A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [44]
She looked like an innocent young girl with her legs tucked up under her like that, the blonde hair tumbling about her face, falling onto the slender shoulders in the bright pink T-shirt. But the body outlined by the clinging soft cotton was all woman, the thrust of her breasts proclaiming her femininity for anyone to see. The position of her legs meant that the worn, faded denim had tightened around the sweet curves of her hips and buttocks, clinging to the length of her thighs, adding to the sensual provocation that had tormented him only moments before.
‘So why did you come here today?’
And how did he answer that? Gio took a swallow of his coffee to ease a suddenly dry throat, and grab at some last-minute thinking time, then set his mug down on the mantelpiece as he turned to her.
To hell with thinking. He would just tell her the truth.
‘I came because I couldn’t stay away.’
‘Oh, sure!’
The look she turned on him was frankly sceptical, darkening the soft eyes to a deep, opaque grey.
‘Sure! I’ll be honest with you—’
‘I wish you would.’
‘I will! I’ll tell you the truth if you’ll only shut up and listen for once! Do you ever let anyone speak without arguing?’
‘As a matter of fact I do—most of the time,’ Terrie returned stiffly. ‘It’s just that you seem to have this bad effect on me.’
‘And you on me,’ Gio retorted. ‘But all the same, this time I am telling the truth—the whole truth…’
And nothing but the truth. The words echoed ominously inside Terrie’s head, giving her the unwelcome reminder that the man before her was a renowned international lawyer, at the very top of the ladder. It seemed that ever since she had met him in the hotel last week the papers had been full of accounts of his skills, his prowess in the courts. She couldn’t imagine how she had ever come to miss him before.
‘Go on,’ she managed stiffly, the thought suddenly draining all the fight from her so that she slumped down in her seat, not daring to look him straight in the eye.
‘As I said, I came here today because I couldn’t stay away. Last week, I thought I could. I thought that was what I wanted. I thought that was what you wanted too.’
‘What was what I wanted?’
‘A one-night stand. Some fun—nothing more.’
‘Fun!’
The single syllable was a strangled sound in Terrie’s throat.
‘You thought…’
Hastily she swallowed down the rest of her retort, knowing that to say what she really thought could only make matters so much worse.
‘Go on,’ she said stiffly.
Gio was pacing around the room, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers, his restlessness as unnerving as having a tiger caged up with her, watching its hungry prowling.
‘I thought I could walk away and forget about you, but it didn’t work out that way. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.’
For the first time Terrie actually sat up a little straighter, her interest piqued. She had been sure that what he was going to say was simply another put-down, something that would make her feel worse than ever. Now, at last, there was a tiny spark of hope that perhaps it could be different.
‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate on my work.’
And his tone said that that was unusual. That in the past his work had always been able to hold him.
‘I had to see you again. I couldn’t leave without seeing you once more…’
‘Leave!’
There was that word again, but this time it sounded different.
‘You’re going away?’
Her sudden interjection had stopped his restless pacing, brought him swinging round to face her.
‘I’m flying out tomorrow.’
‘But where…?’
‘I’m going back home—to Sicily.’
‘I’m going…’ Terrie noted; not ‘I was going’ or ‘thinking of going.’
Which was worse? she couldn’t help asking herself. If he had left without saying a word, without ever coming back, so that she had never, ever seen him again? Or the fact that he was here now, giving her foolish, vulnerable heart the chance to think, to dream for a moment? The opportunity to allow it to form the impossible fantasy that he might want more than he had said that