"Laura can manage. She doesn't let Peter dust her around the way she used to. If you had bothered to hang around, you'd have seen that for yourself."
She felt her hackles rise again. Damn him. But she spoke smoothly: "Regardless, she's got a marriage to worry about. For some ridiculous reason, marriage is what matters to her. Christ knows why she wants to be tied down to one man, especially a pompous jerk like Peter."
Josh took a contemplative sip. "Weren't you planning on marrying Alain, the
slick, lying drug smuggler?"
She tried for dignity. "I didn't know he was a smuggler."
"Just a slick liar."
"All right, fine. You can say that experience gave me a fresh viewpoint on and a general dislike for the institution. The point is, Laura is married and I'm not going to make it more difficult for her."
"It's your home too, Margo."
Now her heart swelled, and broke just a little. "He can't change that. But you can't always go home. Besides, I've been happy here, and I can be again."
He moved closer, wanting to read her eyes. "Kate says you're considering selling your flat."
Her eyes were simple to read. They were filled with annoyance. "Kate talks too much." She turned around to study those last gilding lights. He turned her back again.
"She's worried about you. So am I."
"You don't have to be. I'm working on a plan."
"Why don't I take you to dinner? You can tell me about it."
"I'm not sure I'm up to the telling stage, but I could probably eat. We don't have to go out. The trattoria will deliver."
"And that way you don't risk bumping into anyone who knows you," he concluded and shook his head. "Don't be a coward."
"I like being a coward."
"Then you'd better get dressed." Deliberately, he skimmed his fingertip over the bare skin of her shoulder, up her throat. And watched her eyes go dark and wary. "Because you're asking for trouble right here."
She nearly tugged her robe into place before she stopped herself. Odd how the skin could tingle. "You've already seen me naked."
"You were ten." He slid the robe into place himself, gratified when he felt her quick shiver. "It doesn't count." To test her reaction, he hooked his fingers in the belt of the robe, gave one gentle tug. "Want to risk it, Margo?"
Danger had snapped into the air, abruptly, unexpectedly, fascinatingly. Struggling to be cautious, she stepped back. "I'll get dressed. We'll go out."
"Safe choice."
But she didn't feel safe when he walked out and closed the door behind him. She felt… stirred.
He'd done it to push her into going out. That was the simple, rational conclusion Margo came to. It seemed the only conclusion when he settled into the busy little restaurant and dived into his first-course selection of antipasto di funghi crudi with exuberance.
"Try one." He held a marinated mushroom to her lips, nudged it through. "Nobody does vegetables like the Italians."
"Nobody does anything edible like the Italians." But she toyed with her salad of tomato and mozzarella. She'd grown so accustomed to denying herself full meals that eating heartily still felt like cheating.
"You need a good five pounds, Margo," he said. "Ten wouldn't hurt."
"Ten and I'd have a whopping bill from the dressmaker for alterations in my wardrobe."
"Eat. Live dangerously."
She nibbled on cheese. "You're sort of a businessman," she began and made him laugh.