displayed an arrangement of miniature garden vegetables.
“Traditions can be reassuring at a time of change.” She felt a tiny chill of loss as he slid his arm out of hers to pull back her chair.
She looked up at the large oil portrait hanging over the marble fireplace. “That’s a lovely portrait of your mother. She was very beautiful.”
The supercilious black-haired beauty glared down at her, shimmering in a crisply painted black silk evening gown that swept around her elegant figure. Anna remembered her as a chilly, quick-tempered woman with a critique for everything and everyone poised on the tip of her tongue.
“She was brilliant, too. She spoke seven languages and was an accomplished dancer before she married my father.”
“I remember that room upstairs with the barre and the wall of mirrors. Was that hers?” She hadn’t known it was there until after his mother died. It was off-limits before that.
“Yes, she had to dance every day or her muscles ached. She could have been a prima ballerina.”
“Why did she stop?”
“Can you picture my father allowing his wife to dance on stage?” Naldo raised an eyebrow as he took a sip of white wine.
“Ballet? It’s hardly the Moulin Rouge.”
“She knew her role when she married. To stand by his side at the head of the estate, to bear an heir. To love her husband.”
A dark undertone in his voice surprised her. The De Leons always looked like the perfect couple: both clever, striking, rich, dripping with style. Had it been a facade?
“Did your parents have a happy marriage?” Since her divorce she had a sharp curiosity about other people’s marriages. Why did some loves last a lifetime and others…turn out not to have been love at all?
“Of course they had a good marriage. A great marriage.” Naldo’s brusque reply made her regret her blunt question.
“I confess I was always a little afraid of your mom. She was so…perfect.”
“She was a perfectionist. So am I. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. I’m sure you agree.”
“Absolutely. Speaking of which…” She looked at the array of cutlery surrounding her plate as a flush rose to her cheekbones. “Which one do I use?”
“You start from the outside and work your way in. Or at least that’s what you’re supposed to do. You can go ahead and use the dessert spoon if you like. It won’t bother me.” He speared a baby carrot and crunched it.
She smiled and picked up the outside fork.
Naldo leaned back in his chair, glad the potentially dangerous subject of his mother and his parents’ marriage had been deftly swept aside. For an intense second he’d experienced an irrational temptation to tell her the truth.
But propriety won out, as it always did. He’d been brought up to protect the family honor at all costs.
That meant keeping its secrets.
As Anna speared a piece of cauliflower and placed it carefully between those plump pink lips, thoughts of secrets sank into a warm flood of desire.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her girlish features had matured into refined feminine beauty. Her liquid blue eyes held shadowed depths that suggested wisdom beyond her years and a few intriguing secrets of her own. The slender physique showcased by her elegant powder-blue dress expressed its power in subtle strength rather than raw muscularity.
But nothing compared with the vision of her that morning. In her clinging pink PJs, golden hair mussed from sleep, cheeks rosy with indignation-
He took another sip of wine. Anna looked especially beautiful when she was a little hot and bothered and he couldn’t help wanting to see her in that delightful condition again.
Would it be so wrong to have a little fun before they conducted their business? The attraction was mutual, no question about it. She’d melted into his kiss like liquid fire. The chemistry leaping between them was explosive.
If she made love anything like she played tennis…
“Naldo.” Pilar’s voice snapped him out of his reverie and drew his attention to the doorway. “Isabela is here. She said she’d be right in for dinner.”
Naldo frowned. “I thought she was dining in St. Augustine tonight.”
Pilar shrugged. “I told Vicki to cook another filet. Shall I lay a third place?”
“Yes, please do.”
Damn. His sister’s arrival put a wrinkle in his impromptu plans to seduce Anna tonight. He’d secretly hoped Isabela would return to Paris immediately, the way she usually did after her perfunctory visits to the old homestead. But he didn’t want her to feel she was no longer welcome here now the house was his. He was head of the family now and it was his duty to keep it together.
“Isabela.” He rose to his feet as his sister swept into the room with a flutter of chiffon. “Please join us. Do you know Anna Marcus?”
That halted big sis in her tracks. She looked at Anna, who’d risen to her feet in expectation of a polite greeting. Those sharp black eyes met Anna’s blue ones and a tiny wrinkle appeared in his sister’s smooth, pale brow.
The two women sized each other up for a tense moment, then Isabela came forward, heels clicking on the parquet. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No, I guess not.” Anna shook her hand and smiled. “I think you were studying in Europe by the time I moved here with my mom. You live there now, don’t you?”
“Paris. Except when I travel for my work.” Isabela swished past Anna to the end of the table, where a third place was laid.
“Isabela is an opera director.” Naldo sat down and replaced his napkin with a flourish. “She prefers art and life on the continent.”
“There are a lot of wonderful opera companies in the States, too, aren’t there?” Anna said brightly.
Isabela gave her a withering look. “They hardly compare to the Paris Opera and La Scala. Ugh, these vegetables are positively wilted.” She picked at a miniature spear of broccoli with her fork. “Europe certainly has better-trained staff.” She poked at an ornamental curl of carrot, then looked up. “Oh, sorry, no offense intended. I forgot for a moment that your mother was a member of the staff.”
“Yes. She cooked here for fifteen years.” Anna beamed with convincing pride that gave Naldo a warm glow. Not many women could go toe-to-toe with Isabela De Leon.
“I know. I saw you at the will reading. Rather an impressive legacy for a cook, wouldn’t you say?” Isabela took a sip of wine, leaving a neat semicircle of plum lipstick on the rim.
“I guess your father knew how much my mom loved her home here.”
“Or was it because she was such a treasured friend?”
Naldo’s spine stiffened. What was his sister up to now? She was as dangerous and unpredictable as that enormous poodle she used to take everywhere with her. “Isabela’s a free spirit. She never stays in one place for long. When are you heading back to Paris?”
“I thought I might stay a while.” Isabela tilted her head. Her hair stayed lacquered to her perfectly shaped skull. “Paris can be so crowded at this time of year. Life would be much more bearable if I had a little place to get away from it all.”
“You do. Your house in the Cap D’ Antibes, remember? Not to mention your villa on Lake Como.”
“Ugh, those places are simply mobbed with frightful tourists. I can hardly bear to set foot in them. I think something more rustic, an estate in the Loire Valley, perhaps. Somewhere like this place where I can commune with nature and grow things.”
Naldo didn’t even try to suppress the hearty chuckle that bubbled to his throat. “Grow things? I’ve never known you to have an interest in growing anything except your fingernails.”
“I’m maturing, darling. And as an artist I have a heightened appreciation for the beauty of nature. Do you remember Mother’s dream of buying a bit of land and moving the family back to Europe?”
“Mother’s dream didn’t have anything do with growing things. She just never felt at home here in the States.”
