An Invitation to Sin(16)

‘You call that parked?' One eyebrow raised, she looked at the Ferrari. ‘You can't seriously intend to leave it there.'

‘They're lucky I choose to park my car outside their restaurant. People  will pause, admire it and then want to dine in their restaurant to catch  a glimpse of the man who owns such a cool car.'

‘Or the woman.'

‘This is a man's car, tesoro.'

‘So defined by the idiot driving it?' Those beautiful green eyes  narrowed in challenge and he was pleased to have broken through that  seemingly impenetrable wall of control.

He decided to push a little harder. ‘There is no way you'd be able to  drive it. This baby has a six-point-three-litre V-12 engine with four  valves per cylinder-' he glanced lovingly at the car ‘-and it hovers on  the borders of legal. It can shift from car to beast in less than four  seconds.'

‘A bit like its owner.' Without waiting for him she strolled into the  restaurant, those long bare legs drawing more admiring glances than the  Ferrari.

She looked good and she knew it. He was fast discovering there was no greater aphrodisiac than a woman aware of her own appeal.

His own gaze fixed on those legs, Luca tried to cool the heat burning  inside him and decided she and the car had more in common than she ever  would have admitted. Both were high maintenance and both were  eye-catching.

As he caught up with her he took her hand in his.

Her eyes widened. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Playing the part of your devoted lover,' he drawled softly, ‘only my  leading lady appears to have forgotten her lines. If I have to be  engaged, then at least let it be to the woman who yesterday had her legs  wrapped round me in the maze. Don't give me this bland, vanilla  version.'

She blinked. Frowned slightly. ‘This is who I am.'

‘If I thought that for a moment this engagement would be off. I'd die of  boredom before we hit our first anniversary and you'd burst from  suppressing all that emotion.'

‘Signor Corretti!' A man approached them and Luca felt Taylor tug at her hand, trying to free herself.

He tightened his grip and greeted the owner in Italian. ‘I need a table.'

‘Somewhere private?'                       
       
           



       

Distracted by Taylor's glossy lips, Luca lost concentration. ‘Of course.'

‘No, not private.' Taylor flashed her eyes, trying to transmit a  message, but he was too busy deciding if those eyes were green or blue  to translate the unspoken communication.

‘I don't want an audience.'

‘But I do.' She slid her arms around his neck and gave him a feline  smile. ‘Don't you want to show off our love to the world, honey?'

Luca, who had never been called ‘honey' in his life, remembered  belatedly that the purpose of being here was to be seen. ‘You're an  exhibitionist, angelo mia.'

‘Says the man who just parked a red Ferrari in a no-parking zone.'  Laughing, she trailed a purple fingernail across his cheek and he turned  his head and caught her finger gently in his teeth.

Clearing his throat subtly, the owner of the restaurant beamed at them.  ‘I have a table by the water. So romantic and, on that topic, may I  offer our congratulations. We are all delighted by your news.'

Determined to demonstrate that he could play his part as well as her and  remembering what she'd said about conjuring up the emotions from deep  inside her, Luca tried to imagine how it would feel to be engaged.  Deciding that ‘freaked out' wasn't going to help his performance, he  swiftly ditched that advice and instead thought about the article he'd  read. ‘I am happy, excited and can't bear to be parted from her even for  a moment.'

Smiling at an astonished Giovanni, Taylor urged Luca towards a prime  table situated at the edge of the water. ‘Your performance was  terrible,' she hissed in an undertone. ‘You should have let me give you  acting lessons.'

‘I don't need acting lessons.'

‘You sounded as if you were reading from an autocue.'

‘An autocue might be a good idea. I'm definitely not fluent in the  language of love.' Luca sat down at the table and ordered champagne.

‘Yes, about that.' She paused as the waiter fussed around them, waiting  until they were on their own to finish her sentence. ‘From now on, I  don't want you to touch me.'

‘Scusi? Are we or are we not supposed to be engaged?'

‘We are, but I'm not into public displays of affection.' She kept her  eyes down, adjusting her cutlery while Luca stared at her in disbelief.

‘I'm Sicilian. We're an emotional, physical race.'

‘Then hold it in.' Her eyes lifted to his and he saw something there he didn't expect to see.

Panic?

For a moment he was baffled by it, then he remembered the way she'd  responded to him in the maze. ‘Ah-now I understand. Enjoying sex is on  your forbidden list too, and you are finding it hard to resist me, no?'

‘No.' She answered just a little too quickly and then covered her glass  to stop the waiter pouring champagne. ‘Just water, please.'

Luca rolled his eyes and removed her glass, handing it to the waiter. ‘Fill it up. She needs help to relax.'

‘I do not need help to relax. I'm already relaxed.' He waited for the  waiter to leave them alone. ‘I've seen steel cables more relaxed than  you. You're such a sexual woman, and you hate that about yourself, don't  you? You're trying to lock that part of yourself away and pretend to be  something you're not.'

‘I do eat. I drink if I want to, and our relationship is not about sex so that's irrelevant.'

‘Let's hope no one was lip-reading when you said that.' He lowered his  voice. ‘Trust me, if we're engaged, there's going to be food and  champagne and, most of all, sex. Lots of hot, steamy, very dirty sex so  if you want this to appear genuine you'd better stop suppressing that  side of yourself.'

Her cheeks turned pink as the waiter approached with her water.

‘Thank you so much.' She gave a smile that turned the poor man into a gibbering wreck and Luca gave an amused smile.

‘You're all promise and no follow-through.'

‘I can follow through when it suits me.'

‘And when is that? When you explode from holding it all in?'

Her fingers tightened on her glass. ‘I'm not holding anything in.'

‘You are suppressing so much, dolcezza, that when you finally blow the  aftershocks are going to be felt back in your homeland. Don't worry.  I'll be there to drag you from the rubble.'

She smiled. ‘Do you think about anything but sex?'

‘You're upset that I understand you so well.'

‘You don't understand me at all.'                       
       
           



       

‘No? Let's do a Taylor Carmichael 101.' He put his glass down and leaned  forward in his chair. ‘You long to let yourself go. I saw the way you  reacted to my car in the first few minutes before you remembered you  weren't supposed to enjoy fast cars. You long to drink champagne, but  you daren't in case you drink a bit too much and lose control.'

‘Is that the best you can do?'

‘I haven't finished. You can't go anywhere without first looking to see  where the photographers are hidden. You know they're part of the job but  for some reason they make you nervous.'

She reached out slender fingers and took an olive. ‘Are you done?'

‘Not yet.' It was only because he was looking that he saw her fingers  shake slightly. ‘You don't trust anyone any more. You've locked yourself  away. You won't tell me why so I'm guessing it's something you're  ashamed of. Something you regret.' He watched as the colour drained from  her cheeks.

Her breathing grew shallow and she looked away quickly. ‘You talk nonsense.'

‘I scored a direct hit,' Luca said softly. ‘Now drink some champagne or  the headlines tomorrow will be that you're already pregnant and that's  the reason we're marrying. Neither of us wants that.'

After a moment's hesitation she picked up the slender champagne glass. ‘To our future.'

‘To lots of legal sex.' He glanced up as the waiter approached. ‘Don't  bother giving my beloved a menu, Pietro, I'll order for both of us. It  will be a good test of how well I know her.'

To give her credit, Taylor kept her smile in place. ‘But, sweetheart, you know I like to order for myself.'

‘I know you do, my little cabbage, but I'm a macho Sicilian male and  apart from that inherent trait that drives me to protect you from all  things including menus written only in Italian, I'm suspicious of your  ordering skills. You'll order the wrong thing.'