He looked astonished by her outburst before he laughed. ‘Don’t stress,’ he said, studying her face. ‘Let’s play it by ear, shall we? For the record, I’m quite happy to be your sex on tap for the duration. You going to eat this?’ he asked, lifting the cover on a croissant and putting it in his mouth before she replied.
‘I don’t eat breakfast.’ It was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that.
‘You’re eating me up instead.’ Underneath the sly, mocking accusation there was a tell-tale layer of tension that communicated itself directly to her tingling nerve-endings. The prickling sensation spread like a hot rash under her skin.
The automatic denial died on her lips when she realised she was staring at his mouth. She yanked her gaze upwards, connecting with his eyes, but the expression in the dark glimmering depths provided no safe space from the debilitating awareness that permeated her body.
‘With your eyes,’ he elaborated, presumably just in case she hadn’t got the drift.
‘You do think a lot of yourself, but actually I was thinking you might have showered before you invited yourself in,’ she said with a fastidious little sniff as she shoved her hand in her handbag and pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses and slid them on her nose.
Her eyes hidden, her chin took the heavy lifting when it came to challenging him to comment.
His response demolished any illusion that she was in control of this situation.
‘You have changed. You used not to have any issue with my sweat. Quite the opposite, in fact.’
Her nostrils flared as she remembered the taste and smell of his damp skin.
She cleared her throat and blinked away the tactile images crowding into her head as Leo levered himself out of the chair with stomach-flipping, casual grace and rubbed his hands together.
‘So, shall we get this thing over with?’
‘What over with?’
‘The tour. What did you think I meant,cara?’
‘Will you stop calling me that?’ she snapped out irritably, hating the way his tongue curled around the endearment, dragging each syllable out.
‘Why? I am Italian. It’s natural for me to say it.’
She turned her head, trying to avoid the smell of the coffee in her nostrils, a fragrance she normally loved but the migraine messed with all her senses.
‘Did you never realise that you had family here? Did your mother never speak of…? Sorry, I didn’t mean to—’ She hesitated, not sure she should ask, not sure she had the right.
‘Poke your delightful little nose in?’ He shrugged, his eyes detaching from her face.
Amy’s shoulders sagged. She was relieved both to escape his scrutiny and not be called out for her curiosity.
‘My mother…no, never.’
Amy had the feeling that his words were not really addressed to her. He was barely acknowledging her presence; it was almost as if he had forgotten she was there.
He was still speaking.
‘At least until she got ill. At the very end, she was on strong medication and she did speak of this place, though I didn’t know that then as she kept sliding into Italian.’
‘It seems odd she didn’t speak Italian to you growing up.’
His flickering regard landed back on her face. ‘What is this, twenty questions?’
She expected him to end the conversation and was surprised when, after a pause, he disclosed some more.
‘I think my mother was trying to erase her background. I did know a few words, actually, and some phrases she said sometimes. When she called out for herpapà, I assumed he was dead. I carried on thinking that for a long time.’
‘It’s so sad, but it must have been marvellous to know you weren’t alone,’ she said softly.
He imagined her eyes behind the dark sunglasses glowing with an empathy that struck him as ironic in the circumstances.
