gasped in disbelief that he could quietly admit that.
‘Being a bastard comes naturally. I needed you to accept the bet and I used your need for money to win your agreement,’ Vitale pointed out levelly. ‘I feel that I owe you that amount of honesty because you have been honest with me.’
‘So, you’re saying your father would always have helped?’ Jazz prodded in even greater surprise because she wasn’t, once she thought about it, that shocked to discover that Vitale could be extremely calculating and shrewd. She didn’t, however, feel that she was in a position to complain or protest because if he had used her to suit his own purposes, she was also most assuredly using him. Having already received a discreet cheque in payment for her supposed salary, she had given it in its entirety to her mother. No, she wasn’t proud that she had accepted money from a man she had also slept with, but she really could not bear to watch her mother scrimp and struggle. Being seriously poor had taught Jazz a lot of tough life lessons.
‘Papa feels very guilty about your mother. He was concerned that there was a possibility of domestic abuse in your parents’ marriage...’ Vitale volunteered very quietly after their plates had been cleared away.
Jazz turned sheet white and her fingers curled into the tablecloth, scrunching it. ‘There was,’ she conceded, thrown back in time to a period she rarely revisited. ‘My father was violent when life didn’t go his way and he took it out on us.’
Vitale was appalled and then shocked that he was appalled because he had heard of such situations, but then he had never personally known anyone who confessed to being a victim of domestic abuse. ‘You...as well as your mother?’
‘On several occasions when I tried to protect Mum. Poor Mum got the worst of it,’ Jazz conceded heavily. ‘Dad was hooked on online gambling and when he lost money he took it out on his family with his fists.’
A very real stab of anger coursed through Vitale at that news. He was remembering Jazz as a tiny child and a skinny teen and realising that she knew what it was to live in fear within a violent home where she should have been safe. His strong jawline was rigid. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that experience.’
Jazz pursed her lips and sighed. ‘I think that was why Mum ran off with her second husband, Jeff. He was supposed to be her escape but he was more of a dead end. He wasn’t violent, just dishonest. But you know, the older I get, the more I realise that many people have had bad experiences when they were young,’ she told him in an upbeat tone. ‘It doesn’t have to define you and it doesn’t have to hold you back and make you distrust everyone you meet. You can move beyond it. I know I have.’
Vitale stretched out a hand and squeezed hers to make her release the tablecloth and she laughed and let go of it when she appreciated what she had been doing, her lack of self-pity and her strength delighting him.
‘I have the mother from hell,’ he confessed unexpectedly. ‘Controlling, domineering, very nasty. If she has a heart, I’ve never seen it. All she cares about is the Lerovian throne and all the pomp and ceremony that go with it.’
Jazz smiled, pleased that he trusted her enough to admit that. ‘You’re very lucky to have such a pleasant father, then,’ she pointed out.
‘Sì...’ Vitale confirmed, startled that he had spoken ill of his mother for the first time ever and quite unable to explain where those disloyal words had come from. There was something odd about Jazz that provoked him into acting against his own nature, he decided darkly. Maybe it was simply the fact that she was so relaxed in his company that she broke through his reserve. Was that why he was acting out of character?
As for the problem that was his mother, he had only told the truth, he reasoned ruefully. Sofia Castiglione was feared even by the royal household. It was not disloyalty to tell the truth, he acknowledged then, while marvelling that in admitting that salient fact to Jazz he felt some of his tension drop away.
Outside the restaurant, the limousine awaited them, two security guards forcing a man with a camera to back off. The flash of a photo being taken momentarily blinded her as Vitale guided her at speed back into the limo.
‘Who is she?’ another voice shouted.
‘Who am I?’ she teased Vitale with amusement as she settled back into her seat.
‘A mystery redhead. I will not give out your name. I have no intention of doing the work of the paparazzi for them,’ Vitale supplied, his attention locked to her small, vivid face, so pale against the backdrop of that mass of vibrant hair, fine freckles scattered across her diminutive nose. Hands off, he reminded himself doggedly even as he ached.
‘Do you want a drink?’ he enquired as they entered the house.
‘No, thanks. I’m sort of tired,’ she admitted, because she had had little sleep the night before, but she was not about to allude to that reality when Vitale was behaving like a perfect gentleman who had never once touched her. ‘Goodnight.’ She kicked off her shoes inside her room, feeling oddly lonely, and wriggled down the zip on her dress to peel it off and hang it up with the care demanded by a superior garment. She stripped and freshened up before reaching for the silky robe she had taken from the clothes selection earlier that day and that was when someone rapped on the door and it opened almost simultaneously.
Vitale strode in, leant back against the door to close it again and said thickly, ‘I don’t want to say goodnight...’
Surprised in the act of frantically tying the sash on her robe closed, Jazz literally stopped breathing. Smouldering dark golden eyes assailed hers in an almost physical assault and her heart started banging inside her chest like a drum. ‘But we—’
‘We are both single, free to do whatever we like,’ Vitale incised, suppressing every thought he had had, every decision he had made only hours earlier in favour of surrendering to the hunger that had flamed up inside him the instant she’d tried to walk away from him.
Air bubbled back into her lungs and she snatched in a sudden deep breath. ‘But,’ she started afresh, inexplicably feeling that she had to be the voice of reason.
Vitale prowled forward with the grace of a jungle cat. ‘Is there anyone else in your life?’
‘Of course not. If there had been, last night wouldn’t have happened,’ she protested.
‘Then I don’t see a problem, bellezza mia,’ Vitale proclaimed in a roughened undertone as he teased loose the knot in the sash in a very slow way. ‘Let’s keep it simple.’
Simple? But it wasn’t simple, she wanted to scream while knowing that he was taking his time with the sash to give her the opportunity to say no if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to say no, didn’t want him to leave her again and that disturbing awareness shook her up. Her heart was thumping so hard she could’ve been in the last stage of running a marathon and all she could see was Vitale ahead of her, those scorching dark golden eyes with a black fringe of gold-tipped lush lashes that a supermodel would have envied. Somehow, he was her finishing line and she couldn’t fight that, didn’t have that amount of resistance when he was right there in front of her, wanting her, needing her, Jazmine Dickens, against all the odds...
He eased the robe off her slight shoulders and let it drop and when her hands whipped up to cover herself, he groaned and forestalled her, trapping her small hands in his. ‘I want to see you, all of you.’
Her hands fell away, green eyes wide with uncertainty, and he lifted her up, threw back
