In the dining room, he’d drawn her chair back from the table, his hand still on her. But as she took her seat, his fingers had dipped beneath the gold silk at the base of her spine in a swift, hot caress.
“Thank you,” she’d said and he’d said, “You’re very welcome, principessa,”
and she’d known, without question, that if he’d chosen that moment to lift her into his arms and carry her away, she’d have welcomed him doing it.
By now, he had touched her a dozen times.
His arm brushing hers when he turned his attention to another guest. His fingers, slipping against hers when she passed him the salt cellar.
But the game changed.
As the third course was served, she felt his hand on her leg.
A moan rose in her throat. She bit it back and did what she could to smile brightly at the mayor, seated at the other end of the table, to pretend she knew what he was saying, but how could she? How could she when all she could think of was Nicolo’s touch, his caress, the heat of his palm on her knee? Her thigh.
He was driving her wild.
And she loved it.
Dio, what was happening to her? She, the soul of propriety, the woman so steeped in the rules of etiquette that her employer always turned to her if questions arose.
She was hanging on to her sanity by a thread, and doing even that was becoming increasingly difficult. The room was spinning, and she knew it was not the wine. She had limited herself to the one glass before dinner and she had hardly touched the one that stood by her plate now.
Still, the room was spinning. She was breathing faster. She was hot, even though she knew the room itself was not.
Nicolo’s hand moved. Caressed. His touch was… It was wicked magic. Rough. Silken. Warm.
She put her hand in her lap. Closed it over his. To stop him. Of course, to stop him… Or perhaps just so he would do this, yes, trace his thumb across her palm, fold his fingers through hers, move his hand and hers higher on her thigh…
“Is that not right, my dear?” a man two seats away said, smiling at her.
She stared at him. She could not put a name to the aristocratic face. He was—yes. He was an art dealer. She’d met him possibly a dozen times but his name had flown from her head. As for answering his question… How could she, when she had no idea what it meant?
I am, she thought with great clarity, brain dead.
The thought made her laugh. Apparently, it was the right thing to do because the others laughed, too.
“It’s true, then,” Nicolo said smoothly. “You really did bid on a Renoir at an auction at Signore Russo’s gallery when you were seven years old?”
She flashed him a look filled with gratitude.
“Yes. I did. It was an accident, of course. I was there with my art tutor and I lifted my hand to scratch my nose.”
More laughter. Nicolo leaned toward her. “Brava, cara,” he whispered, and she wanted to grab his head and kiss him.
The dessert course, at last.
Tiramisu. Tiny chestnut cakes. Antique gold-rimmed liqueur glasses of strega and frangelico. Espresso, in a coffee service as old as the villa. Laughter. Chatter.
And Nicolo, who had taken pity on her and had his hand on her thigh, but kept it still.
She could, at least, think.
What she thought about was him.
That she’d been prepared to despise him. That she’d been certain he would be rough and uncultured. That he would not be able to hold his own among truly civilized, worldly people.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.