Her father gave her a knowing look. ‘You are avoiding answering my original question.’
That was probably because Nina had no idea what had prompted her father to ask it.
She had once again spent the day at the gallery, organising the final arrangement of the display cabinets. She’d felt slightly on edge in case she should see Rafe D’Angelo again, and then a certain amount of disappointment when she’d left the gallery at four o’clock without catching so much as a glimpse of its charismatic owner.
A disappointment she had chastised herself for feeling as she lay soaking in a perfumed bath an hour or so later; Rafe D’Angelo was not a man she should become in the least interested in. He was arrogant, mocking, and, even more importantly, not in the least bit interested in her.
Even so, Nina hadn’t been able to resist switching on her laptop and looking him up on the Internet once she had finished her bath, sitting on her bed in her dressing gown, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, to scroll through the pages and pages of information and gossip on the highly photographed Raphael D’Angelo. She’d told herself that it was because she needed to know all that she could about the man her father had invited to dinner this evening—other than the fact that he brought out a physical reaction in her that she found distinctly uncomfortable.
It had taken her several minutes of scrolling before she found a photograph of him from the previous evening, as he enjoyed an intimate dinner for two at an exclusive New York restaurant, with the beautiful actress Jennifer Nichols—obviously the ‘previous engagement’ that had prompted him to refuse her father’s initial dinner invitation. Nina had switched off her laptop in disgust.
Nina had decided that Rafe D’Angelo was nothing more than a rake and a womaniser, and she refused to waste any more of her time—or her emotions—on him.
‘You are still avoiding it, Nina,’ her father prompted gently.
She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘That’s probably because I have no idea what prompted you to ask such a question, Papa.’
‘You are looking very beautiful this evening, maya doch.’
‘Are you saying I don’t normally?’ she teased.
Her father gave an answering smile. ‘You know you are always beautiful to me, Nina. But tonight you seem to have made a special effort to be so.’
Probably because, after seeing that photograph of Rafe D’Angelo with the actress Jennifer Nichols, that was exactly what she had done! Which was pretty silly of her; she could never hope to compete with the beauty or sophistication of the A-list actress.
Nor should she want to.
Rafe D’Angelo meant nothing to her. As she meant nothing to him.
‘And I do not believe you have made this special effort on my behalf,’ her father added softly. ‘So, do you like this Raphael D’Angelo?’ he persisted.
Nina gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I don’t know him well enough to like or dislike him, Papa.’
‘You spent some time alone with him yesterday.’
She gave a pained frown. ‘I thought we had agreed, after I left Stanford, that I would continue to have my own security detail but that they would only report to you if I was in any danger?’
‘We did,’ her father confirmed unconcernedly. ‘And that has not changed, nor will it. I did not receive this information from your own security detail, Nina. I do not need to do so, when I have my own,’ he added softly.
‘Let me guess, one of the workmen who accompanied me to the gallery yesterday was one of your men,’ she guessed impatiently. ‘Papa, you really shouldn’t have done that.’ She sighed.
He shrugged. ‘I am merely interested to know what you and D’Angelo talked about for the twenty-three minutes you were alone with him in his office,’ he prompted lightly.
‘Twenty-three minutes?’ Nina repeated, incredulous. ‘You timed how long I was in there?’
‘My man did, yes,’ her father dismissed unconcernedly. ‘Are you aware of D’Angelo’s reputation with women?’
‘Papa, I’m not going to discuss this with you any further!’ She threw her hands up in the air in disgust. ‘My meeting yesterday with Rafe D’Angelo was purely business.’
‘Rafe?’
She nodded. ‘It’s what he prefers to be called. And my meeting with him yesterday was on your behalf, I might add.’ She felt a blush warm in her cheeks as she remembered those few seconds, just prior to her leaving Rafe’s office, when it had almost felt as if he had been about to kiss her. Before, because of her own nervousness, she had put an end to that intimacy.