‘Of course it is,’ Riccardo agreed, touching the Victorian tiles and giving Charlotte the distinct impression that he was only half listening to what she had said. ‘If I came across as bombarding you with personal stuff then…’ He glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘Please accept my heartfelt apologies.’
Charlotte looked at him suspiciously. She wouldn’t have put him down as the apologising sort of man, but who was to say what kind of man he was now? One thing was certain—she didn’t want to antagonise him. Some instinct inside her told her that that would be a very unwise thing to do indeed. She would get through this viewing, and the best way to do it would be with a smile on her face, then she could get back to her life. Besides, maybe she had been at fault, bristling for no good reason and reading innuendo when there had just been curiosity.
‘Sure.’ She shrugged and then grinned at him reluctantly. ‘I guess we’re both a bit shocked to find ourselves here, facing each other after all this time.’
‘So let’s start again, shall we?’ Dangerous curiosity began to uncurl inside him. Was she married? There was no ring, but nowadays that didn’t say a hell of a lot. Maybe she was divorced. ‘You look well. Life must agree with you…Are you married?’
Just at that precise moment in time, her mobile phone rang. Ben. Charlotte mouthed a ‘sorry’ and half turned so that she could conduct a whispered conversation, then, as she snapped shut the phone, she turned to Riccardo and said brightly, ‘Not married, no. Not yet, anyway…’
There! If that didn’t establish some well-defined boundaries between them, then what would?
CHAPTER THREE
RICCARDO let that ride. So the teenager had matured into a woman involved in a relationship and on the brink of marriage. It had always been her dream. Thinking back, he could remember snippets of conversation when she had confided in him that there was a little bit of her that was jealous of her sister, jealous of all that domestic stability. He could remember laughing and denigrating an institution that was based around cementing two people together, usually when they were way too young to recognise the compromises it involved, but conversations like that had only ever lasted for a short while because there had always been better things to do.
Then she had shown up on his doorstep, clutching dreams of commitment and marriage, and he had been forced to recognise that perhaps he should have paid a bit more attention to those tenuous threads of conversations that he had allowed to waft by.
He made a big mental effort to be magnanimous on her behalf, but his head was playing weird tricks on him, forcing him to remember the tantalising feel of her body writhing under him, and the way he had not been able to get enough of her. From that springboard, that slow curl of curiosity began to swell. He wondered what the man was like and felt an unwelcome jolt of jealousy.
‘So…what happened to the university plans? When I found out how old you were—or should I say how young you were—you told me that you were on your way to university to study…what was it?’
‘Land management.’ Now they were entering perilous waters, and Charlotte could feel little pinpricks of perspiration breaking out all over her body.
‘So what happened to the land management dreams?’
‘Oh, you know…’ she said vaguely. ‘Dreams come and go. Look, have you seen enough of this room? Because I have a bit of a drive back home.’
‘Oh yes? And home would be…?’
‘Not around here!’ Charlotte laughed and briskly took the lead, sweeping out of the breakfast room and heading towards the kitchen which she intended to describe in such depth that he would probably keel over in boredom. Anything to avoid him questioning her. Yes, his questions were harmless, and pretty predictable given the history they had briefly shared, but they still had her on tenterhooks.