He clamped his teeth together and focussed on the cupola of il Vaticano, willing his libido to remember where he was and with whom.
‘It’s still very early,’ he said noncommittally.
‘But you are getting along?’ Col pushed.
Pietro expelled a breath. ‘Sure.’
If you could count barely seeing each other and then him making her come for no reason other than he’d wanted to the second he’d seen her.
‘Good.’ If Col had doubts he didn’t express them.
Pietro propped an elbow on the bannister and turned to face his friend slowly, weighing his words with caution. ‘I think you need to tell her the truth.’
‘About what?’ Col joked.
It fell flat.
‘She’s stronger than you think.’ God, Pietro hoped that was true. ‘She’ll cope with it. What she won’t cope with is discovering you’ve lied to her.’
‘I know her better than anyone.’
Col’s words held a warning and Pietro heeded it. Not because he was afraid, but because the older man was probably right. Col had drawn a line in the sand and Pietro had no intention of walking over it.
He sighed gruffly. ‘Then consider talking to her.’
‘I can’t. I need her to have more in her life than me.’ His eyes shifted to Pietro and his skin looked pale all over. ‘If she knows she’ll come home.’
‘So? Let her.’
‘No. Damn it! The whole point of this is... I don’t want her to nurse me. She deserves better than that.’
Pietro was very still, watchful. Waiting. ‘You don’t want her to nurse you? She’s your daughter. When my father was sick—’
‘It’s not the same.’ Col seemed to wince at the abruptness of his answer. ‘I’m sorry, Pietro. I don’t mean to belittle what you went through. But it’s not the same.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she is my only child. She will be orphaned when I die. Because she adores me and idolises me and I will not have her seeing me weakened and bedridden.’ His jaw clenched firmly. ‘I love her too much for that.’
An aeroplane passed overhead, leaving a trail of white cloud shimmering against the night sky. Pietro stared at it for a moment, wondering about the plane’s destination and the people that occupied its belly. He wondered too at Col’s ‘love’. Was it love that could so easily lie? Could you love someone and deny them an opportunity to say goodbye?
* * *
‘Did you think he looked tired?’ Emmeline asked when Pietro returned to the lounge room, having said farewell to the American Senator.
The question caught him off-guard in its directness and perception. Then again, she was the much-adored daughter of the man—of course she’d notice small changes.
‘Perhaps.’ He sidestepped the question with surprising difficulty, his gaze resting on Emmeline’s face.
She was distracted, toying with the hem of her dress, her fingers running over its silky edge as she nodded slowly. He knew what that dress felt like because he’d held it in his hands. He’d touched it and run his fingers over it and then he’d found her heart and driven her crazy against the wall.
‘He did. I suppose it’s jetlag... Or something.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
He sucked himself back into the conversation with difficulty, his arousal straining against the fabric of his pants. It was unwanted. So was the guilt that was sledging through him. Guilt at deceiving her despite the fact he owed his loyalty to Col and not to Emmeline.
‘I’m going out,’ he murmured, speaking the words before he’d even realised what he’d intended.
‘Out?’ She frowned, flicking a glance to the slim wristwatch she wore. ‘It’s after ten.’
His laugh was softly mocking. ‘In Roma that is still early, cara.’
Her cheeks darkened, and her eyes were huge in her face as she looked at him. Her pretty face twisted into an expression he didn’t recognise, but then it was gone. She was herself again. Unfazed, uninterested.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Thank you for tonight.’
‘You’re thanking me?’ he said with disbelief. ‘I invited your father here for my own purposes as much as yours.’
Her smile was a twist of pale pink lips and then she stood, moving towards him.
‘I didn’t mean for that.’
As she passed him he caught a hint of her vanilla and rosebud fragrance and his gut clenched with barely controlled need. The desire to snake his hand out and catch her around the waist, to pull her to him and make her come again, filled him like an explosion. His head turned as she left the room, following her by instinct. The way that dress pulled against the curves of her arse as she walked...the way her long legs glided as if she was in a damned ballet...