In less than thirty minutes, her nerves were shot.
Unable to stand the pressure any longer of being around a man she had once loved, who had not loved her and whom she now despised, she sought escape at her desk in the back room. She would work on the auction. Signor di Adamo could man the store.
“You have been running away for a year, Elisa. That is over.”
Stupid. She castigated herself mentally as the voice she was trying so desperately to avoid attacked taut nerve endings. It had been really dim to take refuge in the small confines of an office that had only one exit. She faced him, wishing for the numbness she had felt for so many months after the death of her baby and the destruction of her dreams.
He stood blocking that exit—his head almost brushing the top of the doorframe, his shoulders filling it.
She refused to allow any of the emotions roiling inside her to show on her face. “I’m not running. I have work to do.”
“So, it has not been running when you manage to be gone every time I have come to visit.”
“I wasn’t always gone.”
“No, this is true. The first time I came, you were home in your apartment, but you refused to open the door.”
She’d threatened to call the police if he didn’t go away and she’d meant it. Even so, she had not expected him to leave, but he had. A male of his wealth and standing could have talked the police around, but he hadn’t even pushed it. Although she’d been relieved, she still had no real clue why he had gone.
“You came back,” she accused.
“And you left.”
“I had a buyer’s trip.” He’d made the mistake of calling to tell her he was in Rome on his way to see her. She’d left for the buyer’s trip three days early.
“You were running, just as you ran the next time I attempted to see you.”
“I owed my mother a visit.”
“Your father told you I was coming to Rome. You knew that meant I was going to try to see you again. You took off on a flight for America less than an hour before I arrived.”
“My father thought I might want to see you.” A hollow laugh escaped her. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but Papa had done her a favor in warning her of Salvatore’s intended travel plans.
“You ran away, Elisa, and I let you, but I cannot let you run any longer.”
“I don’t want to see you. That’s not running away.” Even he should be sensitive enough to realize she wanted to avoid a man who had cost her more than she had to give. “That is simply reality.”
He flinched, or maybe it was a trick of the lighting. Old wiring sometimes made it flicker.
“It is also reality that your father has asked me to look after you. This I will do.”
“I don’t need looking after.”
“You can say this?” There was no trick of the lighting now. Salvatore looked furious. “The security in this store is worse than I could have thought possible. The fact Signor di Adamo has not been robbed is by the grace of il buon dio. This store is the amateur thief’s dream hit.” His stress on the word “amateur” underscored his contempt for their security.
“There hasn’t been money to make improvements in that area.”
“That is no excuse. According to both Signor di Adamo and your father, you spend many days here alone. Is this true?”
Why was he asking her when they’d already said that it was?
“It’s none of your business.”
“You are my business.”
That possessive statement set off something inside her. Pain that had been festering for months while she tried to pretend she was over him exploded in her chest. There had been no confrontation, no final end to their relationship. She’d walked out of the hospital against doctor’s orders and refused to see Salvatore from that point on.
She shot to her feet without any thought of doing so and stormed forward until they were mere inches apart. Poking him right in his rock-solid wall of a chest with each word for emphasis, she said, “I am nothing to you.” She managed to contain the level of her voice, barely. “I was nothing to you when you were screwing me, and now that we aren’t even doing that I’m less than nothing to you. And you are nothing to me.”
“You said I was the father of the child you lost.”
She reeled from the words as if they’d been multiple body blows, staggering backwards, the pain so intense she did not know if she could contain it.
In a lightning-quick move that shocked her, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her the remaining inches while his mouth formed words she could not comprehend. Her body molded to his in a way that had once given her pleasure, but now filled her with loathing and fear. Loathing for her own physical reaction and fear that he would see it.
“Do not speak of yourself in this crude way. Whatever you were before, when we were together, you gave yourself to me. It was not ugly, as you make it out to be.”
Whatever she’d been before? A virgin. That was what she’d been, but because the physical barrier had not survived her years in gymnastics he had assumed otherwise. Had in fact assumed she was the same sort of woman as her mother. A woman who flitted from one lover to another, Shawna had been uninterested in making a commitment to any of the long line of men parading through her life.
“I’m done giving myself to you. I’ve learned my lesson,” she spat at him.
His jaw looked hewn from the hardest marble, his eyes glittered at her with fury.
She was glad. She wanted to make him angry, angry enough to leave her alone once and for all.
“We do not need to discuss this right now. I am here to see to your safety. Our relationship will wait.”
“We don’t…” She yanked herself away from him and stepped back toward her desk. “There is no relationship. None. Do you hear me? Leave me alone, Salvatore. You have no place in my life any more and you never will again.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared at her.
Then his gaze dropped below her neck and she wanted to scream. The whole time she’d been telling him off, the feminine parts of her body had been busy reacting to his scent, to the sensation of being held against him again.
“You’re lying to yourself if you believe that.”
She crossed her arms over the betraying rigid tips of her breasts and glared. “I’d rather go to bed with a sewer rat than with you, Signor Salvatore Rafael di Vitale.”
His head jerked as if she’d hit him. She wished she had.
His next words totally shocked her because they were so calm. “Signor di Adamo needs several security upgrades before either you or he will be safe in the store, and, even with them, neither of you should be here alone at any time.”
She fell back into her office chair, feeling the weight of her responsibilities too heavy to hold up any longer. Those upgrades, even the basic security measure of having two people in the store at all times, were not even pipe dreams. “I’m sure you’re right, but nothing can be done.”
“It must be done.”
“There