo snapped the box shut, and had an awful feeling of foreboding that the rest of the evening wasn’t going to go exactly as he’d planned either.
* * *
And it didn’t. He took her to a restaurant that had just opened, with a waiting list that already stretched into next year. She smiled politely, but seemed ill at ease, uncomfortable. And if he wasn’t mistaken, completely oblivious to the envious glances of women and the admiring glances of men.
At one point he asked, ‘Is everything okay?’
She rushed to say, ‘Oh, yes, it’s lovely—really breathtaking…’
‘But?’
She looked shamefaced for a moment, before saying, ‘Well, it’s just all a bit like the villa…clean and crisp and haute cuisine.’ She smiled self-deprecatingly, taking his breath away. ‘I always had an image in my head of being in the Mediterranean, sitting in a local trattoria overlooking the sea…’
She blushed fiercely then, and Vicenzo had to control his response, his impulse to grab her and run far away from everyone around them. It left him feeling a little weak. In all honesty he couldn’t truthfully say that he was especially enjoying this place either, and seeing the villa earlier through her eyes had made him feel uncomfortable.
But now he was doggedly taking her to Porto Cervo’s most famous club, in an almost desperate bid to have her finally act true to type.
If she’d looked uncomfortable in the restaurant, now she looked positively queasy. Stubbornly, he persevered. He ordered champagne and strawberries. He asked her to dance on the sparkling dance floor. She declined. When someone knocked into a waitress beside them and the drinks fell off her tray, Cara jumped out of her seat to help the girl. It was the most animated he’d seen her all night.
That was it.
Once she was finished her Good Samaritan act, and Vicenzo had given the stunned waitress a hefty tip, he took Cara out of there. He dismissed the car and said, ‘Do you mind walking? It’s not far, and we can go by the beach.’
She shook her head. ‘That sounds nice.’ She sounded relieved.
Once they were walking along the beach in the moonlight, shoes in their hands, it was the most relaxed Cara had felt all evening. She felt guilty for not having enjoyed herself, but all those places, especially the club, just hadn’t been her. Her heart twisted. But they were obviously Vicenzo—just like the villa where he entertained.
Cara looked up then, and stopped in awe at the glittering array of stars in the sky. ‘So beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘I feel like I could just reach out and pluck one from the sky, they’re so close.’
Vicenzo was very silent beside her, and when she looked at him he too was studying the sky, his profile strong even against the inky black.
When they reached the villa, coming at it from the back, Vicenzo took her hand to lead her over the stones. Cara pulled her dress up to make it easier to navigate. At the top she landed flush against Vicenzo. She couldn’t move or she’d fall back down onto the rocks. Her breath caught in her chest, her heart hammering. She saw his eyes take in her face as he smoothed some hair behind her ear.
‘You didn’t lose them.’
She shook her head, feeling the earrings swing, ‘No. Thank goodness. One debt is enough.’
She saw something cross his face, and a new tension came into the air as he caught her around the waist with one arm and pulled her into him.
‘Vicenzo—’
But her words were swallowed by his mouth descending on hers, taking and plundering passionately. Cara’s shoes dropped from a nerveless hand and she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, raising herself high to try and mould herself even closer. She’d ached for him the last few weeks. His distance had been necessary for her peace of mind, and to get well again, to restore some equilibrium but she’d found herself yearning to be held as he’d held her when she’d cried after losing the baby. And to be kissed like this.
It felt as if he was pulling the very soul out of her body. When they finally moved apart he looked down at her for a long moment, as if trying to figure something out. Then he took her hand, waited till she’d retrieved her shoes, and led her into the villa. The white was jarring as they walked in, and every nerve in Cara’s body was on a knife-edge, waiting for him to make a move. She didn’t care that they were here, or how cold the place was. She felt cold inside, and knew that only Vicenzo could take that away.
Vicenzo turned to her, but just when he would have taken her in his arms again he stopped. He saw her face tipped up to his, read the mirror of desire in the depths of those swirling green eyes, saw her mouth already plump from his kisses… And he also saw the faint purple bruises under her eyes. The unmistakable vulnerability in the lines of her body. He couldn’t ignore it any more. Things were shifting, changing. Cara was either playing him for a complete fool, or else she was something he didn’t believe even existed.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and turned her towards her bedroom. ‘Get some sleep, Cara. You’re tired…’
For a second she didn’t move. He willed her to move—because if she turned around and looked at him… She moved. Hesitantly. And then turned after a few steps, her chin hitched up. She gestured to her earrings and smiled tightly. ‘Thank you for these…and everything. I had a really nice time.’