‘Knew you’d agree with old Jack. And we could pretend to be an item if it makes it easier. A fair few women have told me what a sexy hunk I am.’ He folded his hands behind his head and looked smug. ‘Which just goes to show that bald men can still pull the birds.’
Francesca didn’t think for a minute that Angelo harboured any feelings towards her, bar the obvious one of wanting to see her suffer, but it certainly felt more reassuring thinking that Jack was some sort of emotional barrier between them.
Lord only knew how he intended to play the role, but she had given him sufficient warnings about what he was to say and what he wasn’t. The upshot was that he had agreed to talk only about the food, with which he was inordinately talented. In the event of any pregnant pauses, she’d informed him, he was to rush in with illuminating chat on regional Italian cuisine, which was something he knew more about than most Italians, especially considering he had never set foot on Italian soil. Under no circumstances, she’d warned him repeatedly, was he to indulge in any chit-chat about the past.
‘Talk about the food, sit and look pretty.’
‘Pretty might be pushing it,’ Francesca had countered but, the following day, she had to admit that he had scrubbed up well. He had pulled his only suit out of hibernation, matched it to a tie that just managed to get away with being quirky and a pinstriped shirt she had never seen. A present from one of his many ex-girlfriends, he had confided in her.
Classically, he just missed the mark, but he had the face of the perennial charmer. Wicked blue eyes and a rough appeal that had trapped many an unwary victim.
And she had taken time with her outfit as well. A smart, simple suit that was businesslike but in a warm apricot colour which stopped it from looking too severe. She knew that they looked like a well-matched team, but her heart was still beating madly when the time arrived and they were walking into the bar at the hotel.
A few days’ reprieve and some sensible thinking had done very little to still her nerves. She found her eyes skittering around the room, searching him out. He wasn’t there.
‘Relax,’ Jack said under his breath.
But even when they were seated, with their fruit juices in front of them, she still couldn’t relax. She started to think he had changed his mind. His fiancée had talked him out of it and because she, Francesca, didn’t matter, he hadn’t seen fit to call and tell her the change of plan. By the time she finally saw his familiar figure standing in the doorway she had convinced herself that they were simply not going to bother to arrive.
Draped on his arm was a petite blonde, impeccably groomed and stunningly dressed in a casual short floral skirt and a silk vest top with a matching jacket that sat snugly on her waist. She heard Jack’s swift intake of breath and smiled inwardly, imagining what he was thinking. Georgina would be just the sort of woman he found impossibly attractive. Blonde, small, fragile. He would find it very difficult not to flirt and, to his credit, he didn’t. At least, not for the first forty-five minutes, during which they discussed menus, changes to menus, ingredients, everything under the sun to do with food.
All the while Francesca kept her eyes averted from Angelo, but every nerve in her body was tuned in to the lazy sprawl of his body on the chair next to her and to Georgina’s hand, resting lightly and possessively on his wrist.
She didn’t dare admit to herself how much it hurt to watch their familiarity, the way Georgina turned her face and smiled whenever he said anything, the way her slim hand sometimes touched his thigh in an absent-minded, feathery caress. She hoped to God she wasn’t staring, but she knew that she was rigid with tension.
When a bottle of chilled wine was brought to their table, her weak refusal was ignored and Angelo poured her a glass and held it out for her. The slight brush of their fingers made her want to yank her hand back because it was as if an electric shock had been delivered to her body and, when her eyes met his, she could see from the cool smile on his face that he was well aware of her reaction.
‘And how did you get into this line of business?’ she heard Georgina ask Jack when most of the details had been discussed and Francesca was beginning to think that it was an appropriate time to leave.