But one inconvenient death wouldn’t be enough to stand in the way of a Ferrara on the path to acquisition, she thought numbly. It was all about empire building. ‘This conversation is over. I need to cook. I’m in the middle of service.’ The truth was she’d all but finished, but she’d wanted him out of here.
But of course he didn’t leave because a Ferrara only ever did what a Ferrara wanted to do.
Instead of walking away he lounged against the door frame, sleek and confident, those eyes fixed on her. ‘You feel so threatened by me you have to have a knife in your hand while we talk?’
‘I’m not threatened. I’m working.’
‘I could disarm you in under five seconds.’
‘I could cut you to the bone in less.’ It was bravado, of course, because not for one moment did she underestimate his strength.
‘If this is the welcome you give your customers I’m surprised you have anyone here at all. Not exactly warm, is it?’ The fringe of thick lashes made his eyes seem darker. Or
maybe the darkness was something they created together. She knew that the addition of just one ingredient could alter flavour. In this case it was the forbidden. They’d done the unforgivable. The unexplainable. The inexcusable.
‘You’re not a customer, Santo.’
‘So feed me and then I will be. Cook me dinner.’
Cook me dinner. Just for a moment her hands shook.
He’d walked away without once glancing back. That, she could handle because, apart from one night of reckless sex, they’d shared nothing. The fact that he’d played a much bigger role in her dreams wasn’t his fault. But for him to walk back in here and order her to cook him dinner, as if his return was something to celebrate…
The audacity of it took her breath away. ‘Sorry. Fatted calf isn’t on the menu tonight. Now get the hell out of my kitchen, Santo. Gina manages the bookings and tonight we’re full. And tomorrow night. And any other night you wish to eat in my restaurant.’
‘Gina is the pretty blonde? I noticed her on the way in.’
Of course he would have noticed her. Santo Ferrara not noticing a blonde, curvy woman would be like a lion not noticing a cute impala. That didn’t surprise her. What surprised her was the ache in her chest. She didn’t want to care who this man took to his bed. She’d never wanted to care and the fact that she did terrified her more than anything. She’d grown up witnessing that caring meant pain.
Never love a Sicilian man had been the last words her mother had flung at her eight-year-old daughter before she’d walked out of the door for ever.
Afraid of her own feelings, Fia turned her back and finished chopping garlic, but they were the ragged, uneven cuts of an amateur, not a professional.
‘It’s dangerous to handle a knife when your hands are shaking.’ Suddenly he was right behind her, too close for comfort, and she felt her pulse sprint because even though he wasn’t touching her she could feel the warmth of him, the power of him and feel her answering response. It was immediate and visceral and she almost screamed with frustration because it made no sense. It was like salivating over a food that she knew would make her ill.
‘I’m not shaking.’
‘No?’ A strong, bronzed hand covered hers and immediately she was back in the darkness of that night, his mouth burning against hers, his skilled fingers showing her no mercy as he drove her wild. ‘Do you think about it?’
She didn’t need to ask what he meant.
Did she think about it? Oh, God, he had no idea. She’d tried everything, everything, to wipe the memory of that night from her mind but it was always with her. A sensual scar that was never going to heal. ‘Take your hand off mine right now.’
His hand tightened, the strength in those fingers holding hers still. ‘You finish serving food at ten. We’ll talk after that.’
It was a command not an invitation and the sure confidence with which he issued that command licked at the flames of her anger. ‘My work doesn’t finish when the restaurant closes. I have hours of work and when that is done I go to bed.’
‘With that puppy-eyed boy who works for you? Playing it safe now, Fia?’
She was so shocked by the question that she turned her head to look at him and the movement brought her physically closer. The light brush of her skin against the hardness of his thigh triggered a frightening response. It was as if her body knew. ‘Who I invite into my bed is none of your business.’
Their eyes met briefly as they acknowledged privately what they’d never acknowledged publicly.
She watched, transfixed, as his gaze turned black.
A long dormant feeling slowly uncurled itself inside her, a response she didn’t want to feel for this man.
What might have happened next she’d never know because Gina walked in and when Fia saw who she was carrying she wanted to shout out a warning. She wanted to tell the other girl to run and not look back. But it was too late. Her luck had run out. It was over. It was over because Santo was already turning to locate the source of the interruption, an irritated frown scoring the bronzed planes of his handsome face.