‘Hold hands,’ he repeated incredulously. ‘My God, Olivia, do you have any idea what I’ve been thinking about? What I thought about the minute I saw you?’
He ground his teeth together, trying to push away the memory of those thoughts, wishing his imagination weren’t so damned vivid.
She shook her head, dropping it forward, shielding her face from his, so he wanted to reach across and lift her chin, to make her confront this head on.
But he couldn’t.
There were some boundaries they could move. Incorporating a meaningless fling into their meaningless marriage-on-paper was one thing. But there was no way he was going to take her virginity. Not when sex would only ever be a physical act to him.
‘I really don’t,’ she whispered softly. ‘But I know what I’ve been thinking about...things I’ve never thought of before. My imagination has gone wild.’
‘Don’t tell me.’ He compressed his lips, his jaw almost a perfect square. He didn’t need to know that. There were other more pressing considerations. ‘Tell me how this is possible.’
‘Well, I simply forgot to have sex before,’ she said with a tight smile, her joke falling flat, given that neither of them was in a laughing mood.
‘You’ve never met someone who aroused your interest?’
She pleated her napkin over and over. The waiter appeared to take their order, and Luca could have cursed right in the man’s face at the interruption. Instead, he rattled off a list of six dishes, hoping Olivia would like at least one of them, then waved his hand in an unmistakable gesture of dismissal.
‘Go on,’ he commanded.
She hesitated and he wondered if she was going to change subjects, or suggest they not talk about it. ‘It’s very complicated,’ she said, eventually.
‘We have time.’
Her lips twisted. ‘It’s not important. The details are—I can do a summation,’ she said with a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘My parents’ marriage was a disaster. My mother and I don’t have a straightforward relationship. She disapproved of men, dating, in fact, she basically disapproved of socialising, so Sienna and I had each other and pretty much no one else. Plus, I was running Hughenwood House from the time I was twelve years old. When would I have found the time to date? It’s a miracle I managed to graduate high school.’
‘So what? After that, you stayed home like some kind of modern-day Cinderella, with just your family and chores for company?’
‘Don’t mock me.’
‘I’m not,’ he said quickly, shaking his head. ‘I’m only trying to understand.’
‘I’ve been asked out before,’ she admitted, with pink staining her cheeks. ‘But my mother wouldn’t have allowed me to accept. And I never liked the guys enough to fight with her about it.’
‘And your sister?’
She hesitated, shaking her head. ‘Sienna’s life is her personal business. I’m not going to discuss it.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘So what do we do?’ Her huge blue eyes blinked across at him, and the answer that sprang to mind was the exact answer he had to ignore.
‘Do?’ He reached for his own drink, draining it before replacing the glass on the tabletop, then leaning forward, pinning her with the intensity of his gaze. ‘That’s very simple, Olivia. We do exactly what we said we would at the outset. We remember the boundaries we drew, we remember what this marriage is, and we keep our hands—and mouths—to ourselves. Va bene?’