style="font-size:15px;"> Her stubborn refusal to open her heart to him was like a thorn in his flesh. It was as if she would do anything to stop him thinking she cared about him. He thought back to their break-up, to how she had announced without warning that she was leaving. Her bags had been packed when he’d come home from a three-day workshop in Wales. She had told him she had slept with someone she had met at the local pub. He had stood there in dumbstruck silence, wondering if she was joking.
Their relationship had been volatile at times, but he hadn’t really thought she was serious about walking out on him. She had threatened to many times, but he had always thought it was just her letting off steam. He had planned to ask her to marry him that very night. He had wanted to wait until he got back from the workshop so she would have had time to think about how much she had missed him. But then she had shown him a photo on her phone, of her with a man, sitting at the bar, smiling over their drinks. The anger he had felt at seeing the evidence of her betrayal had been like a hot red dust storm in front of his eyes. She had stood there, looking at him with a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it-look and he had snapped.
He wasn’t proud of the words he had flailed her with. He was even more ashamed that he’d pushed her up against the wall like a cheap hooker and given her a bruising parting kiss that had left both of them bleeding.
He shuffled through his thoughts as he looked at her lying next to him like a sleeping angel.
She had wanted him to believe she had betrayed him.
But why?
Hadn’t he shown her how much he had loved her? He had said it enough times and shown it in a thousand different ways. She had never taken him seriously. Funny that, since she took life so seriously herself. She rarely smiled unless it was a self-effacing one. He couldn’t remember ever hearing her laugh other than one of those totally fake cackles that grated on his nerves because he knew them for the tawdry imitation they were.
Why had she been so desperate to get him out of her life?
He was still frowning when she opened her eyes and stretched like a cat. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘You didn’t do it, did you?’ he asked.
A puzzled flicker passed through her gaze. ‘Do what?’
‘You didn’t sleep with that guy from the bar.’
She made a business of sitting upright and covering herself with a portion of the sheet. ‘I went home with him,’ she said after a moment.
‘But you didn’t sleep with him,’ he said. ‘You wanted me to think you had. You wanted me to believe that because you knew me well enough to know I would never have let you go for anything less.’
A tiny muscle began tapping in her cheek and her eyes took on a defensive sheen. ‘I wasn’t ready for commitment. You were pressuring me to settle down. I didn’t want to lose my freedom. I didn’t want to lose my identity and become some nameless rich man’s husband just like my mother.’
‘You’re nothing like your mother, cara,’ he said. ‘You’re too strong and feisty for that.’
She got off the bed and wrapped herself in a silky wrap. ‘I don’t always feel strong,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I feel …’ Her teeth sank into her bottom lip.
‘What do you feel?’
She turned to the dressing table and picked up a brush, started pulling it through her hair. ‘I feel hungry,’ she said. She put the brush down and swung around to face him. ‘What does a girl have to do around here to get a meal?’
Angelo knew it wasn’t wise to push her. He had to be patient with her. She was feeling vulnerable and had retreated back to her default position. It was her way of protecting herself.
He only wished he had known that five years ago.
Natalie sat across from Angelo in a restaurant in Sorrento an hour later. He had given her the choice of eating in or out and she had chosen to go out. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to mingle with other people; it was more that she wanted to keep her head when around him. She couldn’t do that so well when she was alone with him.
The passion they had shared had stirred up old longings that made her feel uneasy. She was fine with having sex with him—more than fine, truth be told. It was just she knew he would want more from her.
He had always wanted more than she was prepared to give.
How long before he would ask her to think about staying with him indefinitely? Then he would start talking about babies.
His mother had already dropped a few broad hints when she had helped her choose her wedding dress. Natalie’s stomach knotted at the thought of being responsible for a tiny infant. She could just imagine how her parents would react if she were to tell them she was having a baby. Her mother would reach for the nearest bottle and drain it dry. Her father wouldn’t say a word. He would simply raise his eyebrows and a truckload of guilt would land on her like a concrete slab.
Angelo reached across the table and touched her lightly on the back of her hand. ‘Hello, over there,’ he said with a soft smile.
Natalie gave him a rueful smile in return. ‘Sorry … I’m hardly scintillating company, am I?’
‘I don’t expect you to be the life of the party all the time, cara,’ he said. ‘It’s enough that you’re here.’
She looked at his fingers entwined with hers. She had missed his touch so much in the years that had passed. She had missed the way his skin felt against hers, the way he felt under the caress of her hands. She had lain awake at night with her body crying out for his lovemaking. Her body had felt so empty. So lifeless without the sensual energy he shot through it like an electric charge.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, stroking the underside of her wrist with the broad pad of his thumb.
She met his chocolate-brown gaze and felt her insides flex and contract with lust. ‘Do you want dessert?’ she asked.
‘Depends on what it is,’ he said with a sexy glint.
She could barely sit still in her chair for the rocket blast of longing that swept through her. ‘I’m not in the mood for anything sweet,’ she said.
‘What are you in the mood for?’ Still that same sexy glitter was lighting his eyes from behind.
‘Nothing that takes too much time to prepare.’
‘I can be a fast order chef when the need arises,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll deliver it as fast as humanly possible.’
Natalie shivered as he came behind her to pull out her chair for her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up as his warm wine-scented breath coasted past her ear. She leaned back against him, just for a brief moment, to see if he was aroused.
He was.
She smiled to herself and walked out of the restaurant with him, her body already quaking in anticipation.
Angelo had barely opened
