“It’s an old friend who’s in town. We have a standing engagement when she’s here. I completely forgot about it. But since she’s here—”
Pia’s heart sank to her toes. “She? It’s a woman?”
“Si.”
“Is she single?”
“Si.”
It was like getting blood out of stone.
“So this engagement is sort of a date?”
His silence told Pia everything she needed to know.
Walk away, a part of her screamed. Turn your back on this, on him, came another warning.
But dear God, she’d make herself crazy imagining all kinds of scenarios. “If it’s a date, won’t she talk about it later? You know, to someone who knows Gio? Wait, doesn’t she know that you…you’re supposed to be engaged?”
“I’m sure she’s heard the gossip now.”
“And yet, she called you?”
He pushed his hand through his hair roughly, his gaze never leaving hers. A sense of dread curled up in Pia’s stomach. What was he saying that she wasn’t understanding? God, how she loathed her lack of sophistication.
Instead of answering her, he dialed Emilio on his cell phone, ordered him to pick up Pia, and then hung up. “It’s getting late. You should be getting home.”
“I don’t get it. How can she want to go on a date if you’re in a relationship?”
With me, she left out the pathetic lie that she was beginning to wish was true.
“It’s not that kind of a date. Ava and I know each other from university. We’re friends and—”
“Lovers?” She had no idea how she’d been able to say it without choking.
Their gazes collided and held, a hundred unsaid words flying in between. Finally, he nodded.
Everything fell into place. “So you’re going there to just…” Heat climbed up her face. “You’re going there to have sex with her?” she forced herself to say, images of him kissing some faceless woman bombarding her.
“Ava and I go way back and I just… I need to be anything but your lover right now.”
Anger came to her rescue. The thought of Raphael with another woman made bile rise to her throat. “Are you that heartless?”
“Heartless?” A tightness crawled up his face, making him that arrogant stranger from the ball. “You’ve begun to believe your own lie, cara mia. I don’t remember promising you anything, much less my fidelity. You mean nothing to me, Pia. You need to remember that you and I wouldn’t have crossed paths if not for the fact that you’re his granddaughter. His precious princess. And the cost of touching you is…far too high for me.”
Each calculated word landed like a poisoned arrow. God, how could he hurt her like this? Why was she letting him?
She had had enough of this pathetic spectacle she was making of herself. Enough of wondering if he would ever look at her with something other than polite courtesy.
“Brutally honest, as ever. At least you’re reliable. But you know what? I can’t do this anymore. I—”
“You can’t do what?”
“I can’t pretend to be your bloody girlfriend. Frank was right. I’m not sophisticated enough for these kinds of… Find a way to call this thing off. Find a way to protect your bloody company from Giovanni’s meddling. But I’m done with this, with you.”
She turned and angrily swiped at her cheeks. Damn it, she refused to cry in front of him. His pity would kill her.
But she got no more than a few steps before he slammed his palm on the door. She couldn’t turn. She couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. “I don’t understand you at all. Foolishly, I thought I was beginning to. That you were more than the ruthless, ambitious businessman that everybody calls you. What you’re thinking, it’s horrible, clinical.”
The warmth of his body, the scent of him seeped into her back. One more step and she would be in his embrace. Oh, how she wanted to take that step, how she wanted to lose herself in him…
“You, this pretense, it’s driving me crazy, don’t you get it? I’m wound up so tight I can’t sleep. I can’t work. You’re—” But she cut him off before he could say the horrid words.