‘So, that rankled, did it?’ A teasing glint danced in his eyes. ‘I thought it might.’
So he’d said that deliberately to get a rise out of her? Did he want her or not? Or was he just playing with her? Letting her dangle like a pathetic mouse being tortured by a mean-spirited cat. Alice pursed her lips and tried to pull back but his hands were clamped on her hips. ‘Let me go.’
‘Is that really what you want?’
‘Yes.’ She all but spat the word out. But inside her body was screaming. No-o-o-o!
‘Fine.’ He dropped his hands and stepped away, a knowing smile lifting the edges of his mouth. ‘No harm done, sì? But if you change your mind, you know where to find me.’
Alice ground her teeth so hard she thought her molars were going to crack. The only harm done was to her pride. Why had she allowed him to get the upper hand? He’d fooled her into thinking he had changed. He had even expressed his regret—albeit in veiled terms—about the ring he’d bought in the past. But at the heart of it all he wanted to prove was he had moved on from her—that he hadn’t got any lingering feelings where she was concerned. He hadn’t missed her one little bit. He’d soon found someone else to scratch his itch. He might still desire her, but that was all he wanted from her now. Sex.
How different from what he had offered her in the past. Back then he’d promised her the world—his heart, his soul, his love. Now all he promised was mind-blowing, body-tingling sex. A trashy little affair to pass the time until they could end their relationship once they’d fulfilled the terms of his grandmother’s will. How could she agree to something like that when it was so unlike what they’d had before?
Because you still want him, that’s why.
Not that much.
Are you sure about that?
Alice wasn’t so sure about a lot of things any more. The desire Cristiano stirred in her refused to bank down in spite of all her efforts to control her response to him. It was like simmering coals deep in her body, just waiting to erupt into leaping, quick-licking flames. Could she risk an affair with him and to hell with the consequences? She could keep her feelings separate. That was what men did without any bother. Why couldn’t she?
‘I’m not going to let you play games with me, Cristiano.’
‘Games, cara?’ His brow rose above one eye. ‘Isn’t that your specialty?’
Alice pressed her lips together. ‘You won’t win this. You think you can get me to beg? Think again. I don’t want you anything like the way you want me.’
A satirical light entered his gaze. ‘There’s one simple way to test that little theory of yours. Would you like to try it?’
Alice stepped two more steps back and folded her arms across her body. ‘If you come any closer I’ll... I’ll bite you.’
‘Promise?’ His sexy half-smile made something deep in her belly turn over.
The doorbell sounded and Cristiano reached past her to answer it. ‘That will be our dinner.’
* * *
Cristiano carried the meal he’d organised to be delivered from a nearby restaurant through to where Alice had set up the dining table. She was angry with him for not acting on her invitation. He’d wanted to. So much his entire body throbbed with the need to crush his mouth to hers. Still throbbed. He wanted her but on his terms, not hers. What was she playing at anyway? A teasing kiss or two to prove he had no resistance when it came to her?
That he’d missed her?
He’d missed her all right. He’d missed her so damn much it had taken him months to sleep with another woman. The women he’d been seen in public with after their breakup were just casual dates, but he had not pursued them any further. A drink or two, a dance, a dinner or a show—that was all. He hadn’t been able to stop himself comparing them to Alice. Finding fault with their looks, their clothes, their manners or their conversation—or lack of it. Even when he did start sleeping with partners, he’d felt something wasn’t quite right. But he’d put that down to the fact of how different having a hook up or fling was from having a relationship where you truly got to know the person.
But had he known Alice? Truly known her? He hadn’t even got her taste right in rings. Not that any ring would have been right given she looked upon marriage as a form of modern-day slavery.
Not that his views back then had helped. It had taken him a few more years than he was proud of to see where Alice had been coming from. His conservative views on marriage had undergone some significant changes. He no longer saw a woman’s role in such black and white terms. He understood the need for women to have the opportunity to reach their potential career-wise in the way most men took for granted. Having both a career and a family was something as a young man he had never questioned, and yet for a woman it had so many more implications. Careers and children were hard to juggle if one wanted to do both things well. Even men these days were starting to question the high demands of corporate life and how it impacted on their relationships at home.
But while Cristiano might have changed some of his strong views, he wasn’t so sure Alice had changed hers. She seemed even more committed to her career, with expansion plans on the horizon. She hardly ever dated, according to her helpful employee Meghan. Why was that? Alice was a normal healthy young woman in the prime of her life. Why wouldn’t she be out there doing what every girl her age did? She didn’t even have a housemate. She lived all alone in a gorgeous house that looked as if it could be in a beautiful homes magazine.
But was she happy?
Cristiano didn’t think so...but then, maybe that was because he was annoyed she hadn’t been as committed to him as he had been to her. Or was it more because she was seemingly happy and he wasn’t? He hadn’t been happy, not from the moment she’d told him they were over. How had he got it so screwed up? He’d thought she loved him. Her body had if not her heart. She had been his most giving lover, and without doubt the most exciting. He had blithely thought she would accept his proposal with unbounded enthusiasm.
Blithely or arrogantly?
He hadn’t expected her to say no because back then he had been the one with the money and status. He was the Prize Catch as the press put it. He had chosen the restaurant that night in which to deliver his proposal, not out of design but eagerness. That was what annoyed him the most. He had been too impatient. He had picked the ring up on the way to meet her after work. That, too, had been more impulse than plan. He had walked past a high-end jeweller’s and that had been it. Decision made. No thought had gone into it. It had simply felt like the right thing to do.
Which showed how much feelings weren’t to be trusted. He had been so excited about his dreams for their future, so focussed on securing her commitment, that he hadn’t picked up on her mood. He’d been like a goofy kid unable to contain himself. If he had waited until they got home to his villa in Milan would she have given him a different answer? If he had given her more time? A few days, weeks or even months? Would she have felt less pressured? Less cornered?