‘Lucia?’ he asked, coming towards her.
Clearing her throat, Lucia nodded and rose to her feet behind the table. ‘And you are?’ Of course she knew who he was, but Lucia felt it polite, and perhaps alsonecessary, to confirm.
‘Rota, Claudio.Piacere. Again.’ He walked to her side of the table and instinctively they drew close and swapped cheek kisses.
His accent was deeply Venetian. It was that tangled mess of nasal pinch and tight vowels, all caught somewhere at the back of his throat. Lucia cast her mind back to what she could remember of her companion’s voice from the night of the party. There had been nothing remarkable about the voice of the masked kisser, but for most of their time together it had been overshadowed by the godforsaken thump of the bass and the alcohol-fuelled laughter wafting from the dancefloor.
She just wasn’t sure.
Those damn blue eyes. They’d been brown, hadn’t they? Or were they costume lenses? Or, just maybe, they were blue all along, and it was simply too dark to see them properly?
Something inside her withered. She was kidding herself; this man surely wasn’t the one. He couldn’t be. But his bright handsome face was hard to challenge with reason. Before she knew it, her lips took charge and made the decision for her. ‘Please, take a seat.’ The ease with which she slipped back into her chair surprised her, and Lucia chose to take it as a good sign. A positive start.
Claudio promptly did as instructed, and ordered a drink from a passing waiter, and another for Lucia. ‘I am so glad we could meet up tonight,’ he started.
Lucia’s hands fiddled with the hem of her sweater under the table. ‘Yes. Thank you for coming. It’s nice to meet you.Properly.’
‘Yes. Well, we didn’t exactly get the opportunity to talk at the party. Did we?’
His matter-of-fact facial expression was hard to fault. The apparent sincerity with which he had opened the conversation loosened whatever knot of worry still tangled Lucia with unease.
Scrabbling about for something to say, Francesco’s words returned to her.Open-ended questions. No leading statements. It’s up to him to prove himself. She swallowed down a mouthful of wine. ‘And why couldn’t we talk?’ She gave her most genuine smile. Almost playful.
‘The music was so loud. Don’t you remember?’
Setting her glass down between them, she pulled her hands into her lap, hoping to hide their trembling from Claudio. ‘The music. Hmm.’ She could sense Francesco’s best attempt at appearing nonchalant at the table beside them. He was sitting stiller than he ever had in his whole life, pretending to give all his attention to his book.
‘Yes. The music was terrible. It wasyouI was interested in.’
‘And how was that even possible? You could hardly see anything of me under the costume,’ Lucia teased, fishing for what Claudio might reveal about what he’d seen.
‘I could see enough.’
Suddenly, there was something about the way Claudio’s eyes rolled down her neck and rested on her chest that made the vice in Lucia’s stomach turn a revolution tighter. His energy seemed to shift, and he leaned closer across the table. It was unsettling, and not at all subtle.
‘Right. So, tell me more about yourself then, Claudio. Now’s the perfect opportunity to talk.’
‘Va bene.’ He paused and reached for his wine, taking a sip. It bought Lucia a moment to study his features more closely. A chiselled chin, very closely shaven. Deep-set eyes and a wide brow. Broad shoulders and chest, the deep definition of which was evident even under his white shirt. ‘I’ll start. I’m thirty-six. I manage the gym and pool facilities in a number of luxury hotels and private residences across the city.’
Lucia’s mind suddenly flicked back to the rough skin of the man’s hands that night. ‘Does that involve much . . .manualwork?’
‘It can. Moving things. Building equipment. But mostly I just like to sneak in a few workouts in my properties when I can. “Quality control management.”’ He winked.
Lucia wasn’t impressed by the childish air quotes he put around his statement. But what she did notice were his calloused palms. Her heart dropped a little at this realisation. While Claudio was indeed good-looking, she didn’t feel any sort of connection to him. He seemed shallow. Boring, even. If he was indeed the man she had kissed that night, then this moment was nothing more than a let-down. Without realising it, she sighed.
‘What?’ he asked.
Catching herself, she pasted a smile on her face. ‘Sorry. I was just wondering about the logistics of moving all that equipment across the water.’
‘Idon’t.’ He held his hand out across the table to stop her train of thought, as if the mere suggestion were an insult. ‘I pay other people to do it.’ He laughed, and there was an insensitive edge to his tone. It felt as if he might take pleasure from ordering around others and watching them do the work in his place.
Lucia’s heart dipped further. Arrogantandmean. While she was tempted to call it all off at that point, something forced her to stay put. To really find out for sure. At least that way she could set her mind at ease, tell herself,Yes, he was the one, but an awful person. Nothing lost. ‘If you’re the boss, you can do what you like, I guess,’ she said to fill the silence.
‘I do more than work and work out,’ he added, as if needing to convince her of his worth and merit. ‘I have a daughter. She’s six. Matilde. She lives in Padova with her mother.’ He reached for his phone and scrolled through his recent photos. ‘Eccola,’ he said, passing it to Lucia.
A bright smiling face filled the screen. Matilde’s golden curls fell around the sides of her face, and the sight of her tongue trying to poke through the gap where a top-row tooth was missing drew a smile from Lucia. ‘Bellissima,’ she said, returning the phone. ‘Things didn’t work out with her mother, then? Do you see her often?’
He took in some more wine, then shook his head. ‘Her mother? Pfft.Thatwas a mistake. She was a waste of my time. But I see Matilde every other weekend.’
