“I can if you can,” she murmured under her breath. “What do you want to know?”
He lifted his eyes to hers, and something like doubt swamped him. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and utterly unwelcome. “Everything. About you, and the pregnancy.”
“Well,” she ran her finger over the menu, still not deciphering any of the Italian dishes on offer. “Everything about me could take a while. I am twenty-three…”
He swore under his breath. “Twenty-three?” Hell. She didn’t just look young and sweet and naïve. She was basically still a kid. Even as a twenty-three-year-old himself he hadn’t looked at women this young.
“Did I know that the night we…”
“No.” She swallowed. “You didn’t ask and it didn’t occur to me to show you my ID.”
“You’re so young.”
“I’m ten years younger than you. Not even.”
“So you knew that when we …?”
“No. I googled you after you left,” she said, somewhat sheepishly.
But when she looked into his eyes, she met something like embarrassment, bouncing back to her in a way that was surprising.
If she’d searched him online then she’d have known all about his marriage break up, and the reasons that were most popularly speculated to be the cause. It was lucky she’d come to tell him anything about the baby, given the image he’d garnered since leaving Marie.
“There is a hell of a lot on the internet about me,” he ran a palm over his chin. “A lot of it is make-believe.”
“But not all of it,” she prompted with evident curiosity, wishing she’d paid better attention.
He wished it were. Sadly, Theo Trevalyen had always been an object of interest to the press, and since his separation and return to the bachelor lifestyle, he was tabloid fodder on speed. “Not all of it.”
Gianni appeared at the edge of the table, a smile playing around his lips when he saw the way they were leaning close together.
“Ah, perfection, no? For dinner? What you like?”
“Ummm,” Imogen scanned the menu, wishing she’d paid a little more attention in high school Italian. “Maybe…” She bit down on her lip.
“The bistecca is excellent.” Gianni drew his fingers to his lips, kissing the tips and then exploding them in the air. “Good for two to share.”
Imogen’s cheeks flamed at the inference. That they were lovers. On some kind of romantic date. Instead of two strangers who found themselves in an impossibly awkward situation. “Can it be well done?” She asked, lifting her eyes to his face hopefully.
“Oh.” Disappointment was obvious in the man’s face and Imogen winced, returning her attention to the menu. The chef at her parents’ pub was just the same. It was a criminal offense to eat red meat that wasn’t still oozing blood in the middle. “Never mind. The spaghetti with bacon, please.”
“Si.”
Theo folded his own menu and handed it to Gianni. “Bistecca well done for me, and fries.” He turned to look at Imogen, and smiled. A smile designed to set her at ease, that had the exact opposite effect because it caused her pulse to fire and her heart to race.
He was beautiful and he was sexy and he was most definitely, absolutely off limits…
CHAPTER TWO
“SO,” HE EASED BACK in the seat, stretching his arm along behind her, his long fingers dangling dangerously close to her shoulder. “You were working at the pub the night we met?”
She nodded. “It’s my parents’,” she said quietly. “I help them out from time to time.”
“But it’s not your full-time job?” He couldn’t have said why, but he was relieved by that. He didn’t like to think of her slaving away behind a bar, a target for men like him, who’d had a few too many and thought they could try their luck with the beautiful, young barmaid.
“No.” She shook her head, put
ting an elbow on the table and propping her head in the palm of her hand. She smothered a yawn as she met his eyes. “I work at a daycare in town.”