Oh, the irony, she thought with anguish. They were tethered together for life, regardless of what either of them wanted.
“Fun?” She repeated, her heart exploding into aching chunks.
“Yes.” He ran his hands up and down her back. “You have a habit of over-thinking things. Look around you.” He nodded towards the sky. “You are the one who loves dawn, and dusk. What about this? A blanket of stars above us, beautiful music, food and wine.”
Her heart dipped. But the baby… she bit down on her lip. Indecision made her miserable. She wanted to tell him, because she needed someone else to know. Someone else to help her make the necessary plans. But it would change everything. Fun would be out the window. Would it be so wrong to have one more night before they faced the music?
She smiled up at him, the worry she felt finally fading away from her eyes. The moment their gazes locked, all the doubt came flooding back. Of course it would be wrong to spend a night together. To further complicate the matter at hand. They were having a baby together. He was her boss. And she’d fallen in love with him. They could never be about casual sex. She shook her head wistfully, and kissed his cheek. “Why don’t you introduce me to your mother?”
“My mother?” A frown tugged at his lips.
“Yes. So that she knows who I am when I arrive to begin work tomorrow.”
“Right. The portrait.” He nodded distractedly, his dark eyes glued to her delicate features.
“The reason I’m here,” Emily reminded him, putting more emotional distance between them.
Sabato ground his teeth together. Her stubborn determination to block him out of her life was becoming infuriating. “Emily,” he said on a sigh. “It is not the only reason you are here.”
“It isn’t?” Hope flared in her chest, hot and comforting. She let it fan through her, while she waited for him to speak.
He lifted a hand to her cheek, and stroked it softly. “I want you here. I like being with you. You must know this by now.”
She fanned her eyes shut; her mind was sparking with electricity. “I … like being with you too.”
“I know.” He grinned, and kissed her forehead lightly. “So come and meet my mother. But not as someone I’ve commissioned to do her painting. Let me introduce you as someone who’s in my life.”
God, he felt like a nervous teenager asking a girl to go on a date. Only he’d never been a nervous teenager. Self-confidence had always come naturally to Sabato Montepulciano. Except in that moment.
In his life. The words muddied everything she felt. In his life. Yes, they were in each other’s lives. Her feelings were a knotty ache in her gut. If he was frustrated with her prevaricating, then she was even more so. Why couldn’t she get past the disparagement in their finances and backgrounds? Why was she so obsessed with it when he wasn’t?
“This is where you grew up?”
His smile was bemused. “Si.” He linked his fingers with hers and guided her to the low brick wall. She sat beside him, careful not to get too close. “Quite the difference from the orphanage I spent the first three years of my life in.”
“Orphanage?” Her eyes flared to his. Curiosity overrode every other emotion. “I didn’t know.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Didn’t you?”
“You never said. How would I?”
He frowned, and ran his fingers across his stubbled jaw. “It’s a matter of public record. I have never hidden the fact.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t know anything about you before we … met.”
His smile was tight. “And you haven’t done your own research since then.” He wasn’t sure how that made him feel. That it hadn’t occurred to Emily to run an internet search on him or his family was fascinating to him. He lived and breathed knowledge. When he was looking to invest in a property, he became an expert on it, and every building or piece of land in the vicinity. Even with women, he did the basic fact checking before getting too involved.
“I … No.” She shook her head. “Should I have?”
His laugh was soft, carried away quickly by the evening breeze. “I don’t know,” he conceded finally. “You didn’t want to know more about me?”
Emily toyed with her fingers in her lap. “If I didn’t know you better, Sabato, I’d say you were insecure.”
His eyes lanced through her. It was time to stop pretending. Where Emily was concerned, he was as lost as a lamb. He reached for her hand and held it in his.
Emily took strength from the gesture. “In answer to your question, yes. I wanted to know more about you.” She had wanted to know everything about him. “But I would never google you. Not when I can just … ask.”
His smile was rich with surprise. “You know, I’ve never known someone as genuine as you, cara. It is refreshing to spend time with you.”