And now she was in too deep.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” the hostess asked.
Charity weighed her options. On the one hand, sobriety would definitely be an asset when dealing with a man like Rocco. On the other hand, she needed something to help her get a handle on her nerves. Sometimes wine made conversation flow a little more smoothly.
“White wine,” she said. She didn’t have to drink it after all. But it would be there if she needed it.
“Of course, miss.” The hostess disappeared, leaving Charity sitting alone.
Charity glanced at the menu, not really bothering to read the descriptions of the food. Everything would be good at a place like this, but she was feeling a little nervous. Her stomach always got funny when she was lying. Which was inconvenient when you had to lie a lot.
While she was skimming the menu a hush fell over the restaurant. Or, perhaps the restaurant had already been hushed and something else in the atmosphere changed. Grew thicker, tighter.
Whatever it was, there was a change.
She looked up, just in time to see a man walk in. He was arresting, and she wasn’t the only one who found him so. It seemed that almost every eye in the restaurant—male and female—was on him. He was tall, sleek like a panther. His black hair slicked back off his forehead, trim physique encased in a black suit that was tailored perfectly to the stark, lean lines of his body. But it wasn’t his clothing, or the handmade Italian shoes on his feet, nor the impossibly expensive gold watch on his wrist and the no doubt overpriced sunglasses he pulled from over his eyes as he walked deeper into the restaurant, that held everyone’s attention.
It was something deeper. Something more. A magnetism that could not be denied.
Everything about him was designed to capture and hold the attention of an audience.
And as he drew closer she could see that he was extraordinarily handsome. Olive skin, high cheekbones, a strong, straight nose. And his lips... She couldn’t remember ever noticing a man’s lips before, but she certainly noticed his.
Rocco Amari was even more beautiful in person than he was in the glossy pages of a magazine. So annoying. Why couldn’t he be a sad disappointment?
“Ms. Wyatt,” he said, that voice as affecting now as it had been over the phone. “I am pleased to see you made it. And that you found the dress to your liking.”
That comment made her wish her wine was already here, so she could throw it in his face. He had given her no choice, and he knew it.
Don’t let him get to you. You have to get to him.
“It is a very good fit,” she said. “As we have never met before, I was a little bit surprised by that.”
“Oh, I had you investigated. Very thoroughly.” He took a seat in the chair opposite her, undoing the button on his jacket as he did, and suddenly several members of staff seemed to materialize out of nowhere. “We will have what the chef recommends,” he said.
The staff melted into obscurity after that and Rocco turned his full attention to her, his dark eyes blazing with a kind of sharpness that seemed to cut through her. It was disconcerting to say the least.
A new waitress, one she had not seen before, set her white wine down in front of her. Charity grasped the stem, needing something to keep her hands busy.
“Hopefully that pairs well with the meal,” he said, looking pointedly at her drink.
“I will say, that is not my primary concern at this point.”
“It is always a primary concern of mine. I appreciate life’s luxuries. Good food paired with good wine, good Scotch and beautiful women. Which, I must say, Ms. Wyatt, you are.” He practically purred the last bit of his sentence, the roughness in the words rippling over her skin, making her break out in goose bumps.
What was wrong with her? She didn’t play this game. Didn’t go for flirtations and teases. She always had to keep her wits sharp, and that meant no melting around sexy men.
“I suppose I should say thank you, but I’m not going to. Because I feel like you’re only putting off the inevitable conversation we must have.”
“Perhaps I am,” he said. “They serve very good food here. I should hate to spoil the meal.”
Charity looked to the left and noticed a table full of upscale Manhattanite women staring at them. Likely wondering what a woman like Charity was doing with a man like Rocco. Just as those women read upper class from their perfectly coiffed hair down to the tips of their designer shoes, Charity read low-class pretender. Even a couture dress couldn’t fix that. She had all the hallmarks of a woman who was here on her dining partner’s dime.
She knew these things because her father had made a study of the upper class. Had learned their every mannerism, in order to inveigle his way into their midst. All the better to steal their money.
Charity hadn’t spent much time playing those parts. Especially when she’d been young, her function in her father’s schemes had been to play the part of wide-eyed ragamuffin. A downtrodden innocent who desperately needed help.
It was the role she would be reprising tonight. And while she wouldn’t thank her dad for abandoning her to face the music alone, she would thank him, albeit silently, for giving her the tools to fix the broken mess he’d left.
“The meal was spoiled for me before I came,” she said, injecting a healthy bit of conviction into her tone.
Rocco didn’t seem moved by it. He extended his hand, brushing her cheekbone with the back of his knuckles. She was so shocked, all she could do was sit frozen, a flash of heat radiating from her cheek downward. She looked at the table of women again, saw their sneers and looked down at her wine.
Of course they assumed she was a call girl. Sitting there in that dress in the afternoon. Either a call girl or a kept woman, although there were few differences. They thought they were better than her. Because they were born with what she couldn’t even earn.
But she was used to that.
“Come now. I do not want a difficult lunch partner.”
“You knew people would think this,” she said, her voice low, vibrating with manufactured emotion. “You knew they would think I was your...whore.” She made sure to meet his gaze. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
She nearly cringed at that overbaked line. But she was having a very easy time accessing this justified rage. She almost believed that she was nothing more than a wronged innocent. Almost.
He moved his hand back to her, and caught her chin with his thumb and forefinger, holding her face steady. And suddenly all her false anger was forgotten. “But, cara mia, that is what you are. You are here because I have offered you something. You are here because I’ve offered you a deal. And, do not forget, I bought everything you are wearing.”
He was a horror. Nothing seemed to shake him up. He was heartless. Which might be problematic.
She jerked out of his hold, and he lowered his hand. “Just tell me what you want.”
The
