Chapter Seven #2
It shouldn’t have made her dizzy, but that was the effect of being in his arms. Everything about him made her feel…everything. Heady and sensitive and elated and overwhelmed. Shivery. Sexy, even.
She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t recalled that night of Giselle’s party many times. Before Luca, sex had been something she’d tried, like butterfly stroke or baking bread. She’d enjoyed it while doing it, but hadn’t felt particularly good at it.
He was very good at sex. He was seducing her right now, nuzzling his nose against the tip of her ear so her entire face tingled. He said, “You smell incredible,” sounding as though he meant it. The brush of his lips against her cheekbone sent spears of delight into her middle.
“Can I ask you something?” She fought against the pull of his sensual tide, heart unsteady in her chest as she looked into his hooded dark brown gaze. “If Giselle’s brother hadn’t told you I was pregnant, would you have bothered looking me up?”
Surprise flashed across his expression before shutters came down to hide his thoughts. That sudden poker face told her all she needed to know.
“That’s what I thought.” As far as she could tell, he’d been in London all week and all he had had to do was call Giselle and ask for her number.
But he hadn’t.
The fissure that cracked into her breastbone was enough to make her breath hurt.
Her feet became wooden. She swallowed back the ache of disappointment and kept her own mask of indifference in place, smiling at Lauren and Paolo as they whirled by, the very picture of the sort of marriage she longed for.
The kind she had once promised herself was the only type of marriage she would accept.
“I thought you were embedded in Yardley’s circle,” Luca said gruffly. “I had no interest in a long-term relationship with someone who attends drug-fueled parties and encourages other behaviors that could damage my reputation.”
“So it was tap and go. You weren’t intending anything beyond that night. That’s fine,” she added stiffly, trying to save face. “I wasn’t looking for anything more than a lift back to London.”
He didn’t like that. She felt the way his hand stilled at her waist. His jaw set like concrete.
Good, she thought dourly. How does it feel to mean nothing to someone?
“We’re not going to do this,” he said in a low, hard voice.
“What?”
“Take swipes at each other.”
“It wasn’t a swipe. It’s true.” She lifted her chin.
“I allowed myself a moment of self-indulgence, but I wasn’t in the market for a relationship.
Any man who’s ever asked me on a date has had to get past my reputation first—or thinks he’ll capitalize on it.
Then there’s my obligations to Mum. Who wants to take that on?
I didn’t expect you to be any different. ”
The music stopped, but their feet had already stalled.
“Can we leave? I’m not feeling well.” It wasn’t a lie. The room had grown hot and the pressure of keeping a smile on her face made her head ache.
He nodded, but before they left the floor, Paolo took over the microphone, saying something in Italian.
They politely stopped to listen as Lauren brought a sheaf of papers to Paolo.
“Luca Cardillo.” Paolo’s tone rang with amused lack of surprise. “Molto generoso. I presume these are for your fiancée? I’m not sure emeralds are your color.”
There was a ripple of laughter amid polite applause.
“The silent auction,” Luca explained as he drew her forward to collect a pair of earrings in a black velvet box.
She hadn’t even looked at what was on offer, but she was instantly in love with the delicate elegance of pear-shaped diamond studs dangling a tapered emerald, then a larger teardrop emerald suspended from the bottom.
Luca must have bid on them moments after she walked away with Lauren, and had set a price high enough to secure them.
“I wanted those.” Lauren leaned into the microphone that her husband held. “Paolo said he couldn’t compete with a man newly in love. They’ll suit you better anyway, Jade. With your eyes? I expect you to be wearing them the next time I see you.”
Newly in love. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Jade had to play the part, though. She knew better than to embarrass him, but she was genuinely disconcerted and speechless under the weight of the crowd’s attention, unsure how to react.
She looked up from the earrings into Luca’s unreadable expression, aware the audience expected something effusive from her, but on the heels of their spiky conversation, her voice was buried in her throat, making it difficult to speak.
“They’re beautiful, Luca. Thank you.” It took all her courage to lean closer and lift her mouth in invitation for a kiss.
If he was angry with her, he could humiliate her for all time, in the blink of one dismissive second, by refusing to kiss her.
“I couldn’t see them on anyone else.” He cupped her cheek and set his mouth on hers, kissing her in a slow, thorough claiming that made her bones melt and her pulse beat in her belly and her eyes sting with hunger for more.