‘Bernard?’ he repeated. The amusement lurking in those golden eyes almost undid her completely.
‘Yes, Bernard.’ To her horror tears sprang up behind her eyes. She couldn’t bear it if this man made fun of her—of her sad, mixed-up reasons for that particular relationship. It was all such a mess. ‘For your information we came to Rome to get engaged, but we broke up! Oh, what would you know about relationships anyway? You use women and throw them away.’
‘Cosa?’
‘You heard me. You’re a—a rake.’
‘My English is usually very good,’ he said smoothly, ‘but are you comparing me to a garden implement?’
And just like that the fight went out of her. He wasn’t taking any of this seriously and she was making an idiot of herself—again. Ava shook her head and quietly put Bernard back in her bag. She scanned the floor for her shoes.
‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘Just forget all of this even happened.’
Gianluca didn’t respond, and when she glanced up she realised why. He had taken his phone out.
Nice.
Thoroughly disillusioned and miserable with herself, Ava dropped to her knees and reached under the bed, feeling for her shoes. Belatedly she realised she was sticking her most ample asset into prominence—but really what did it matter at this late stage?
Gianluca Benedetti was a gorgeous man with a habit of beautiful women, and she wasn’t his type...at all. And, frankly, when it came down to it he wasn’t very nice...
‘Ava.’
The way he said her name sent shivers through her. It was really inconvenient. Still, it wasn’t as if she’d be hearing her name on his lips for much longer.
‘What?’ she asked ungraciously, hooking her head out from under the bed.
He was looking at her bottom.
Ava almost hit her head on the bedframe in her haste to get herself vertical.
‘Bella, what are you doing?’
Was it her imagination or was his voice pitched lower than earlier? And why was he calling her beautiful?
‘My shoes—they’re missing.’
‘You don’t say? Come here.’ He beckoned to her with that well-shaped hand.
When she hesitated he looked faintly exasperated, as if waiting around wasn’t something he was used to.
‘Adesso, cara. I have something to show you.’
He was clearly not used to waiting around. Most women probably leapt to attention when they heard His Master’s Voice, she thought witheringly.
He extended his phone to her.
It was one of those ultra-sleek not long on the market models. Under normal circumstances Ava would have practically salivated.
Instead she almost dropped it.
Her stomach bottomed out.
A man and a woman engaged in a clinch on a cobblestoned square at night.
It would have been romantic but for the identity of the couple.
‘It’s too far away. You can’t see the faces,’ she said hopefully, her voice airless.
Gianluca scrolled to the next image.
Himself—amazingly photogenic—it seemed, along with everything else—up close in a smooch with a woman whose eyes were closed and who had a look on her face Ava hadn’t even known she could produce. She looked as if she was swooning, and perhaps she was. She looked like everything her ex Bernard had accused her of not being.
A woman carried away by passion.
‘Is that me?’ She lightly touched the screen with her index finger.
The image didn’t dissolve. It was real.
‘Welcome to my life,’ he informed her tightly.
For some reason she could feel him regarding her closely.
‘Public property.’
Ava snatched the phone off him and began to scroll frantically through the shots. In two of them it was clearly her. Then she shrieked, ‘Oh, God—I look so fat!’
‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘It’s all right for you.’ She eyed him mutinously. ‘You’re not wearing shiny fabric and being shot at an unfortunate angle.’
Gianluca retrieved the phone. ‘You look fine. And that’s not the issue.’
She looked fine?
Last night was the best she’d ever looked...and he thought she’d looked fine. That didn’t leave her with far to go this morning, with her bed hair and smudged make-up.
‘You need to leave Rome—now—and I’ll need to know where you are.’
Still contemplating the fact that her round behind looked at least a size bigger in that photograph, and that the entire world was going to be looking at it and making comparisons with every skinny-minnie model he’d ever dated, she was a little slow to pick up on what he was saying.
‘Leave Rome?’ she repeated, then focussed. ‘Leave Rome! Why?’