The sound of the lock turning made her nerves scream.
Slowly, Narciso walked towards her. With his every step she willed her feet to move in the other direction, away from the imposing body and icy fury bearing down on her. But she remained frozen.
She held her breath as he stopped a whisper from her.
‘My intention was to find you and explain things better, perhaps even apologise for what I said in my study.’
Her heart lifted, then plummeted again when she deciphered his meaning. ‘Well, I’m waiting.’
‘Oh, you won’t be getting an apology from me now, amante.’
He leaned over and looked into the copper pan bubbling on the stove. Picking up a spoon, he scooped up some sauce and sampled it.
‘Not half bad. What is it?’
‘Oh, I thought you’d recognise it, Narciso. This sauce I’ve named The Valentino Slimeball Special. It’ll taste divine with the freshly made Playboy’s Puffballs I’m planning on serving them with. You’ll love it, trust me.’
Slowly, he lowered the spoon and speared her with those icy silver eyes. ‘Say that again.’
‘I’m pretty certain there’s nothing wrong with your hearing.’
He tossed the spoon into the sink and leaned closer, bracing his hands on either side of her so she was locked in. ‘Say it again anyway. I like the way that pretty mouth of yours pouts when you say puffballs.’
Despite his indolent words, his eyes glinted with fury. Her instinct warned her to retreat, but caged in like this, watching the erratic pulse beating at his throat, she knew any attempt at escape would be futile.
He was hanging on to his control by a thread. The sudden urge to shatter it the way he seemed to shatter hers so very easily made her stand her ground.
‘You’ll have to beg me if you want that.’
‘Ah, Ruby, shall I let you in on personal insight?’
‘Can I stop you?’
‘I think you delight in pushing my buttons because you know it’ll get you kissed. Am I right?’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘Then why are you licking your lips like that? Anticipation has you almost insane with desperation right now.’
‘You have a ridiculously high opinion of yourself.’
‘Prove me wrong, then.’
‘I won’t play your stupid games.’
‘Scared?’
‘No. Uninterested.’
‘Believe me, Ruby, this isn’t a game.’ When his hands went to undo the tie holding her dress together, she batted them away.
‘Stop. What’s wrong with you?’
His laugh was filled with bitter incredulity. ‘I walk in here to find you moaning for another man and you ask me what’s wrong with me?’
‘You’re jealous?’
Right before her eyes he seemed to deflate. His hold on her dress ties loosened. And the eyes that speared hers held hellish agitation.
‘Yes! I’m jealous. Does that make you happy?’
Her senses screamed yes. Jealousy meant that she mattered in some way to him. The way he’d come to matter to her. ‘Why did you come in here, Narciso?’
He sucked in a breath. ‘I told you, to apologise.’
‘Because my feelings are hurt or because you hurt me?’
He lifted a hand and trailed his fingers down her cheek. ‘Because I hurt you,’ he rasped deeply.
The breath shuddered out of her. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘Don’t thank me, Ruby. What I’m feeling...what you make me feel, I don’t know what to do with it. It may well come back and bite us both.’
‘But at least you’re acknowledging it. So what happened in your study?’ she asked before she lost her nerve.
His lips firmed. ‘That woman in the picture you saw. Her name is Maria.’
She bit her lip to stem the questions flooding her.
‘She’s Paolina’s—my housekeeper’s—granddaughter. I met her that summer ten years ago. She came to visit from Palermo. Paolina brought her to the house and we hung out. By the second week I’d convinced her to stay for the whole summer. I believed myself...infatuated with her.’ His lips pinched until the skin showed white. ‘I was young and naïve and respected her see-but-don’t-touch edict. Until I found out she was giving it up to Giacomo.’
Shock rocked through her. ‘She was sleeping with your father?’
‘Not only sleeping with him. He’d convinced her to make a sex tape, which he forced me to watch on the last day of my stay in Sicily.’ Something in the way he said it made her tense.
‘What do you mean forced?’
His teeth bared in a parody of a smile. ‘He had two of his bodyguards hold me down in a chair while the video played on a super-wide screen, complete with surround sound. It was quite the cinematic experience.’