An Invitation to Sin

‘Granita.’ Geovana placed a glass filled with frosted sorbet in front of her and gestured that Taylor should eat the brioche with the granita. Unable to find a way of refusing without offending, Taylor broke off a piece of the soft, warm roll and ate as instructed, intending to take only a nibble.

‘Oh, that’s so good…?.’ She closed her eyes briefly, enjoying the flavour and the novelty of starting her day with food. She was so used to disciplining herself not to eat that she’d forgotten the pleasure of breakfast.

‘Sex and food in one day. You really have fallen off the wagon.’ Luca strolled into the room looking maddeningly fresh and relaxed while Taylor averted her gaze. He was the biggest temptation of all.

‘I came down for coffee and—’ She broke off as he kissed her and then stole a corner of her brioche. ‘Don’t do that!’

‘Kiss you or steal your food?’

Judging from the way Geovana beamed at them both, she was thrilled by the scene of morning-after domesticity and Taylor was trapped by the story they’d spun.

Luca spoke in Italian to Geovana and helped himself to coffee and brioche while watching Taylor. ‘You don’t like breakfast?’

‘Of course I like breakfast. It’s my favourite meal if you must know. Crispy bacon and a short stack.’ Her stomach growled. ‘I ran away from home once just so that I could eat it.’

‘You had to run away from home to eat breakfast?’

‘My mother decided that if I was allowed to embrace my appetites I soon wouldn’t have a career.’

‘So that’s when you stopped eating.’

‘I didn’t stop eating but I learned to control myself.’ Until I met you.

‘But having to control yourself for every minute of every day is exhausting. Eventually your natural impulses escape.’

‘No, they don’t, because I hold them in.’ Except she hadn’t held them in the night before. She knew it. He knew it.

Taylor found herself looking at him across the table and thinking about the night before and maybe he felt it because his gaze lifted to hers and in that single split second she knew he was thinking about the same thing. Dropping her gaze, she focused on her breakfast, feeling intensely vulnerable. Not because they’d had sex, but because she’d been herself. It had been real.

And he knew it.

‘I need to make a move.’ She stood up suddenly and gave Geovana a faltering smile. ‘Thank you. Grazie…’ She stumbled over the word, embarrassed that her Italian was so limited. ‘That was the most delicious breakfast.’

Draining his coffee, Luca rose to his feet, kissed Geovana lightly on both cheeks and walked to the door. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

She would have preferred to drive herself but she knew that to have admitted that would have triggered questions she didn’t want to answer so instead she followed him into the car, her heart sinking at the thought of another day of filming. She wanted to lose herself in the role but with Rafaele hovering in her line of vision it was impossible.

‘So what’s the history between you and Rafaele?’ Luca accelerated down the long, tree-lined drive. ‘You dumped him. Why the antagonism?’

‘I’m sure your world is populated by disgruntled exes.’

‘That’s all that’s going on here?’

She almost told him the truth but stopped herself in time, alarmed by the impulse to confide. She’d learned never to confide. Never to trust. She knew better than anyone that today’s confession was tomorrow’s headline so she kept her answer suitably bland. ‘He isn’t an easy man to please. He’s very critical.’ And he’d threatened her, but of course only she knew that. Only she knew what he was holding over her.

‘These photographs are boring.’ Luca scanned the images of a pretty girl standing on the sand with the sea behind her. ‘It’s like an advert for butter, not clothes. She’s too wholesome. That girl has never had wild dirty sex in her life. Where’s the edge? At the very least you should have stuck a huge shark in the water. We need something more contemporary and modern.’

‘She is modern.’

‘She looks like the girl next door.’ It didn’t help that he’d just had a night of raunchy sex with a woman he suspected might be half she-wolf. He turned away and stared out of the window of his office, thinking about Taylor.

She hadn’t had much sleep the night before and she was expected to put in a twelve-hour day on the set with a director known for his childish temper tantrums and out of control drinking habit.

A director who was clearly still festering over the fact Taylor had once dumped him.