‘Such as you being a womaniser?’
He hesitated a moment before confirming that with a nod. Jealousy fired through her, fierce and debilitating. She pushed it aside.
‘So? Do you think that matters to me? This isn’t a real marriage, remember?’
‘And if it were?’
She considered that. Would his philandering have had an impact on how she felt about him?
‘It’s not,’ she dodged the question. ‘As for your father, do you really think I’m in any position to hold the sins of one man against his child?’
Luca let his hands fall away, turning away from Olivia’s penetrating gaze.
‘And my first marriage?’
Olivia frowned. ‘There was surprisingly very little about that,’ she admitted, because she had looked. Curiosity had fired her fingers; she’d wanted to understand it—and him.
‘No.’
‘It wasn’t amicable?’
He made a sound rich with disbelief. ‘It was far from it.’ He turned to face her, speaking mechanically. ‘My wife left me for someone she viewed to be far wealthier, far more powerful. I don’t know how long it had been going on, but when my father went to prison, she walked out on our marriage. Jayne wasn’t prepared to slum it with me.’
Olivia’s lips parted with surprise, and anger. How could his first wife have been so callous? To leave him when he was already suffering so much because of his father?
‘She didn’t love you.’ She answered her own question.
‘No.’ His lips formed a grim line. ‘I came to that conclusion eventually, but it took a long time.’ He seemed to rouse himself. ‘Her husband did everything he could to rewrite their relationship, to avoid a scandal developing. I had no interest in dragging her name through the mud, so allowed the narrative to play out. There was very little tabloid interest, given the way it appeared on the surface.’
Sympathy softened her features. ‘It must have been very hard for you—going through what you did with your father, and then Jayne.’
A muscle jerked in his jaw. ‘But I had Nonna,’ he said quietly. ‘Without her, I cannot say with any certainty that I would have survived.’
But Luca didn’t want to talk about his past. He never did, not with anyone, but he felt a particular distaste in discussing it with Olivia. He told himself it had nothing to do with making him look like a failure in her eyes, and everything to do with the vow he’d made himself, to keep her at a distance from him. There had to be some boundaries in their marriage.
But there were others they could disregard. Others they could tear down. Turning to face her, with eyes that glittered with dark speculation, he lifted a single finger, beckoning her towards him.
She dug her teeth into her lower lip as she moved, half gliding across the room, until she stood right in front of him.
Deliberately, with as little passion as he could display, he lifted his hands to her shirt, finding one of the buttons that lined the silken seam. Her eyes clung to his face as he flicked it apart, then moved to the next. Calm, in control, just as he promised himself he’d be with her.
‘It’s time for another lesson.’
He felt the shiver that sparked through her blood. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’