She wrapped her arms defensively around her waist. “I was helping out.”
“Why?”
“The caterers were down in numbers. It was an emergency,” she explained simply.
“I do not believe they would have dared ask a guest of mine to wait on the party. So who did?”
Rafaelo’s face at the moment he’d made the request came back to her. She was fairly confident Sabato would come down on him like a tonne of bricks if she told him the truth.
“Not my father,” Sabato was intent on discovering an answer, though.
Emily bit down on her lip. “Does it matter, Sabato? I helped out, and I was happy to do so.”
“Yes, it matters. It matters to me. This is not your place. You are not a waitress.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why does it bother you so much? Is it because you think a waitress would never be good enough for you?”
His expression was unreadable. “You are not a waitress.”
Her laugh was a short bark of derision. “I was a waitress. I was a housekeeper. I was anything I needed to be to keep food on the table. And I’m proud of that.” She straightened her back and glared at him. “You’re the one who thinks I’m not good enough. You’re the one who’s embarrassed by the fact I come from a completely different background to you.” And just like that, the reason she’d been so intent on their different backgrounds solidified in her mind. She was reacting to his disapproval. She was simply echoing his emotions.
He didn’t speak. His dark eyes were glaring at her with anger, impatience and frustration. “I do not care about your background,” he denied with ferocity.
“Yes, you do.” She exhaled an angry breath. “When I met you, I was a housekeeper living in a run-down flat. That wasn’t good enough for you. You turned me into a well-paid artist living in a million pound loft.” She shook her head. “And now I’m good enough to date you, right? We spent three days in your bed, and I never heard from you again. I was just a housekeeper. Now, you want to take me for dinner and invite me to your mother. Now that you’ve morphed me into the woman you think I ought to be.”
His stomach lurched at her accusation. He’d told himself he’d done it for her. But was she right? Had he been changing her into someone more suitable?
“You couldn’t be attracted to me when I was just a lowly domestic.” She shook her head sadly. “And I would never have expected such … such … pretentious behaviour from you!”
“This is not true,” he challenged stonily. Wasn’t it? He’d lost his bearings. He could no longer remember why he’d done half of the things he had. Emily was like some kind of memory blocker.
She lifted her chin, jutting it at a defiant angle. “So you would have invited me here, as your guest, if I had been a housekeeper in your hotel? You would have been proud of me? You would have wanted me to meet your family and dance with you beneath the star-soaked sky?”
“You are making it sound wrong,” he ground out, his mind still lagging behind their conversation.
“No, Sabato. I’m making it sound right.”
“You’re confusing the issue,” he said finally, changing the subject back to safer ground. For he was no longer sure of what he wanted, or how he ought to have behaved. “Whatever your occupation, you are here as a guest, and should not be expected to carry trays of food.”
Emily’s cheeks flamed. “I’ve been working all weekend.”
Sabato’s face was grey beneath his tan. “What?”
“With your mother, I mean.”
“Right.
” He nodded, briefly relieved before his anger seared back to life.
“But that’s different,” she said caustically. “Because you think that’s worthy of me.”
“God, Emily, would you listen to yourself? You are irrationally angry at me because I have helped you do what you love doing. You are making me into a villain when I’ve done nothing but support you.”
Her hormones were firing through her body and mind, settling a fog of rage on her shoulders. “Support me?” She had to dig her nails into her palms to stop from shouting at him. “Who are you to support me?”
His eyes narrowed with determination, and Emily no longer had any idea what they were fighting about, or what he might be about to say. She sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to wrangle her temper back into place. “I don’t think we should talk about this right now,” she said finally. “In fact, I’m not sure I want to talk to you at all.”
She stalked away from him, aware he was following close behind. With every step she took, she heard his answering one on the gravel behind. Frustration needled her. She hated the idea of things between them being unresolved. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and then spun around. Sabato’s expression was lost. His gaze was focussed on the ground, not on her. Compunction made her pause.