seemed to direct his gaze directly to a mouth that was pure temptation and, given the fact that he’d been fighting the urge to kiss her, and more, for as long as he could remember, his sudden reluctance to comply with her simple request was hard to explain. Except that a kiss fallen into in the heat of desire, or passion or even simple lust, was one thing. But this cool, dispassionate proposition was something else.
It couldn’t be that easy…
‘Now?’ he asked, doing his best to match her composure.
‘You’re in a hurry to seal the contract?’
Not just teasing but taunting him…
Or was that disappointment at his obvious lack of enthusiasm?
‘It’s your call,’ he said, a touch hoarsely.
‘Okay.’
Was that ‘okay’ now? Or ‘okay’ she’d leave it up to him?
She waited, offering no help, not coming an inch to meet him halfway.
Oh, hell…
Feeling very much like a teenager faced with his first real kiss, unsure quite what was expected of him, what ‘a kiss’ in this context entailed, heartily wishing he hadn’t leapt in, said the first word that came into his head. “Now…?”
But she was waiting, eyes wide open, while he hovered on the brink of insanity, torn between an urgent need to go for the straight-to-hell moment he’d been fighting all his life and the suspicion that she was somehow testing him, making certain that they could work together, that he could control himself. That she could control herself.
As he hesitated between heaven and hell the taxi swung around the corner, throwing her off balance, so that instead of kissing her he had an armful of her when they came to a halt in front of the restaurant.
An armful of the softest, sexiest woman a man could imagine only in his wildest dreams. Delivering on those dreams-or were they nightmares?-that had haunted him, souring every other relationship, until he’d finally stopped trying to find someone who could drive her from his thoughts and done what he’d always done, thrown himself heart and soul into work, turning to the one thing in his life that had always been there, never let him down.
Bella Lucia.
She didn’t move and it was all he could do not to deliver with the kind of kiss that she would regret calling down on her head. Not some polite token that would torment his soul, surely her intention, but a kiss that would mark her as his with the kind of pledge that would seal their alliance for eternity.
The driver leaned back and opened the door when they didn’t move and he realised with relief that there was someone waiting to grab the cab. That time had run out.
‘Bad…’ His voice caught in his throat. ‘Bad timing…’he said.
‘Maybe,’ she said, so softly that she was almost inaudible. Then, before he could do or say anything, she extricated herself from his arms, climbed out onto the pavement, walked towards the restaurant without looking back.
‘You all right, guv?’ the driver asked as, hands shaking, he handed over the fare.
‘Fine,’ he said, abruptly. There was nothing wrong with him that a long, cold shower wouldn’t fix. ‘We should have been wearing seat belts. Keep the change.’
The discreet facade of the Berkeley Square Bella Lucia fronted one of London’s most exclusive, most luxurious restaurants, a place where financiers, politicians, the world’s deal brokers came to meet, eat and talk, confident of their privacy in the gentlemen’s club atmosphere.
Louise regarded it with every appearance of composure, even though she was trembling, holding herself together through sheer will power despite the sudden urge to bolt.
Performance nerves, that was all.
She knew how to use the adrenalin rush to see her through big presentations, major launches. When it came to business she had no trouble keeping her feelings under wraps and she could do it now. Except that hadn’t been about business.
She didn’t know what it had been about except that Max had been pushing her and as always she’d responded with a reckless disregard for the consequences.
She turned as he joined her, smiled distantly, still performing as he wordlessly held the door. She walked ahead of him through the panelled, ground floor entrance, across the small bar with its comfortable leather chairs where the staff were already preparing for the evening, into the restaurant, aware all the time of the heat of his arm, not quite touching, at her back. Still feeling the pressure where he’d caught her, held her.
‘I’ve always loved this moment,’ she said, calling on every reserve of control to act as if nothing had happened. Using the excuse to stop, rest her hands lightly on the back of a chair as her legs began to wobble dangerously. Looking around. Anywhere but at him.
‘Pure theatre,’ Max agreed, without having to ask what she meant. He knew.
Behind the scenes, in the kitchen, the food was being prepared, the front of house staff were assembling. Out here the tables were laid with snowy white cloths, polished silver, glasses, fresh flowers. Not just theatre, she thought, but the grandest of opera, everything was ready, waiting for the audience to appear, for the conductor to raise his baton and the evening to begin.
Until a few months ago that had been her father. This restaurant, the smaller private dining rooms on the floor above, the offices on the top floor, had been the heart from which he’d run the Bella Lucia empire.
‘He nearly lost it,’ she said, more to herself than Max, using anger to drive off the intensity of that moment in the taxi. She was angry, she realised, because of all of them Max would have been the one who lost most. Perhaps everything…‘All for the sake of a son he hadn’t known existed until a few months ago.’
‘He’d have done the same for you, Louise.’
Would he?
When Daniel and Dominic had turned up, twin images of John Valentine, saying ‘Hi, Dad…’ they’d been received like prodigal sons by John, while her reward for thirty-something years of dutiful daughterhood had been the shocking revelation that she was not actually Ivy and John’s daughter at all, but had been adopted at birth.
She’d suddenly felt invisible, excluded.
Blood was thicker…
‘He wouldn’t have had to,’ she said, keeping her voice even, matter-of-fact.
Easy for you to say, the still small voice of her conscience reminded her. John Valentine would have given you anything. Has given you everything…
Which was why she was here now. Paying her dues.
‘Forget the past, Louise,’ Max said, catching her hand, holding it, forcing her to look at him. ‘Bella Lucia is still here. We’re still here. It’s the future that matters.’ His hand tightened around hers as if he could somehow transmit his excitement to her by direct contact. ‘Expanding. The new restaurant in Qu’Arim is just the beginning. I’m going to launch the third generation of Bella Lucia onto a world stage. Close your eyes, stick a pin in a map and ten years from now we’ll be there. Don’t you want to be a part of that?’
No! Yes…
All her life, ever since she was a little girl, she’d longed to be here, centre stage. Back then her dream had been to be at her father’s side, but Max-older, male, the first-born Valentine grandson-had always been ahead of her.
Now he needed her he was using family ties to draw her back into the business, but it would always be his empire. She would always come second. Second to her father was the way of the world, she could have lived with that; second to Max was never going to be enough.
Why did it have to be him?
Because it was his life, she thought, answering her own question. He loved it. He was like his father in that, if in nothing else.
The staff had always trusted him, turned to him. Even now he was doing this as much for them as for himself. They were, she realised, his family. Which was why she’d do her best to help him put Bella Lucia on the world map.
She’d do it for him, for her father, for the Valentine family that she’d always thought she was a part of. And for herself, too, so that she could walk away with a clear conscience. All debts paid. But she would walk away…
