‘He didn’t know I would be dining with you.’
‘Oh, but he did. I spoke to Mancini personally and requested he send all your favourite foods.’
She widened her eyes. ‘You told him we were having dinner together?’
Gregorio studied her from beneath hooded lids. ‘Is there a problem with that?’
‘Not for me, no.’
‘Or for me.’
He certainly didn’t look concerned at having announced to a third party that he was having dinner with the daughter of Jacob Fairbanks. Considering the speed with which some of her so-called friends and her fiancé had disappeared in a cloud of smoke, she found Gregorio’s behaviour odd to say the least.
‘You’re a very strange man,’ she said slowly.
‘In a bad way or a good way?’ he prompted as he stood up.
‘I haven’t decided yet.’
The grin he gave softened the harshness of his features. ‘When you do, let me know, hmm?’
‘You’re different than I imagined.’
‘In what way?’
‘That night at the restaurant when you—when you kissed me, I thought you were just another arrogant jerk who doesn’t like to hear the word no.’
‘One out of the two, certainly,’ he mused.
Lia didn’t need him to tell her it was the word no he didn’t like to hear. There was no doubting he was arrogant too, but there was something else. Something she couldn’t quite equate with the ruthless bastard she’d labelled him. Perhaps it was the fact that, whatever his reasons, he was actually attempting to take care of her.
‘You said you weren’t always rich?’
‘No.’ He settled more comfortably on the bar stool. ‘When I graduated from university with a business degree and returned to Spain it was to find that my father had allowed the family vineyard to decline. Several years of bad harvest...diseased vines.’ He shrugged. ‘There were still my two brothers to go to university. I put my own life on hold and set about ensuring that happened.’
‘By founding the de la Cruz business empire?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is your life still on hold?’
He looked at her admiringly. ‘Obviously not.’
Lia gave a shake of her head. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea for the two of us to meet again.’
He looked displeased. ‘Why not?’
Lia avoided meeting his gaze. ‘Besides the obvious, I don’t belong in that world any more.’
‘The obvious...?’
‘I hold you partly responsible for my father’s death.’ There—she’d stated it clearly, so there could be no lingering doubts as to her reason for staying away from this man.
Was she protesting too much?
Because of her earlier reaction to him?
Maybe. But that didn’t change the fact that she really didn’t want to see or be alone with Gregorio again. He...unsettled her. Disturbed her. In a deep and visceral way Lia could never remember being aware of with any other man. Including the man she had once been engaged to and had intended to marry.