The Italian's Unexpected Heir

This got his attention. His gaze connected with hers, sending a jolt of awareness zinging through her body, but she refused to acknowledge it. Not now. Not like this.

“What about me?” His tone was cool and distant.

“I want to know why you’ve been acting different since we slept together—like we’re strangers.”

For a moment there was some sort of emotion in his eyes, but in a blink it was shuttered behind a wall of indifference. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Her back teeth ground together. He wasn’t going to do this to her. During the years of caring for her mother, she’d learned to be a fighter—fighting to keep a roof over their heads, fighting to have her mother admitted to a new clinical trial, fighting to make their lives as normal as possible. Through it all, she’d learned how to speak up and not back down.

Frustration bubbled up within her. “Don’t do this. Talk to me. I don’t understand what went wrong. I... I thought we both wanted that night. Didn’t we?”

He continued to stare at her. If he thought she was going to turn away, he had another think coming. She was the best starer in her primary school.

Then he let out a breath. His shoulders lowered just a bit, as though what had been holding him up had escaped in that breath. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“How about the truth? Why have you been avoiding me?”

The silence returned. It dragged on so long that she was pretty certain he was never going to answer her—never going to tell her what she’d done wrong.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” There was a note of accusation in his tone.

“Tell you?” She had no idea what he was talking about. “Tell you what?”

“That you were...you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

His mouth pressed closed as his dark brows drew together into a formidable line. “Tell me that you were a virgin.”

Her mouth opened to reply but no words would form as her mind raced with a million thoughts at once. Instead, she stood there with her mouth gaping open.

He was mad because she didn’t make a big deal out of her virginity? Seriously? How in the world could he be mad about that? Realizing that her mouth was still gaping open, she promptly closed it.

Enzo continued to stare at her like he really expected her to answer him. She didn’t know what sort of answer he expected. Or why she had to explain herself.

“I... I didn’t know my virginity needed to be stated before we made love. Would it really have made a difference?”

“Of course it would have.” He raked his fingers through his thick, dark hair, sending the short strands scattering. When his gaze met hers this time, there was an intensity there that she’d never seen before. “How could you think otherwise?”

“Because I wasn’t thinking about it when we were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. All I was thinking about was you.” Intense heat rushed to her face upon realizing that she’d said too much.

“Didn’t you think I deserved to know?”

“No.” Was that selfish of her? She didn’t think so. It’s not like any of this really affected him or their time together. There was something else going on here—something he wasn’t telling her.

Then he sighed. The lines on his handsome face smoothed. He turned away from her. He moved to the balustrade and then rested his forearms on the rail.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Though with him turned away from her, she had to strain to hear his words. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just have a lot on my mind.”

She wanted to ask if he was also sorry that they’d slept together, but she held back the words—but barely. At least they were getting somewhere. Now, if she could just keep him talking.

“Is it your sisters?” She’d known ever since she’d come to live and work at the Bartolini estate that his parents’ sudden deaths had caused not just a ripple through his life but a tsunami of pain that had shaken each Bartolini sibling to the very core.

“Yes. No. Not really.” There was anguish in his voice. Whatever was bothering him went deep, very deep.

She moved to stand next to him at the rail. The scene of the rolling hills of the vineyard was stunning and usually captivated her attention, but right now she was fully focused on Enzo.

Sylvie placed a hand on his arm. “You know you can talk to me about anything?”