Four
T he moment Leandro took her hand, Phoebe felt as if he’d taken her will away, infused his own inside her. She wrestled with his hypnotic gaze before snatching her hand away as if from a hot grill, pretended interest in her surroundings.
They sure warranted it, and then some. As he’d said, damn his insight, all this was one colossal ego tickle. He might have easy access to it, but that he’d put this much thought and planning into setting the scene was at once disconcerting and exciting as hell. And there was no doubt what kind of scene it was.
A seduction scene.
Oh, she’d tried to rationalize that this was the done thing, that businessmen flaunted their status and power by conducting negotiations over extravagant meals among backdrops of affluence and exclusivity, that as a businessman in a class of his own, he’d naturally gone beyond what others would.
Those rationalizations lasted for the three seconds it took her to get a load of the place.
With the eyes of experience, she could see this place as it might be on a normal business night, when its three-level interior would provide space to those who craved it, and privacy to those who preferred it. There would be partitions separating the top-level dining area from the mid-level bar and the lower-level lounge. Each would be bustling with its own clientele, feature its own menu, table and bottle service and resident DJ. Tonight the place seemed to have been designed to provide a single couple with expansive, atmospheric surroundings for an unforgettable encounter.
The décor was at once dignified and decadent, bridging borders with a dip into Latin heat in its daring, in the originality of bold yet harmonizing colors and designs. All in all this place had the ambiance of a dimension a few realities removed from the one she belonged to, one that swirled with ultra-modernism, Machiavellian suggestions and a touch of the arcane. The realm of a fallen angel where mortals suffered sensual enslavement and carnal excess. Very appropriate.
And she’d walked willingly into the Prince of Dark Temptation’s web. She’d stood at its threshold, caught in a spotlight, feeling like the subject of an experiment in human response conducted by some higher being.
Said being was sitting there, watching her, overshadowing their surroundings in a suit and shirt, sans tie, that had been sculpted around his magnificence, their darkness and textures deepening the spell that hung around him.
And he’d just invited her to get to work. On him.
The moment the parade of beautiful people dressed in red and black satin finished spreading their table with ingeniously prepared and arranged appetizers and filled their crystal glasses before leaving the bottle of Moët & Chandon in ice, Leandro leaned back in his chair, making his appraisal even more invasive.
“So, have you decided yet what you’ll do with your second shot at convincing me, Phoebe?”
She took a sip from her glass. And inhaled most of it.
After she redirected the fluid down her throat, she managed a strangled, “I’ll start with holding my tongue. How’s that?”
He mirrored her actions, bypassing the coughing-his-lungs-out bit, lids heavy as he licked the taste from his lips, making her feel as if he’d tasted hers. “Is that within your range of abilities?”
She took another sip, bent on proving that she could still manage basic stuff like swallowing. “It used to be. I was renowned for it.”
“Quella è la verità—isn’t that the truth. You had such rare reticence. Only when it came to talking, grazie a Dio. It was a trait I valued beyond measure.”
“Yeah, a woman who’s unrestrained in bed and keeps her mouth shut out of it must be every man’s dream.”
His eyes flickered. Surprised? That she’d put his innuendo into plain English? “I’m not every man, Phoebe. It wasn’t because I was interested only in bedding you that I valued your quietness.”
She plopped one of the hollandaise-covered, crab-stuffed mushrooms on her plate, cut into it. “No? Could’ve fooled me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re implying you were quiet because my attitude discouraged you from talking?”
She took a bite. Tasted nothing. “Not really. There was nothing to say. But with all you had going on then, I did get the feeling that you wouldn’t have appreciated it if there was.”
“Nothing to say, eh? Strange how there can be two entirely different perspectives on the same situation. I thought you didn’t talk much because you had this innate…understanding of me and of our situation that transcended the need for verbal expression. I thought we didn’t use words because we were on the same wavelength without them. Seems that’s another thing I was wrong about.”
She concentrated. Hard. Swallowing now could end in a real emergency. The implication of what he was saying…
Could be anything really. From the poignant and profound to the meaningless and superficial.
She’d take something toward the end of the spectrum of the second interpretation. This was the man who’d let her walk out of his life and hadn’t even tried to call her again in eight years. She doubted he’d had one poignant or profound thought where she was concerned.
It seemed he was waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he sighed. “So you can still call on your tongue-holding talents. I really hope you won’t hold out for long. I find myself valuing your new intensity and contentiousness far more than I ever did your tranquility and acquiescence.”
“That must be maturity. The ‘me against the world until I take it over and no one better oppose-me’ young man has become a ‘the world is mine and I’m dying for a new challenge’ man.”
He threw his head back and let out another of those intoxicating peals of unadulterated maleness. “Ah, Phoebe, siete una sincera, genuina, autentica shaitana rajeema and I sperare ardentemente that you don’t hold your tongue ever again.”
Resigned that she’d live with constant arrhythmia with him around, she picked up what turned out to be a maple-bourbon-glazed chicken wing and nibbled on it. “So although you’ve outgrown some traits, you still make a salad of Italian, English and Moorish.”
His chuckles intensified as he watched her, and she imagined him nibbling on her lips, her neck, lower…“Only when one language doesn’t provide accurate enough words.”
“You couldn’t say I’m an honest-to-goodness wicked devil in English?”
“You understood!” His eyes sparked with wonder and approval. She felt like a child fluttering at her hero’s praise. Stupid. “And no, I couldn’t. The English words—and your translation is as perfect as can be—don’t have the exact nuances I wanted. Sperare ardentmente is more accurate than ‘I pray to God,’ too. Your idiomatic Italian is impressive. Most people who learn it as adults never learn its subtleties. But what made you learn Moorish? Almost no one in the Castaldinian cities uses it anymore.”