‘It has privacy, a view and is a short helicopter flight from the Athens office.’
‘I thought you had a house in Athens... Never mind; I’m sure your villa is delightful, but I live here.’
‘I thought you were planning to move to Cornwall.’
Her eyes slid from his. She was not quite ready to concede defeat yet. ‘I haven’t decided what I’m going to do.’
‘I understand your reluctance—you don’t want to drag Sam away from all his delightful friends.’
She flinched as if he had struck her, and there it was—he knew he had closed the deal.
He gave a slow smile of satisfaction. ‘It should be champagne, really,’ he observed, looking at the half-empty mug.
She ignored the mug and him. ‘I need to get back to Sam. I said—’
‘Fine. It will be a good opportunity for me to meet Sam and we can get into the details on the way back.’
She looked at him blankly. ‘Meet Sam? No, you can’t, you have a meeting at... Oh, and you’re picking up Ellie Watts for early dinner before the premiere of her film.’
‘I think I might cancel that, don’t you?’ he said softly.
‘You can’t! She... Well, she’sher, and they say that she’s the odds-on favourite for best actress.’ And according to rumour the latest notch on his bedpost, or washethe latest notch onhers?
‘And I just got engaged. Think of the optics when someone works out the dates.’
‘But no one knows, and we’re notreallyengaged. It takes a long time to get a licence and things sorted. I thought that...’
Actually, she had not thought at all, that much was becoming obvious. ‘I haven’t said yes.’ But she hadn’t said no either, and his expression said he knew she wasn’t going to.
‘You wish me to get down on one knee?’
She cast a withering look at his handsome, mocking face.
‘It’s happening too quickly,’ she complained.
CHAPTER THREE
‘IFSAMHATESYOU, it’s off!’
He looked amused and a little contemptuous. ‘You allow achildto dictate how you live your life?’
Explaining the concept involved to someone who had never considered anyone in his life but himself seemed a waste of time and energy to Tilda, so instead she closed the conversation down. ‘Of course not!’
‘My mistake,’ he drawled sarcastically.
‘And for God’s sake, don’t call him a child.’
‘What do you take me for? I was fourteen once, you know, in the dim and distant past.’
She grunted. She found it impossible to imagine Ezio suffering the traumas of a normal teen.
‘My phone, where did I...?’ Irritated by the greasy smear on her glasses, she pulled them off and began polishing them vigorously on a tissue. She rubbed the bridge of her pert nose before she put them back on.
Ezio seemed to freeze for a moment, then blinked. ‘You have beautiful eyes.’
The personal comment came from nowhere. Tilda, conscious of a shivery sensation that spread outwards from a centre low in her pelvis, brought her lashes down behind the lenses as a further layer of protection.
‘Have you thought of contact lenses?’