“Because she never does… take care of herself, I mean. She’s a dreamer who floats through life.”
“Let me guess;youtake care of her.” He would guess, too, that taking care of her sister was something Callie had done or tried to do her entire life.
“Well, someone has to.”
“She’s a twenty-six-year-old woman and is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
Her eyes suddenly zapped to him. “And how would you know that?”
He shrugged and took a drink of his wine. “Because Niccolo would never have got involved with her otherwise.”
“Niccolo will sleep with any woman with a pulse, just like all you stinking rich playboys.”
“A rather sweeping generalisation, don’t you think?” Callie was working herself up. Tension had been vibrating off her delicious skin from the moment she’d entered the dining room, and now he could smell it too, and had no doubt about the reason for it: Night was falling, and in the dark,anythingcould happen…
“He whisked my sister away to Paris when he was engaged to another woman, impregnated her, and then dropped her like a hot rock, and according to Georgia, that’s perfectly normal behaviour for the men in your world.”
“She said that, did she?”
“Not in so many words, but she implied it, and never minding your disgustingly casual suggestion that she be Niccolo’s mistress, I’ve read too many stories of what stinking rich men like you get up to not to imagine your attitude to women is identical to theirs. Let’s be honest, you’re a rich, good-looking man who could have any woman he wants, and I bet you do have them, probably more than one at a time.”
“Any woman I want, ‘eh?” he said meaningfully. Dante had certainly enjoyed more than his fair share of women over the years, had dated some of the most beautiful women in the world. None of them had intrigued him a fraction of the way Callie did.
Colour darkened the whole of her face and neck, and she reached for her wine glass with a trembling hand. “You know what I mean.”
“I know that you sound jealous.”
“Jealous? Ha! The only thing I feel is pity for those poor women whose hearts you’ve broken over the years.” She was holding the stem of the glass so tightly that burgundy liquid spilt over her hand. Snatching at a napkin to blot the mess on the tablecloth, she added, “You just turn it on and off, don’t you. There’s no meaning to it. I could be any woman.”
“Is that why you have never enjoyed it? Was the meaning absent for you?”
“Stop deflecting! I was talking aboutyou.”
“You were talking about a me that exists only in your imagination, and now we are talking about you.”
“We arenot,” she refuted hotly.
“Oh, but we are. You’re the one who professes to dislike sex…”
“I don’tprofess. Me not liking sex is a fact.”
He smiled. “We’ll see.”
Instead of coming back at him, she drank half her wine in one swallow.
“You never did tell me how long it’s been for you,” he commented idly, wondering if she was aware her nipples had visibly hardened. Watching Callie fighting her attraction was as arousing as imagining taking one of those ripe, puckered nipples into his mouth. “A year? Longer? Shorter?”
“How long has it been foryou?” she retorted.
“Two months.”
She snorted in disbelief.
“I have become discerning in my choice of sexual partner. I believe it is a hazard of age... and a hazard of overworking to ensure I had this week free for the wedding.”
“Then go back to the wedding. There’s bound to be women your newly discovered discerning eye will appreciate there.”
Unable to resist, he dipped his mouth to her ear. “Probably, but none it will appreciate more than you.”
