Shoulders slumped, she stared at her plate for a long time. “What if I said I’d like to see you again too, but here? At your house?”
Her body language told him volumes about the importance of his answer.
He shrugged. “The last time I dated, dinosaurs roamed the earth. I’m not so big on it, either. I just want to see you. When? Pick a day that works for your life.”
A firm commitment would settle the uneasiness prickling his spine quite well.
When she looked up from her plate, tears had gathered and one slid down her face. A giant fist clenched his gut as she wiped away the tear.
“I don’t have a life,” she whispered.
“Evangeline...” What was he supposed to do? Say? Feel?
Instinctively, he slid from the stool, gathered her into his arms and held her, mystified, but happy to be doing something. She melted into him, her hands clutching his shoulders as if she couldn’t get close enough, and he ached over her unidentified agony.
“I’m sorry. I don’t usually fall apart in the middle of being asked out on a date.” Her watery chuckle gave him hope things hadn’t gone entirely to hell.
“I’m not asking you out on a date. No, ma’am. I have it on good authority you aren’t big on dates. I’m asking you to my house for...dinner?” he offered, praying that would get a thumbs-up. “I’ll cook.”
“Dinner would be nice,” she said into his shoulder. “Tonight. Tomorrow night. Any night.”
“Tonight. In fact, just stay,” he said, voicing the invitation he should have issued from the outset. This place needed her light. He needed it. “Unless you’re sick of me or need to go hang out with Vincenzo since you’re his guest.”
“Vincenzo is probably sleeping off his hangover and won’t notice if I’m there or not.”
The forlorn note clinched it. Unless he’d completely lost his marbles, she wasn’t ready to say ciao, either.
“I’ll definitely notice if you’re here or not. Italian TV leaves a lot to be desired, and I’d rather be with you. Spend another night, or better yet, through the weekend.” The words rushed out before he’d hardly formed the thought, but the relevance of it, the weight of what he asked, was already there, inside him. He’d finally woken up from an eighteen-month stupor, and there was no way he’d let it end. “Will you stay?”
She hesitated, lids closed in apparent indecision. When she opened her eyes, the flicker in their depths warned him something he might not like was about to happen.
“Why haven’t you asked me about my voice?”
He blinked. “Was I supposed to?”
“It’s damaged. Aren’t you curious? You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Damaged? It hadn’t always been that way? “You noticed my hands and I noticed your voice. I love your voice. It’s one of the sexiest things about you.”
“It’s not sexy. It’s horrific, like a sixty-year old with a four-pack-a-day habit.”
He laughed, but it didn’t sound like he was amused. Because he wasn’t. “That’s ridiculous. Your voice is unusual. That’s what makes it special. When you say my name, it latches onto me, right here.” He grasped her hand and slapped it to his stomach. “I love that. I love that you can affect me by speaking.”
She pulled her hand free. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
Frustrated, he shoved fingers through his hair. He’d invited her to draw out their one night, not solve world hunger—couldn’t it be a simple yes or no?
“Fine. Evangeline, what happened to your voice?”
“When you sing a lot, polyps grow on your vocal cords. Sometimes they rupture. It requires a special expertise to perform the surgery to fix it. Adele had a good doctor. I didn’t.”
His brain nearly curdled at the lightning-fast subject change. “What’s a lot? Like you sang professionally, you mean?”
“Yeah. Professionally. A lot.” Her eyes searched his, hesitating, evaluating, and he got the impression she was feeling him out. They were still very much in the throes of negotiation, and he couldn’t stumble now.
“No false pretenses,” she said. “If I stay, I need you to know. When I sang, it was by another name. Eva.”
“Eva.”
The name flashed an image in his mind of the woman before him, but transformed into a lush, heavily made-up singer on stage in a tiny gold dress, with a hundred dancers weaving around behind her.
“Eva-who-performed-at-the-Super Bowl-Eva?”
She nodded, expression graveyard still as she waited for his reaction.