"Had?"
"I sent her home in a car."
"Won't she be angry?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps, perhaps not. She got entrée to the event and the chance to make the connections she wanted."
"You're saying she only dated you for the access you could provide her? I don't believe that."
"The sex was a bonus," he said cynically.
Annette winced. It hurt to hear that cynicism in his voice, but it hurt even more to think about him having sex with another woman.
"You don't like the idea of me in bed with her."
"No." Again, honesty was her only fallback. Not a naïve virgin, but a possessive ex. She'd like to sink through the floor as she acknowledged that maybe honesty was notalwaysthe best policy.
"Then, you be that woman tonight."
"You're not some playboy who has a different bed partner every night."
"You sound very sure about that."
"It's not who you are."
"It has been five years. You don't know who I am."
"You could be right." She would have turned to leave, but something in his expression arrested her. "You want to make love with me, tonight."
"I want sex with you,sì."
Annette really didn't care what terminology they used. If they joined their bodies, emotion would be involved. Whether he acknowledged that emotion, or not, didn't mean it wouldn't be there.
The question was, could she live with all the emotion being on her side?
She'd spent five years unable to get over him. Maybe having sex with him without any commitments or even the tenuous tie of dating would give her what she needed to move on.
Closure.
They said that if what you were doing wasn't working, then you should change it. Being deprived of his company for five years hadn't given her the ability to let him go, but maybe this would.
Besides, Annette's body was already at nuclear meltdown levels, just from dancing with him. She'd been celibate so long, she hadn't bothered to have her IUD replaced when the time had come to remove it. Her body craved what her heart told her only he could give her.
By tomorrow morning, maybe both of those things would have shifted.
Determined to see through the sensual promise in his expression, she nodded to herself. "All right."
His gorgeous eyes flared infinitesimally, like she'd surprised him.
Annette tucked the keycard away in a hidden pocket in her dress and headed back into the ballroom.
Carlo watched Annette walk away from him, her honey blonde hair coming down from its formal updo, her beautiful curvy body moving enticingly in her blue dress, and wondered if he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life.
He'd known since sending Cynthia home that he was going to do it.
Annette had made it easy, but even if she hadn't, Carlo knew he would have pursued her with everything in his arsenal. Because he wanted what his brother had. A wife who wanted children with him. A wife who wanted to raise those children herself and not leave it up to others.
Someone unlike his own mother. As much as Carlo loved her, he wanted a mother for his children who would make time inherlife for them.