appeared with the first course, a mouth-watering selection of antipasti. Her bright dark eyes danced between them with unconcealed curiosity and romantic hopes.
‘I’m twenty-nine. She thinks I ought to be married by now with a family and she keeps on warning me that all the best girls have already been snapped up,’ Vitale told her in an undertone, his eyes alive with vibrant amusement.
Surprised by his candour, Zara laughed. ‘Have they been?’
‘I don’t know. The women with wedding rings in their eyes are the ones I’ve always avoided,’ Vitale volunteered.
Zara reckoned that if she was truly the honest person she had always believed she was she would be telling him that she was within a few months of getting married herself. Yet while the admission was on her tongue she could not quite bring herself to speak up. At the same time she could not help wondering if Vitale could actually be warning her off. Was it possible that he was letting her know that he had only ever been in the market for a casual affair?
Whatever, there was no future or sense in succumbing to any kind of entanglement with him and she was far too sensible to make such a mistake. In honour of that conviction and impervious to his polite look of surprise, Zara dug her notebook out of her bag and began to quiz him about his garden preferences and his budget. The main course of steak was so tender it melted on her tongue and it was served with a tomato salad and potato and cheese croquettes. She ate with unbridled pleasure for it was, without a doubt, an exceptional meal, and when she could bring herself to set down her knife and fork she took notes.
‘This is not quite how I envisaged dining with you,’ Vitale remarked wryly. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she ignored any hint of flirtation, preferring to maintain a professional barrier he had not expected. Of course she was clever enough to know that lack of interest only made the average man keener, he decided, unwilling to concede the possibility that she might be genuinely indifferent to him.
Although he was taken aback by her eagerness to work he was pleasantly surprised by her healthy appetite and the way in which she savoured Giuseppina’s renowned cuisine, for he was accustomed to women who agonised over eating anything more calorific than a lettuce leaf. ‘You should be relaxing. You can work tomorrow.’
‘But I’m only here for a couple of days. I need to make the most of my time,’ Zara told him lightly as Guiseppina set a lemon tart on the table and proceeded to cut slices. ‘And if I do find myself with a spare couple of hours I’m hoping to try and visit the garden my aunt Edith made at the Palazzo Barigo.’
‘Have you not already seen it?’
‘I’ve never been to this area before. My parents don’t do rural holidays.’ Her sultry mouth quirked at the mere idea of her decorative mother in a countryside setting. ‘I did ask my aunt once if she would like to come back and see the garden and she said no, that gardens change with the passage of time and that she preferred to remember it as it was when it was new.’
‘If I can arrange it before you leave I will take you to the Palazzo Barigo for a tour,’ Vitale drawled softly, lifting the bottle to top up her wine glass.
‘No more for me, thanks,’ Zara told him hurriedly. ‘I get giggly too easily, so I never drink much.’
Vitale was sardonically amused by that little speech. She was putting up barriers as prickly as cactus leaves and visibly on her guard. But he was too experienced not to have noticed her lingering appraisals and he was convinced that she wanted him even though she was trying to hide the fact. Erotic promise thrummed through his body, setting up a level of anticipation beyond anything he had ever experienced.
Vitale was as well travelled as Zara and they shared amusing anecdotes about trips abroad, discovering that their sense of humour was amazingly similar. He moved his hands expressively while he talked and slowly but surely she found herself watching him like a hawk. When all of a sudden she collided with his scorching golden eyes, she couldn’t even manage to swallow. The truth that she couldn’t stifle her physical response to him alarmed her. She was not in full control of her response to Vitale Roccanti and disturbingly that took her back to her ordeal with Julian. She breathed in slow and deep and steady, mentally fighting to step back from her reactions. Vitale was gorgeous but not for her. She didn’t want to dip a toe in the water, she didn’t want to get her fingers burnt either. Even if it killed her she was determined to retain her self-respect.
‘I hope you won’t think I’m being rude but I’ve had a lot of late nights this week and I would like to turn in now so that I can make an early start in the morning,’ Zara proffered with a bright smile of apology.
Vitale accepted her decision with good grace, rising immediately to his feet. Her cheeks warmed at the sudden suspicion that he might only have been entertaining her out of courtesy. Not every guy wanted to jump her bones, she reminded herself irritably.
At the foot of the stairs, she hovered, disconcertingly reluctant to leave him even though she had carefully engineered her own exit. ‘Will I see you in the morning?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘I doubt it. I’ll be leaving soon after six,’ Vitale imparted, watching her slim figure shift restively. His level of awareness was at such a pitch it was not only his muscles that ached.
Still unable to tear herself away, Zara looked up at him, focusing on the irresistible dark glitter of his stunning eyes and his perfect lips. He was downright drenched in sex appeal and she wanted to touch him so badly her fingertips tingled. The hunger he was suddenly making no attempt to hide made her feel all hot and shivery deep down inside.
‘But before we part, cara mia …’ Vitale purred, purebred predator on the hunt as he closed long, deft fingers round her arm to ease her closer.
He took Zara by surprise and she froze in dismay, nostrils flaring on the scent of his cologne. ‘No,’ she said abruptly, planting both her palms firmly to his broad chest to literally push him back from her. ‘I don’t know what you think I’m doing here but I’m certainly not here for this.’
Ditching the smile ready to play about his beautifully sculpted mouth, Vitale lifted a sardonic brow. ‘No?’
‘You have a hell of an opinion of yourself, don’t you?’ The tart rejoinder just leapt off Zara’s tongue, fierce annoyance rattling through her at his arrogant attitude. Evidently he had expected her to succumb rather than shoot him down and the knowledge infuriated her, for she had met too many men who expected her to be a pushover.
His dark, heavily lashed eyes flashed with anger and then screened. ‘Perhaps I misread the situation—’
‘Yes, you definitely did,’ Zara retorted defensively. ‘I’m grateful for your hospitality and I’ve enjoyed your company but that’s as far as it goes! Goodnight, Vitale.’
But as she hastened up the stairs and hurriedly shut her bedroom door she felt like a total fraud. Exit shocked virginal heroine stage left, she mocked inwardly, her face burning. He had not misread the situation as much as she would have liked to believe. She did find him incredibly attractive and clearly he had recognised the fact and tried to act on it. She was not the undersexed woman she had come to believe she was. But what a time to make such a discovery about herself! Why now? Why now when she was committed to marrying another man? Even though her bridegroom had no desire to share a bed with her, her susceptibility to Vitale Roccanti’s lethal dark charisma made her feel guilty and disloyal.
She lay in bed studying the crescent of the moon gleaming through the curtains. Vitale was
