conservative and expensive.” He eyed her white silk shell, her lightweight, fitted jacket, the single strand of pearls she wore. “And your attitude …”
She leaned toward him, feeling deliciously giddy. Feeling free and bold and ready for anything. “What about my attitude?”
“You are no one’s assistant.”
She sat back in her chair and rested her hands in her lap. “I’m an attorney. With a firm that represents a number of corporate clients.”
“An attorney. Of course. That, I believe.”
She picked up her fork, ate some of her salad. For a moment or two they shared a surprisingly easy silence. And then she asked, “And what about you? What do you do for a living?”
“I like variety in my work. At the moment, I’m in trade. International trade.”
“At the moment? What? You change jobs a lot, is that what you’re telling me?”
“I take on projects that interest me. And when I’m satisfied that any given project is complete, I move on.”
“What do you trade?”
“At the moment, oranges. Montedoron oranges.”
“Montedoran. That sounds exotic.”
“It is. The Montedoran is a blood orange, very sweet, hinting of raspberry, with the characteristic red flesh of all blood oranges. The skin is smooth, not pitted like many other varieties.”
“So soon I’ll be buying Montedorans at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter?”
“Hardly. The Montedoran is never going to be for sale in supermarkets. We won’t be trading in that kind of volume. But for certain gourmet and specialty stores, I think it could do very well.”
“Montedoran …” She tested the word on her tongue. “There’s a small country in Europe, right, on the Côte d’Azur? Montedoro?”
“Yes. Montedoro is my country.” He poured her more wine. And she didn’t stop him. “It’s one of the eight smallest states in Europe, a principality on the Mediterranean. My mother was born there. My father was American but moved to Montedoro and accepted Montedoran citizenship when they married. His name is Evan Bravo. He was a Texan by birth.”
She really did love listening to him talk. He made every word into a poem. “So … you have relatives in Texas?”
“I have an aunt and uncle and a number of first cousins who live in and around San Antonio. And I have other, more distant cousins in a small town near Abilene. And in your Hill Country, I have a second cousin who married a veterinarian. And there are more Bravos, many more, in California and Wyoming and Nevada. All over the States, as a matter of fact.”
“I take it that Calabretti is your mother’s surname?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what they do in your country, combine the husband’s and wife’s last name when they marry?”
He nodded. “In … certain families, anyway. It’s similar to the way it’s done in Spain. We are much like the Spanish. We want to keep all our last names, on both sides of our families. So we string them together proudly.”
“Bravo-Calabretti sounds familiar, somehow. I keep wondering where I’ve heard it before …”
He waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, he shrugged. “Perhaps it will come to you later.”
“Maybe so.” She lowered her voice to a more confidential level. “And I have to tell you, I keep thinking that you are familiar, that I’ve met you before.”
He shrugged in a way that seemed to her so sophisticated, so very European. “They say everyone has a double. Maybe that’s it. You’ve met my double.”
It wasn’t what she’d meant. But it didn’t really matter. “Maybe.” She let it go and asked, “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“I do.” He gave her a regal nod. “Three brothers, five sisters. I’m second-born. I have an older brother, Maximilian. And after me, there are the twins, Alexander and Damien. And then my sisters—Bella, Rhiannon, Alice, Genevra and Rory.”
“Big family.” Feeling suddenly wistful, she set down her fork. “I envy you. I was an only child.” Her hand rested on the tabletop.
He covered it with his. The touch warmed her to her toes—and thrilled her, as well. Her whole body seemed, all at once, completely, vividly alive. He leaned into her and studied her face, his gaze as warm as his lean hand over hers. “And you are sad, then? To have no siblings?”
“I am, yes.” She wished he might hold her hand indefinitely. And yet she had to remember that this wasn’t going anywhere and it wouldn’t be right to let him think that it might. She eased her hand free. He took her cue without comment, retreating to his side of the table. She asked, “How old are you, Rule?”
He laughed his slow, smooth laugh. “Somehow, I begin to feel as though I’m being interviewed.”
She turned her wineglass by the stem. “I only wondered. Is your age a sensitive subject for you?”
“In a sense, I suppose it is.” His tone was more serious. “I’m thirty-two. That’s a dangerous age for an unmarried man in my family.”
“How so? Thirty-two isn’t all that old.” Especially not for a man. For a woman, things were a little different—at least, they were if she wanted to have children.
“It’s time that I married.” He said it so somberly, his eyes darker than ever as he regarded her steadily.
“I don’t get it. In your family, they put you on a schedule for marriage?”
Now a smile haunted his handsome mouth. “It sounds absurd when you say it that way.”
“It is absurd.”
“You are a woman of definite opinions.” He said it in an admiring way. Still, defiance rose within her and she tipped her chin high. He added, “And yes, in my family both the men and the women are expected to marry before they reach the age of thirty-three.”
“And if you don’t?”
He lowered his head and looked at her from under his dark brows. “Consequences will be dire.” He said it in a low tone, an intimate tone, a tone that did a number on every one of her nerve endings and sent a fine, heated shiver dancing along the surface of her skin.
“You’re teasing me.”
“Yes, I am. I like you, Sydney. I knew that I would, the moment I first saw you.”
“And when was that?”
“You’ve already forgotten?” He looked gorgeously forlorn. “I see I’m not so memorable, after all. Macy’s? I saw you going in?” The waiter scooped up their empty salad plates and served them rib eye steaks with Serrano lime
