If those weren’t blatant enough, she wore long, black gloves past her elbows, that for some reason looked incredibly erotic. As did the black velvet ribbon around her throat.
Was it the contrast of black leather and velvet against soft skin? The thought of his olive-skinned hands touching her pale flesh?
He remembered the contrast when he’d taken Ida’s hand in church. Just as he recalled the pillowy softness of her lips beneath his in that perfunctory kiss.
Heat speared his groin, rising to fill his gut in a churn of desperate hunger.
But Cesare didn’t do desperate. Especially not for a tarty barmaid in a dive like this. He was turning when the woman lifted her head and smiled at someone at the end of the bar.
Shock smashed his lungs, stealing his air while his belly clenched in response to the unseen blow.
Ida.
The woman behind the bar, a living, breathing invitation to sex in its raunchiest forms, was his wife!
And he wasn’t the only one watching her. Half the men in the place were ogling.
Disbelief vied with distaste and a fury so strong he felt it as a physical surge through his body.
Cesare had been taught to control his impulses, to master anger and think clearly, act logically and honourably. Four years ago, he’d let his control slip and regretted it ever since. Yet as he took in the scene before him it was through a hazy red mist.
It was only when pain shot up his wrists that he realised he’d clenched his hands so tight they throbbed.
Dimly he was aware of a familiar presence beside him. Lorenzo, his chief of security. But this wasn’t a matter for staff. This was personal.
Ida was pouring a tray of drinks when she sensed someone approach. Someone who stood close.
Her nape prickled. She’d become better at handling importunate customers with a smile and a quip, and by moving quickly out of reach when necessary, but some of the insistent, aggressive ones scared her.
She glanced to the end of the bar but Mike, the shift manager who sometimes looked out for her, had gone.
She fixed on a careful smile. But it bled from her face as she lifted her eyes, then lifted them further.
White noise rushed in her ears. She had that woozy feeling she recalled from years ago when she’d broken her ankle. She’d looked up from the atrium’s marble floor to see her grandfather surveying her coolly from halfway up the staircase and wondered for a second if she’d imagined the slap that had sent her tumbling.
Now she wondered if she could be imagining this.
For the eyes that met hers were familiar. Rich, dark brown eyes that didn’t look cold but blazed with heat.
Cesare.
She’d never expected to see him again.
It was her grandfather she was hiding from, not her husband.
Despite her shock, she pulled her lips into a grimace of dark amusement. Cesare had made it abundantly clear he’d be happier without her in his life.
Why was he here?
The whisky bottle thudded onto the bar. There was only one reason he’d come. He must be in London on business and wanted some R and R. Ida had learned in her short time here not to be surprised at the wide range of clientele with a taste for the sordid.
She’d imagined Cesare surrounded by high-society women, the sort who looked like they’d been born wearing haute couture. But maybe he had other predilections.
Her voice was tight as the words jerked out. ‘Would you like a drink?’
A bubble of hysterical laughter rose. Where had that come from? Treating him like just another customer.
Was there a chance he wouldn’t recognise her? It had been years. The lighting was low, her make-up thick and—