She lifted her chin. ‘You’re belittling my job now?’
‘Not at all. I appreciate the value of a skilled assistant. I have an excellent one myself, and she is an asset to my office. But this—’ he lifted a hand to indicate their surroundings ‘—is not the career you were planning seven years ago.’
Not the answer she’d expected. Still, she didn’t need to justify her choices. Her job was not the dream career in design she’d once envisaged, but hopes and dreams, just like people—just like tiny, innocent, unborn babies—could unexpectedly die.
She dismissed his censure with a shrug. She worked hard, made an honest independent living, and no one—not her father and certainly not this man—had any right to judge her. ‘Plans change. People change. And how I make a living is no business of yours.’
His black-lashed eyes treated her to a long, intense regard that made her tummy muscles tighten. ‘You are right—it’s not my business,’ he said at last, though his tone wasn’t in the least contrite. ‘What you do in the coming weeks, however, is. Assuming you want to proceed with this little plan of yours?’
She stared at him, a prickle of unease tiptoeing down her spine. Weeks? Her arms fell to her sides. ‘You’re not serious about me spending a whole week in Italy?’ Her stunned gaze met his cool, unwavering stare. She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. That...that wasn’t the agreement.’
His brows snapped together. ‘We had no agreement, as I recall. You chose instead to put me in a difficult position with my client and then used it as a means of blackmail.’
Blackmail? ‘I did no such thing!’ Her face flamed. With indignation, she told herself. Not with guilt. Definitely not guilt. ‘You chose not to correct Carlos’s assumption about us. I simply played along and then suggested we might come to some...some mutually beneficial arrangement.’
‘Ah. Yes. The “mutually beneficial arrangement” in which I grant your father a grace period of four weeks, and in return you give me the pleasure of your company for—’ his eyebrows rose ‘—one night?’
She smoothed her palms down the front of her black knee-length skirt. ‘One evening,’ she corrected, keeping her chin elevated. ‘And, yes, that would be the arrangement to which I’m referring.’
He laughed—a deep, mellifluous sound that seemed to reach out and brush her skin like the rub of raw silk.
Her anger spiked. ‘Is something amusing?’
‘Only your ability to play naive when it suits you.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you are well aware those terms are weighted in your favour and not mine.’ He took his time adjusting a silver cufflink on his left sleeve. When he looked up, his expression had hardened. ‘Did you think I would simply roll over for you, Helena?’
The undercurrent of menace in his voice made her knees quiver again. ‘But why?’ she blurted. ‘What could you possibly want with me for a week?’
One side of his mouth kicked up. ‘What, indeed?’ he murmured, his gaze sweeping her length in an unhurried appraisal that set her teeth on edge—more so because she knew her clumsy question had invited it. ‘Let’s call it a balancing of the odds.’ His eyes flicked back to hers. ‘It would be a crime, would it not, if one of us were to feel...cheated?’
An enigmatic response at best. A deflection of her question as skilful as it was irritating.
She crossed to a window, leaned her hip against the metal sill and attempted nonchalance. ‘So our pretence of being a couple—you’re suggesting we keep that up for the entire week?’
‘Si.’
‘Why?’
‘People will want to see us.’
‘What people?’
‘The people who have heard about you.’ He tilted his head and smiled. ‘Do not look so puzzled, Helena. You know how it is among the rich and privileged—the gossip mill is a voracious beast. And Rome is no different from London. Worse, in fact. We Italians love our drama.’
Her temples started to throb. ‘But I met Carlos only three nights ago.’
He gave another of his maddening shrugs. ‘Carlos tells his wife. His wife tells their daughter. Anna tells a friend...or twenty. News travels. You know how it works.’
Yes. She knew how it worked—that brittle, superficial world of the social elite. It had been her world once and she rarely missed it. Scratch the surface of gloss and glamour and every time you’d find a bitter core of hypocrisy and backstabbing.
She massaged the growing pressure in her temples. What madness had she started? ‘What if we don’t convince them?’
‘That we are lovers?’
‘Yes.’ The word came out slightly strangled.