‘Jewellery,’ Catherine agreed, touching her bare throat. ‘You have most of it locked away in your safe, if you remember.’
‘Then lead the way to my study,’ he commanded, ‘and we will rectify the situation immediately.’
Walking off in the direction of his study, she could feel the heat of his eyes as he followed behind her, and her ruby-painted mouth gave a rueful twitch because she was aware that he was now able to see how her gown dipped at the back in an audaciously deep V to her slender waistline.
‘Very provocative,’ he drawled.
Casting him a flirtatious glance over her shoulder, she replied, ‘I like being provocative.’
His answering laugh was low and husky as they entered his study. And he was still smiling when he turned back to her after extracting something from the safe. Expecting him to come towards her with her old jewellery box in his hands, she was surprised, therefore, when he held only a flat black velvet case. ‘Don’t I get to choose?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘And that dress is most definitely an outright provocation,’ he added, again eyeing censoriously the amount of naked back she had on show. ‘Make sure I vet every man you dance with tonight.’
Catherine mocked him with a look as he came to stand behind her. ‘You’re being very imperious,’ she complained. ‘Choosing my dance partners and choosing my jewellery. What if I don’t like your choice—like what you have in that box, for instance?’
‘Tell me, then, what you think,’ he said, and with that deftness that was his, something cool and heavy landed against her chest.
She transferred her eyes from him to herself, and an instant gasp of surprise whispered from her as she stared at the most exquisite diamond-encrusted heart resting just above the valley between the creamy slopes of her breasts.
‘Oh, but this is beautiful,’ she breathed, lifting slender fingers to gently touch the heart.
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ he drawled as he concentrated on fastening the intricate clasp which would lock the necklace safely in place. ‘I may be imperious, but my taste is usually faultless.’
‘It’s a locket,’ she realised, ignoring his conceit. ‘If I look inside will I find your arrogant face looking out at me?’
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘It is for you to decide who you carry around in there.’
You, Catherine thought. It would only ever be his image he would find nestling in any heart she possessed.
‘Well, thank you.’ She smiled up at him, keeping the tone as light as it had been between them despite the sudden wistfulness she was feeling inside. ‘Now I feel properly decked out to grace the
arm of the imperious Italian with the faultless taste.’
She knew the moment she saw his eyes cloud over that her response had disappointed him. ‘You’ve always been fit to grace the arm of any man, Catherine,’ he informed her deeply. ‘I just happen to be the lucky one who claims the right to have you there.’
It was too much, too intense. They just didn’t share these kind of deep and meaningful discussions. Never had done, never would do. It was the way of their relationship.
Shallow, she wanted to call it, but shallow didn’t really say it either. Because there had never been anything shallow in the way she and Vito responded to each other.
What they really did was muddle on, never knowing what the other felt inside, because it was safer not knowing than finding out and being mortally wounded. So instead they used their love for their son as the common denominator to justify their being together—and the sex, of course, which had never been a problem where they were concerned.
And maybe her own clouding expression reminded him of all of that, because in the next moment Vito was smiling again, and the mockery was back when he ran a long finger down her spine and allowed it to settle low in the hollow of her back where the deep V in her dress finished.
‘I have this terrible archaic urge to send you back to your room to change,’ he admitted.
Turning to face him, Catherine baited him with a look. ‘Just remember who gets to remove it himself later,’ she softly suggested.
Luisa appeared then, saving Catherine from a rather delicious bit of punishing ravishment for that piece of seduction. ‘Oh, Catherine, what a lovely necklace!’ she exclaimed when she saw it.
‘I am reliably informed by the man who gave it to me that his taste is faultless,’ Catherine replied mock solemnly.
‘Vittorio, your conceit will one day be your downfall,’ his mother scolded.
‘And there was I about to say that I get my faultless good taste from you,’ Vito sighed—then, quite seriously, ‘You look beautiful, mi amore. How can a man be so lucky to have a mamma like you?’
‘Now he is trying to use his charm on me to get him out of trouble,’ Luisa confided to a smiling Catherine. ‘It was always the same, even when he was as small as Santino.’
But she did look beautiful. A beautiful person dressed in shimmering gold satin who, two hours later, was wearing the soft flush of pleasure from the wealth of compliments that had flooded her way about her looking not a day over forty.