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‘Why do you think?’ she demanded heatedly. ‘I work in an old-fashioned environment and my boss is really particular about status.’ She picked at the single red fingernail before continuing. ‘Believe me, it would have gone down like a lead balloon if he knew that I’d spent the night with a…friend of his.’
‘He’s no friend of mine,’ he said, his voice harsh.
‘No. I thought not.’ Her amber eyes were huge in her face. ‘So…who exactlyareyou?’
There was a pause as the waiter deposited a glass in front of her and began to pour water and seemingly inexorable seconds ticked by before the bottle was emptied. But Odysseus was grateful for the brief hiatus before the man walked away, because it gave him time to work out how to answer the inevitable question. He had told nobody about his meeting with Contarini—not even his assistant—because there was nobody in his life close enough for him to ever make such a disclosure. He guarded his personal space obsessively. He didn’t want people getting toknowhim and bought silence whenever he could. And though he could do nothing about the inevitable conjecture which came with the territory of being a billionaire—he never confirmed or denied rumour.
Whenever anyone tried to get him to open up—as they invariably did—he blocked their interest with a smooth expertise which was second nature to him. His upbringing might have been lacking in many of the things other children took for granted, but it had helped him develop a stony carapace which protected him from the chaos of feelings. He prided himself on his emotional self-sufficiency and it should have been easy to bat away a question from a woman with whom he had shared nothing but a brief night of sex. To tell her it was none of her damned business.
Yet inexplicably, in this tiny café, in a glittering city which had fascinated him ever since he had found out about his mother’s birthplace, Odysseus found himself wanting to do the opposite. Was it because she was someone who lived on the inside of a life which, by rights, should have been part of his? A life he had never known and never would. Today’s terse meeting had confirmed what he had always suspected—that there was never going to be a fairy-tale ending with Vincenzo Contarini. The blood ties severed before he had been born weren’t going to magically meld together. He wasn’t going to find himself in the difficult position of having to ‘forgive’ the old man. And wasn’t that a kind of liberation, of sorts?
‘I am Vincenzo’s Contarini’s grandson,’ he informed her.
She looked completely shocked. Her amber eyes had widened and she gripped the table as if for support. Was that surprise genuine? he wondered cynically.
‘Hisgrandson?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘No! He’s never mentioned a grandson before.’
‘Why would he?’ he said, surprised by the sudden harshness which had entered his voice. ‘We don’t exactly have what you’d call a traditional relationship.’
‘I’d kind of worked that out for myself. But even so.’ She pressed her fingertips to her lips. ‘I mean, I had no idea you even existed—’
‘Are you sure?’ He leaned forward. ‘What about when you first met me?’
She blinked in confusion. ‘You mean, at the ball?’
‘As far as I am aware, that was our first encounter.’
The bewilderment on her face changed to a look of comprehension. ‘Are you suggesting I deliberately targeted you?’
‘Well, you did,’ he pointed out. ‘There were a hundred men you could have chosen, yet you chose me.’
‘Howam I supposed to have targeted you when you were wearing a mask and a hat and I didn’t even know you existed? I’m not that smart!’
‘So why, then?’ he persisted coolly. ‘Why me?’
Still reeling from his bombshell disclosure, Grace hesitated, tempted to take him to task for his arrogant assumptions about women in general and her in particular, but something stopped her. Maybe it was that brief flicker of pain she’d seen in his eyes when he’d come out with the unbelievable fact that Vincenzo Contarini was his grandfather. Why had she never heard about him? Yet despite his cool countenance, it was obvious he was hurting—even if he was pretending not to—and the caring side of her nature felt a sudden rush of compassion. This wasn’t abouther, she reasoned, so why attempt to be coy, or repair what was left of her reputation? She’d gone to bed with him, hadn’t she? She’d let him touch her intimately while he was still wearing his mask! There was absolutely no point in pretending she hadn’t fancied him—especially as she was never going to see him again.
‘If you want the truth, I chose you because you looked as if you wouldn’t take any nonsense from anyone,’ she said slowly.
Dark eyebrows raised, he studied her curiously. ‘Explain.’
She shrugged. ‘You seemed taller and stronger than anyone else in the ballroom, and also, you were watching me.’
‘A lot of people were watching you, Grace,’ he said softly. ‘You were a very eye-catching proposition in that red dress.’
‘I didn’t notice anyone else but you,’ she admitted, her cheeks growing warm at the compliment but when she saw his eyes narrow, she wondered if she’d been a bittoohonest. ‘I didn’t want the shame of being thrown out of the ballroom and people finding out I didn’t have a ticket,’ she continued quickly. ‘Venice is a small and very gossipy city and it wouldn’t have gone down very well if it had got back to my boss that I’d been gatecrashing. So I threw myself on your mercy.’ She wriggled her shoulders self-consciously. ‘You were my knight in shining armour, if you like.’
But he didn’t bother acknowledging her weak joke, just continued to subject her to the iron-hard gleam of his eyes, which cut through her like a blade. ‘How old are you?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Twenty-three,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Intelligent, attractive and articulate.’
‘Why, thanks very much,’ she answered flippantly.