Defiantly, her eyes flickered to him now, as she took a second jittery sip of wine. He was lifting his own glass.
‘To an enjoyable evening,’ he murmured, and his gaze, veiled and half-lidded, lingered on her fractionally before dipping as he took a leisurely appreciative mouthful of the doubtlessly expensive vintage wine.
She watched him savour it, then set down the glass, reaching for one of the poppy seed bread rolls in the silvered basket, tearing it open with his long, strong fingers, then spreading it with a curl of the yellow butter floating in an ice-water dish.
‘So,’ he began, glancing across at her, still with that half-lidded veil over his eyes, ‘what took you to the van Hurens’ this evening?’
The question was uttered in nothing more exceptional than a civilly polite voice, and Ariana was grateful. She needed to let the electric charge circling inside her dissipate. Conversation would do it.
‘Mrs van Huren is a client of mine,’ she answered.
They were speaking in English, and she was glad of that too. This was New York, and Italy was four thousand miles away.
And maybe I want to keep it four thousand miles away...
‘Client?’ Again, there was no more than civility in his question.
‘I’m an interior designer. I recently did her house in the Hamptons.’ Ariana answered with the same politeness that she might have used with any acquaintance. Or a complete stranger. ‘She was kind enough to invite me to her birthday party tonight. I’ve just flown up from Florida, after doing some work for my mother there.’
‘Interior design?’ Luca Farnese said musingly, demolishing the last of the bread roll. ‘Not my field. Tell me about it.’
There was a different note to his voice now. It was no less civil, but with a note of expectation in it that put it in the category of a business-based enquiry.
As if he were making an investment assessment, Ariana found herself thinking. Not that she required any investment funds. Nor would she ever seek them. She had not escaped her grandfather’s hold only to put herself into the hands of control by investors.
Control by anyone, for any reason.
Her gaze flickered over him. Over the starkly good-looking face, where the hardness of his features was not softened in the slightest by being so ludicrously handsome, rather exacerbated...
If I ever did want investment funds—finance of any kind—you would be the very last man I would turn to.
There was an air of ruthlessness about him that she could sense. After all, hadn’t he shown her that with his abrupt invitation to her tonight? Helping himself to something he wanted with little regard to the niceties of social discourse?
Every instinct told her that a man like that, surfacing from where she had no idea, would be a bad person to be beholden to. To be in his power...
She pulled her thoughts away. He’d asked a simple question—the kind that a man like him would ask about any business sector he was unfamiliar with—and she should answer him accordingly.
Their first course arrived—an assiette ofsaumon fumé—and she started to eat as she talked.
‘What would you like to know?’ she countered.
‘Whatever you consider relevant,’ he returned, attacking his smoked salmon. ‘Do you work for yourself, or for a company?’
‘The former,’ she answered crisply. ‘I would never work for anyone else!’
An assessing glance came her way. ‘That sounds very definite. Can you afford that luxury?’
Ariana’s mouth thinned. ‘I make sure of it,’ she said. ‘I won’t be dependent on anyone—or beholden to them.’
Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. Why on earth was she saying all that to a man she didn’t know from Adam? Yet she was, all the same. And more.
‘I’d rather starve in a gutter,’ she said slowly. Unconsciously, she let her grip on her knife and fork tighten, and her jaw clenched.
Luca Farnese’s dark, unreadable gaze rested on her, and he paused in his own eating. He said nothing for a moment, and then, ‘You don’t look like you’re facing that possibility,’ he observed, clearly taking in her expensive designer dress and overall chic appearance. His voice was very dry.
‘I’m not,’ she replied, her manner crisp again. ‘I’m doing very comfortably, thank you.’
‘Courtesy of the likes of Mrs van Huren...?’