“That’s the agreement.” Something about his wry expression suggested to her that he’d wrestled and bargained considerably to get that agreement from the Formula One racecar drivers. He noticed her raised brows. “It helped having Niki as the Montand Formula One driver. He agreed to it, and then dozens of drivers signed on, if only for the chance to beat him at a game where he might show a weakness.”
“Niki Dellis is a racecar driver?” Emma asked, recalling the handsome, charming man at Cristina’s funeral.
“The best,” Vanni said simply. “He’s driven a Montand car almost since the beginning of his career.”
“Is Niki French as well?”
“Greek. Although he has relations in Italy, Monaco and France. He comes from a very old family.” He seemed distracted for a moment, his long, blunt-tipped fingers caressing the handle of his coffee cup. Warmth infused her. It was a strangely erotic sight, his masculine fingers idly stroking the delicate china. “In fact, Niki is distantly related to Cristina.” Emma blinked in surprise. “Cristina and her sister were both renowned Italian socialites. Her sister is Maria Carboni.”
“The actress?” Emma asked, vaguely familiar with the curvy, tempestuous film actress who had transferred her success to Hollywood in the 1960s and ’70s.
Vanni nodded. “Maria is Niki’s grandmother, an older sister of Cristina’s. I try not to hold his relationship with Cristina against him,” he said with dark amusement. “But that’s how we met. He came and visited us in the States when he was ten, and we’ve been friends since.”
“When did your father marry Cristina?”
“When I was eight. Nine months after my mother died.”
He appeared entirely impassive saying it, but something struck her. She set down her coffee cup with a clatter she hadn’t intended. “Your mother passed away the year before Adrian did?” she asked weakly.
He nodded once. “I suppose someone like you would say it was a blessing.”
“What?” she asked, stunned and more than a little confused. “What do you mean someone like me?”
“Someone who believes that there’s meaning in something random like death,” he said. He noticed her stung expression. “Since my mother died young of leukemia, she never had to see one of her children die. That would have killed her on its own. You probably see that as a blessing. Meaningful. That’s all I meant. Of course, Adrian would never have died if she hadn’t died first, and if my father hadn’t felt the need to run off and find someone else to fill his bed and play mother to us. Someone entirely incompetent, at the latter task, anyway,” he added cynically under his breath.
She sat forward slightly. “Is that what you think?” she asked quietly. “That I don’t realize how hard it is, how sad, to lose someone you love, just because I told you about my experience with dying? That’s not fair, Vanni.” He blinked at the cold steel in her tone. “I still grieve my mother. I miss her every day of my life. Do you want to know the real reason I haven’t gone all self-righteous over this whole thing with Amanda and Colin?”
“I assumed it was a combination of the facts that you were ready for the relationship to end and that you’re a kinder, more forgiving and a much, much better person than I could ever be,” he said dryly.
Her expression fell a little at that. “It’s not that I’m kind or better than anyone. It’s just I. . . .”
“What?” he asked, leaning forward, his elbows on the table, when she faded off. She suddenly felt very vulnerable and stupid, sitting in the midst of this glamorous, fairy-tale setting with a gorgeous, sophisticated man, exposing her heart. Surely her confessions were neither appropriate nor wanted.
“Emma?” he pressed, his gaze on her fierce.
She swallowed. He didn’t look like he wanted her to shut up. Just the opposite, in fact. Besides, she couldn’t be someone different than she was just to fit into his world.
“It’s just that I keep picturing how sad Mom would be if she knew Amanda and I had a falling out over something as insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, as a boy.”
He listened, then shook his head slightly, his mouth tight. “What they did to you was inexcusable.”
“Yes. But not unforgivable. At least that’s what I’m trying to do . . . get past it. It’s like I told you, it’s a process. At least it is in my case. With Amanda. You’d do the same, if you loved someone the way I do my sister. You don’t know her. She doesn’t go around doing stuff like this as a matter of course. She’s never done anything like this before, so I can’t help but feel that this thing with her and Colin is something major.”
Something flickered across his stony expression. He reached across the table and took her hand. “You’re wrong, Emma,” he said gruffly. “You really are a much better person than me.”
The distant sounds of china clinking and murmuring voices faded to a distant hum. Their gazes held, and she saw the warmth in his eyes. He may not agree with her choice of action when it came to Colin and Amanda, but he understood now. Better, anyway. They both knew what it was to lose someone and have an irreparable hole torn into your life. You behaved differently, at times, with the imagined ghost of that loved one looking on.
She was vaguely aware of someone passing the table. Vanni leaned back slightly and dragged his gaze off her.
“Excuse me,” he said. The waiter who had been passing paused. “We’ll take that dessert to go. And the check please.”
“You don’t want to eat it here?” she asked, dazed after the waiter hastened to follow his instruction.
“No,” he said, leaning back and dropping his napkin negligently on the table. “I want to give it to you.”
Her core clenched tight, his words taking on a distinctly charged, erotic meaning after the intimate moment they’d just shared. She placed her napkin on the table, her pulse flickering at her throat.
He clearly was intent on giving her something, and she had the thrilling feeling that it wasn’t just the dessert.