she said defensively, then covered her mouth to hide a snort of laughter. ‘Yes, she does cling. But I don’t mind. I like it.’
‘And I like the relationship my mother and I have. It suits us both.’
She cast him with a look of pure disbelief then shrugged as if to say it was a point she couldn’t bother arguing. ‘Is her life easier now?’
‘Much easier. I’ve bought her a house and a car, I send her regular money. She doesn’t need to work. She has friends and goes on dates. She has a life now, which she never had before.’
That perked her up. ‘You bought her a house?’
He groaned, sensing a new thread of his life for her to delve into. ‘Can we not talk of something else?’
‘Okay, tell me why you joined the army.’
‘Because I was turning into a juvenile delinquent with no parental authority and no hope of getting a decent job because there was no one there to make sure I attended school.’
‘How long were you in the army for?’
‘Eight years in all.’ And they had been the best years of his life. The camaraderie, the companionship...after a childhood spent alone the army had given him the family he’d always craved. In Sergio he’d found the brother he’d always longed for.
How could the woman sitting opposite him understand any of this? Her family was as close as a family could be. She’d never eaten her childhood meals alone with only the television for company. She’d never been alone. She’d never wanted for anything, not materially or emotionally. It had all been handed to her on a plate.
So why was he fighting his own tongue from spilling the rest of it out to her?
It was those eyes, the way they smouldered and hung on to his every answer.
Every time he stared into those honest eyes a pulse would flow through him. He’d scrubbed his hands over and over but could still feel the softness of her skin and the silkiness of her hair on his fingers as if they’d marked him. When she’d been standing with Eva, the charity worker, he’d distinguished Francesca’s scent without even thinking about it.
He knew her scent.
During their conversation, without him realising how, they’d both cleared their plates.
It was time to bring to a close this ordeal he’d enjoyed far too much.
He got to his feet. ‘We can go back to the suite now.’
She stared up at him with such hurt at his brusqueness that he felt much as he would have if he’d kicked a puppy. Like a heel.
Instead of obeying, she folded her arms, the obstinate look he was becoming accustomed to setting on her jaw. But her eyes were knowing as she said, ‘I think I’ll stay for dessert.’
‘YOU’RE WELCOME TO share my bed,’ Francesca said brightly as Felipe made a bed on the floor for himself close to the door, using the duvet, spare sheets and pillows from his suite.
He didn’t look at her. He’d returned to ignoring her and speaking in monosyllabic grunts ever since she’d insisted on staying for dessert.
Her insistence on staying had been a deliberate kick-back. Felipe had relaxed over their meal and opened up to her, not by much but enough for her chest to lighten and hope to spring free. A proper conversation between two adults enjoying each other’s company. There were times he’d looked at her as if he wanted to eat her, the desire in his eyes vivid... But then he’d withdrawn as quickly as if he’d pulled the trigger on a gun.
Now he was back to looking at her as if he’d like to chuck her in the sea.
‘Why don’t you stop talking and get ready for bed?’ he growled. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’
‘I’m not tired.’
‘Read a book.’
She wished she knew what it would take to pull his barriers down long enough for him to forget his reasons for resisting and simply treat her as a woman. That’s all she wanted.
‘I’ll put my nightclothes on in the bathroom, shall I?’
‘Yes!’
‘Okay. I won’t be long. Try not to miss me.’
It didn’t take long for her to change into the over-sized T-shirt she slept in, wash her face and brush her teeth, all the while wondering if she had the courage to go for full-scale seduction.
She could hardly believe she was having these thoughts.
Pieta’s death had brought home how short and fickle life could be. The dangers of Caballeros had reinforced that notion. All those years she’d spent studying, any thought of a romantic life pushed aside so as not to distract her from her dreams... It had stopped her feeling life rather than just going through the motions of living it.
Felipe was nothing like the rich, boring, single men her parents had brought in a steady trickle to the family home before she’d escaped to university, hoping their darling daughter would snare one of them and marry into luxury and be doted on. The only similarity he had with them was that he was fabulously rich.
Francesca hadn’t wanted to be doted on. Her mother had married young and was content to live the life of a social butterfly where the biggest daily problem would be matching her nail varnish with her outfit. Francesca had wanted so much more. She had wanted to be like her brothers and cousin Matteo. They were also expected to settle down and breed but at a much older age. They were expected to have fantastic careers first, whereas she’d been expected to adorn her husband’s fantastic career. She hadn’t wanted to adorn or be beholden to a man. She’d wanted a fantastic career of her own and had known from a very young age that the only way to get it was by studying as hard as she could to get the highest possible grades so her parents had no choice but to take her and her aspirations seriously.
She had succeeded. There had been many fights and many tears but eventually they had accepted her wishes. That hadn’t stopped them parading eligible rich men in front of her but the tone had changed; become hope rather than expectation.
If she continued working hard, in two years she would sit her bar exams and qualify as a lawyer, then spend a few more years establishing herself in the career she’d devoted her life to achieving. Only then would she think of making a marriage, safe in the knowledge that, whoever she chose, her hard-won independence would not be compromised and the marriage would be conducted as equals.
That had been the plan.
What she hadn’t expected was this awakening, this heady desire for a man that no amount of logic could explain.
She didn’t want to explain it. She wanted to explore it, to reach out and touch it and experience these wonderful feelings that had soaked into her being, all of which were for Felipe.
He was not a man to dote on a woman. He was
