Page 17 of The Surrender (Arlington Hall #2)

Nonna’s is everything the endless five-star reviews promised it would be. Not that I underestimated it. What I did underestimate was Leo Lombardy. Sue was right, he’s extremely casual, on all fronts. I’ve never been so relaxed when meeting a potential client for the first time.

“It’s good, huh?” Leo says as he twiddles his fork in a pile of pasta.

“Unreal.”

“Here, have some wine.” He pours for me as he carries on eating, because it’s really that delicious, you can’t put your fork down. “So, Sue was telling me she’s very excited about you.”

I pause chewing, surprised, but try to play it down. “That’s a massive compliment coming from Sue. She’s a great adviser. Just great all round, really.”

“Agree.”

I pause for thought, definitely seeing a little twinkle in his eye. “How do you know each other?” I ask, appearing casual but raging with curiosity. Am I overthinking? But then Leo smiles down into his pasta and my suspicions feel quite possible. Jesus, are they ...?

“On the golf course,” he muses quietly and easily.

Too easily. I don’t mix friendships with business.

It can be messy. And mixing business with someone she’s sleeping with?

Well, that’s against company policy. So she’s passed Leo on to me?

Oh fuck. Sue’s married. And she told me Leo is recently divorced. Is Sue the reason why?

“On the golf course,” I repeat, with a lack of anything else coming to me. She’s sleeping with him!

Leo looks up at me, and I know, I just know, that he’s sensed I’ve put two and two together. Fuck, I need to drop this, act dumb. I smile. “So tell me about your future plans.”

Leo laughs. “I’m sixty-two, Amelia,” he says, his light Italian accent smooth but grainy too. “Still young, yes? Plenty of time to think past today.”

“What you just said, Leo, is literally every adviser’s worst nightmare.”

Leo grins cheekily, taking more pasta. “I feel like I’m about to get a lecture.”

“You are. People think about the future too late. They don’t make provisions for their retirement soon enough. I’m very aware that you don’t count, since you’re richer than God, but still. It’s easier to lose money than it is to make it.”

He chuckles. “Less rich now my ex-wife has ... how you say? Fleeced me?”

“Yes.” I laugh. “That.” I swirl my fork in my last bit of pasta and pop it in my mouth, gazing at the remaining sauce longingly. If I were at Mum and Dad’s, I would grab some bread and mop up.

“But still richer than God,” Leo quips. “So what’s in your future?” He finishes and wipes his mouth too, and I’m absolutely beside myself with joy when he dips into the breadbasket and plucks out a piece of granary bread, pushing it around his bowl. I follow suit.

“As of this moment, my future is work.”

“No man?”

I blink, taken aback. “No man.” And he’s not attempted to call me or text me. I have no right to be hurt by that. And yet here I am. Hurt. “I’m career focused right now,” I say, finishing my bread and washing it down with some wine.

“Well, I suppose we should exchange emails.” Leo pulls an iPhone out of the inside pocket of his linen jacket. “What’s yours?”

I reel it off and save Leo’s when it lands, and I smile. “Sue mentioned you like high risk.” I snap my mouth shut when Leo’s eyebrows lift sharply. Shit. I cannot believe I said that. “I mean when it comes to investments.”

Leo polishes off half his glass of wine. “Indeed, I do, but Sue told me that you’re the perfect blend of risky and safe.”

“I like to ensure I’m making conscious m—” My words fade, and my smile drops like a rock when I see Jude across the restaurant being shown to a table.

With a woman.

“What the fuck?” I breathe.

“What?” Leo says, craning to look over his shoulder.

“Nothing.”

Jude’s eyes land on me. And then Leo. And the instant rage on him is rampant.

Oh shit. But ... he’s got a fucking nerve.

Who the hell is that woman? Busty. Curvy.

Platinum-blond hair. A blouse that’s got one too many buttons undone.

Jude says something to her, looking this way, and then starts walking through the tables towards us. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Excuse me.” Hopping up, I grab my bag, hoping Jude follows me and doesn’t confront Leo. “I need the ladies’.” I head through the little nook and down a corridor, looking back over my shoulder.

I’m only a bit relieved when I find Jude in pursuit. Rounding a corner, I wait, and the second he appears, I want to weep at how fucking stunning he is in a casual beige suit and open-collar white shirt.

For another woman.

“Who the hell is that woman?”

“What the hell do you care?” he hisses back, leaning down, making a few locks of his hair fall onto his forehead.

“I don’t.”

“Who the hell is that man?”

“What the fucking hell do you care?” I pivot and push my way into the ladies’, slamming the cubicle door behind me. “Fucking man,” I mutter.

“Fucking woman,” I hear Jude grunt.

I swing the door open. “Get out.”

His eyes narrow to angry slits. “I dare you to push me over the fucking edge, Amelia,” he says darkly. “I fucking dare you.”

“You lied to me. You don’t deserve anything from me but a slap.”

“Then slap me.”

“I don’t want to slap you!”

He pounces, getting me up against the tiled wall and attacking my lips like a desperate madman, pushing his tongue into my mouth, the aggression of his kiss forcing my head back against the wall.

My body instantly burns for him, my mind scrambles, my thighs clench. Fuck, no! How does this keep happening? Explosions, sparks, ravenous for each other. It’s unstoppable.

But I must stop it.

“No.” I turn my head, breaking my lips from his, and push him back, passing him. “I’m not doing this again.”

“Are you saying it’s over?”

I stop at the door. Squeeze my eyes closed. I need more than chemistry and explosions. I need trust. Respect. Love. He’s here with another fucking woman the day after we broke up. Again.

“It’s over.” I swing the door open and leave, holding back my tears as I make my way to the table. Keep it together! I need to nail this meeting.

Leo cocks his head as I lower to my chair, my shoulders aching from how tense they are. I can feel Jude’s eyes on me. “Are you okay?”

I force a smile. “Great. My hand’s a little sore.”

“I didn’t want to pry.”

“It was an idiotic accident. It was my brother’s wedding this past weekend. I had a few too many and leant on some broken glass.”

“Stitches?”

“Ten.”

He puts his hand on the table, palm up, and I see a scar running from the base of his little finger to the centre of his palm. “A broken bottle on the beach in Sorrento. Twenty stitches.”

“You win,” I quip, and he chuckles as I help myself to more wine, needing it.

I freeze in my chair when Jude appears at the side of the table.

Oh God. He looks between Leo and me, his hands in his pockets, casual, but I see the burn in his dark-blue eyes.

Leo tilts his head to look up at Jude. I die on the spot.

“What do you recommend?” Jude asks, motioning to the empty bowls.

I peek at Leo, my words caught in my throat. He’s smiling. “The seafood linguine is famous. A must.”

I want the ground to swallow me whole. “A must,” I murmur, sipping more wine. Is there another bottle coming?

“Then I’ll try that,” Jude says, leaving, relieving me of his passive-aggressive presence.

“Well.” Leo laughs. “He was an intense creature.”

I awkwardly smile at the irony, needing to get out of here, but I don’t want Leo to feel like I’m trying to escape.

“The bill?” he suggests, and I sag.

“Yes, please, let me.”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Leo calls to a waiter, and my eyes root past him, watching Jude weaving through the tables until he disappears around a corner.

They were seated in the next room. Thank God.

But then he suddenly appears again, the woman in tow, a waiter motioning to a table nearby.

The fuckhead. He’s asked to be moved so I can see how his dinner date pans out?

I clench my fists and immediately regret it, a sharp, shooting pain engulfing my entire hand.

Jude pulls a chair out for the woman, and she lowers, smiling, her back ramrod straight, her chest the showstopper of the night.

He takes a chair opposite her, his back to me.

But then he stands up, shifts his chair around the table and lowers next to her, looking at me briefly before picking up the menu from the centre of the table and passing it to the woman, leaning in to see it too.

Close. That’s what he did at our first dinner.

Moved his chair to be closer to me. Then he finger-fucked me under the table until I came, clutching at the tablecloth.

My stupid, betraying heart cracks, my eyes naturally watching the tablecloth for movement.

“Amelia?”

I blink and look at Leo. He’s standing. Has paid. “Sorry,” I murmur, rising. “Thank you so much for dinner.” I’m struggling to keep my eyes under control, which is ridiculous. I don’t want to see what’s going on at Jude’s table.

I throw my bag onto my shoulder and follow Leo, and, fuck my life, he’s walking straight towards Jude’s table.

“I hope you like the linguine,” Leo says as he passes, and both Jude and his date look our way.

She smiles, all toothy and wide, her red lips stretching.

And Jude maintains his infinite, intense expression.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening,” he says, eyes on me. And my heart cracks a little bit more. I overtake Leo and hurry outside, breathing in the cool nighttime air urgently.

“I assume you can get home safely,” he says when he makes it to me on the pavement. There’s a Bentley idling at the kerbside. Undoubtedly his.

“Yes, thank you.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Amelia.”

I feel absolutely clueless past my stress right now. We haven’t talked business for long; he never really confirmed if he’s interested in me taking over his financial affairs.

“I’ll be in touch,” Leo says, getting in the car.