dinner with me.’
‘What?’
The question came so sharply, so unexpectedly that it caught Terrie totally off guard. It also caught her mid-swallow of another sip of wine and she had to close her mouth hurriedly and gulp it down hard so as not to choke.
‘What did you say?’ she asked, lavender eyes opening wide in apparent shock.
Was this not what she wanted, then? Of course it was, so why did she look so startled, as if the invitation was a total surprise? Or was it that he had acted too fast, cut through some of the expected moves, the polite chat, the ‘getting to know you’ that she had been anticipating?
Hadn’t she expected him to be quite so forthright?
Well, he wasn’t in the mood for observing convention, even if waiting increased the pleasure for her.
‘Have dinner with me. Oh, come on, mia bella! Don’t look so shocked! It’s not as if I’ve asked you to come to bed with me right here and now. It’s only dinner.’
Only dinner! Terrie’s head was spinning with the suddenness and the shock of it all. It was only—what?—less than half an hour since she had first spotted this man on the opposite side of the room. No more than twenty minutes since he had caught her eye and given her the most furiously off-putting glare it had ever been her misfortune to encounter. Then he had sneaked up on her, frightened her into dropping her glass, and now…
‘You want me to have dinner with you?’
‘And is that so hard to understand?’
The beautiful voice had developed a hard edge that reminded her unnervingly of the glare he had turned on her earlier.
‘I know English is not my first language, but I would have thought…’
‘Your English is perfect and you damn well know it! But after the look you gave me a while ago—when you were sitting over there…’ Terrie waved a hand in the direction of the Sicilian’s previous seat. ‘I would have thought that you couldn’t wait to see the back of me.’
‘Ah, that…’
Gio had the grace to look a little shamefaced. The sensual shape of his mouth twisted slightly as he swirled the last drops of his wine round and round in the bottom of his glass.
‘That wasn’t meant for you,’ he murmured, his attention apparently fixed on the rich red liquid. ‘I was angry with someone else—someone I had expected to meet.’
‘Another woman?’
Of course. It figured. He had been stood up and now he wanted to fill the unexpectedly empty hours with someone else.
‘Well, you certainly know how to make a girl feel second best.’
‘Come?’
Those heavy lids flew up, stunning eyes fixing on her face, his confusion apparently genuine.
‘No—you have it totally wrong. The man I was supposed to meet was someone I work with—it was a business meeting. He rang a short time ago to say that he couldn’t make it.’
‘So you’re all on your own?’
She tried to make it sound grudging, as if she was not fully mollified, but only succeeded in coming across as making a hasty reassessment and coming close to conceding.
‘All on my own—a stranger lost in London… You don’t believe me?’
Her expression had given her away.
‘You’re no more lost than I am! Less, in fact. You look more at home here than I do. In fact I’d be willing to bet that you know your way around London as well as you do Palermo.’
‘I’ll concede you that.’
The admission was accompanied by another of those smiles that had the force of a thousand-watt electrical charge, the effect of it sizzling straight through every single nerve in her body and making her toes curl in instant reaction inside her elegant court shoes.
‘But I am still on my own. And I’m hungry. And I would prefer to have company while I eat rather than spend the rest of the evening alone. I have a table booked for two. It would seem a waste not to use it, when you are looking for company too.’
Something about that ‘looking for company’ snagged on a raw edge in Terrie’s mind, making her hesitate sharply. But even as she was rethinking hastily he leaned forward and looked straight into her eyes, fixing her with the hypnotic force of his deep, dark gaze.
‘Per piacere,’ he said softly, huskily. ‘Please have dinner with me.’
She should say that she was having dinner with her friends—with the rest of the conference. She was going to say exactly that. She actually opened her mouth to form the words, only to hear herself say exactly the opposite.
‘Yes,’ she managed a touch breathlessly. ‘Thank you.’
If he had put one foot wrong in his reaction… If he had so much as looked in the least bit self-satisfied or triumphant, then she would have retracted immediately. She would have rushed to her feet, told him that no, she’d changed her mind, she was already booked for this evening. She would have rejoined Claire and Anna and eaten the buffet meal that came as part of the conference package. And, although she would have probably always regretted not accepting his invitation, she would have told herself that it was safer this way—that she wasn’t putting herself at any sort of risk.
But Giovanni Cardella did nothing of the sort.
Instead he simply reached out one long, elegant hand. The bronzed fingers touched hers where they lay on the polished wood table-top, rested lightly, warmly, briefly—just for a moment—and then lifted and moved to pick up his glass once again.
‘Thank you,’ he said, lifting it to his lips and draining the last of his wine. ‘Shall we go through to the restaurant?’
And as she nodded silently Terrie admitted to herself that it had been the brevity of that touch that had been her undoing. Delicate and swift, it had been like the feel of a butterfly alighting and then flying away again. And it had left her feeling lost and unsatisfied. It had just been enough to awaken those electric feelings that had fizzed over her skin. Awaken them and then leave them—and she wanted more. Much, much more.
She didn’t know whether it was those feelings, or simply coincidence, but as she got up from her chair to follow him she caught her foot on something and stumbled awkwardly.
At once Gio was at her side, hands coming out to support her, powerful arms taking her full weight with only the faintest tensing of muscle to reveal any effort. And as he held her close, her cloud-coloured eyes flew to his and locked with ebony darkness.
‘Careful!’ The single word shivered over her skin.
Would he kiss her now? Terrie wondered, the question flaring so swiftly in her mind, burning so fiercely that she felt sure that Gio must see it in her eyes and recognise her need in an instant. And it was that need that stunned her, shaking
