‘I just did,’ he pointed out mildly.
She scowled furiously. ‘I don’t sleep with married men.’
‘I’m not married.’
She threw him a narrow-eyed challenge and gritted out, ‘But you’re engaged?’
Now the question was out, there was no going back, no pretending, and she felt an icy fist of dread tighten in her belly. Because, beneath her aggressive façade, Amy was willing him to deny it, or laugh at the suggestion.
He didn’t, and she died a little bit inside.
‘Can I ask where you got this inside information?’
He had the utter, unbelievable cheek to act offended. ‘Everyone knows, apparently.’
Except me.
Humiliation tasted bitter in her mouth.
‘The entire kitchen is talking about it, abouther…’ The venom in her own voice shocked her, as taunting images of the gala’s guest of honour, the subject of Amy’s recent furtive internet searches, flashed before her eyes.
The blonde with the trashy reality television credentials was a perfect match for the Romano heir. The men her name had been linked with were all rich and famous, and none of them said a bad word about her. She had been equally discreet.
The perfect partner for Leo.
‘You’re jealous.’
She clenched her fists and tossed her head as she glared up at him. ‘Grow up, Leo. I don’t care who you marry! You can have a harem for all I care, but I do object to not being given the information to make an informed choice. You obviously don’t give a damn when it comes to cheating but, call me old-fashioned,’ she hissed, ‘I bloody do, you bastard!’
She finished her diatribe on a breathless gasp, doubled over at the waist.
‘I thought you had more sense than to listen to gossip.’
Her head came up with a jerk. ‘Don’t you dare patronise me, Leo!’
He stepped forward, clasping both her wrists, and pulled her upright.
‘You are aware that I am supposedly being married off to at least three women a month?’
‘Your modesty is one of your most charming characteristics.’
There was zero warning as he reached down and ran his hand over the brand-new silk kimono she wore over a strapless bikini. ‘That’s new—I like it, but I prefer you without it.’
The sound of her hand connecting with his cheek was shocking.
‘Oh, God, I am so, so sorry! I shouldn’t have… You just make me so mad! How the hell did you think it was appropriate to make a pass at me at this moment? I’ve never hit anyone in my entire life. I am mortified…’
He caught the shaking hand she had pressed to her mouth and pulled it to his lips, holding her eyes as he spread her fingers and kissed her palm. ‘I’m sorry I wound you up,cara. I admit I was a bit of a bastard.’
Amy blinked at the unexpected climbdown, shock combining with confusion, hot tingles spreading like a web from her palm along her nerve-endings.
‘I really shouldn’t have done that, though.’
‘Your vicious little tongue does a lot more harm than your left hook,cara. You barely touched me.’ The levity in his words were not reflected in the tension-carved angles and planes of his face, which projected an intense, driven quality.
‘I should be immune to gossip. Iamimmune.’ Or he’d thought he was. ‘I usually ignore it when people write lies about me, when I find human rats going through my recycling bin looking for private information. It doesn’t matter to me what strangers think.’
It mattered what Amy thought of him, though.
