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But from the information he’d gleaned, both from his research last night and what she’d told him, reading would be hard for her now. And, just like that, where he’d once seen a means to an end, all he saw now were questions.
Did she still read? Was working in a library hard for her? Why hadn’t she asked for money for herself when he’d offered it? He could have given her anything. What was money to him? he wondered carelessly. He had what he wanted, didn’t he? If not, then it was certainly within reach—thanks to Ivy.
As an orphan who had been abandoned by his biological parents and rejected by his adoptive father, Antonio knew better than to ask about her parents beyond what she’d told him, refusing to tread into emotionally painful areas for her.
He picked up the espresso and made his way out towards the pool, welcoming the scents of home on the breeze, the warmth of the sun-soaked ground evaporating the last traces of the past night’s mist. And yet, despite all these things that Antonio usually relished, he only had eyes for Ivy.
‘I can see why you like it here,’ she said as he approached, keeping her face tilted to the sky. She wore a pair of sunglasses that must have been bought yesterday, because they were from an Italian designer that hadn’t made it over to the UK yet. She sat on a blanket with her mint tea and her camera within easy reach.
It was surprising, the wave of satisfaction he felt at knowing that she was dressed in things he’d bought for her. Primal, in a way he didn’t have a right to feel about the woman he was in the process of divorcing.
He looked around, the view stretching far below into undulating verdant valleys in almost all directions. In the distance he could see the rooftops of San Gimignano, but the beauty, the peace of it, thesightof it, struck him somehow as so much more precious than it had yesterday morning.
‘My mother rented this villa just after her husband left us, when I was eight years old,’ he admitted. ‘We escaped the fallout of the press and the wrath of my grandfather who, despite how much he adored my mother, still struggled with the notion of a divorce.’
Ivy frowned. ‘He seemed to have got over that notion if he was happy enough for you to divorce me to marry Maria?’
Antonio sighed. ‘It was impressive just how much Gio could get over, in order to get what he wanted,’ he admitted, taking a seat on the cushioned chaise near to where she sat on the warm patio. He frowned, feeling incredibly overdressed in his suit trousers, shirt and loafers, next to her soft, gentle cover-up that wasn’t really doing as advertised.
He caught glimpses of shapely thighs and a high-cut bikini and was so distracted that he didn’t realise Ivy had stopped looking at the sky and her watchful gaze was now on him.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘For my mother’s husband? Or my grandfather?’ he asked.
‘Both.’
He shrugged dismissively, but she didn’t buy it. The knowing curve of her lips told him that much. The way she looked at him was different to the way other women looked at him. It was as if she were trying to see behind his words, rather than wanting nothing beyond his bank account. Everything about Ivy said that she didn’t want that from him, even if it would help her considerably. That made him distinctly uncomfortable.
He pulled at the collar of his shirt, eyeing up the crystal-clear water in the pool. He noticed Ivy looking longingly at it too.
‘You should go in. It looks blissful,’ Ivy said wistfully.
‘You’re the one dressed for it,’ he pointed out.
‘I haven’t been in the water since…’ She trailed off with a sigh. ‘I don’t know how unbalanced it would make me feel,’ she said, her eyes narrowing to express both thought and concern at the same time.
‘I’m here. You could…hold on to me.’
His offer was stilted, and so uncomfortably delivered Ivy wanted to laugh, but when she tore her gaze away from the pool, back to him, the laughter died on her tongue. His words might have been clumsy, but his eyes were intent. As if he were determined, half against his wishes.
And the problem was that shedidwant to. Her skin, warmed to the point of hot by the rays of the sun, would luxuriate in the cool temperature of the water. It would feel like heaven to slip into the pool and have an anchor.
She was surprised to find that she didn’t feel self-conscious with Antonio, the way that she did with other people—even her brother to a point. There was a wariness about the way they were around her, waiting for her to walk into something, or get something wrong, waiting for her to need them.
An excuse was forming on the tip of her tongue when Antonio started undoing the buttons at his cuffs. And that was the precise moment she realised she’d made a very dangerous mistake.
She’d been thinking about how she would feel about being in the water.
Not how she’d feel about being in the water withhim.
‘I don’t—’
‘Chicken,’ he said, standing and pulling the shirt out from his waistband and beginning to unbutton it from the neck.
‘Did you just call me a chicken?’ Ivy asked, trying to focus on the matter at hand while inch after glorious inch of one of the most spectacular torsos she’d ever seen was revealed.
‘Yes,’ he said with a smirk that, horrifyingly, made him even more handsome.