Bartering Her Innocence. Trish Morey

nowhere—nowhere—near as beautiful as her daughter.’

      He touched those fingers to her brow, smoothing back a wayward strand of hair. She gasped, shivering at the touch, thinking she should stop him—that she should step away—when in truth she could feel herself leaning closer.

      It was Luca who stepped away, dropping his hand, and she blinked, a little stunned, feeling as if she had conceded a point to him, knowing that she had to regain the high ground.

      ‘You told my mother we were old friends.’

      He shrugged and sat down on a red velvet armchair, his long legs lazily sprawled out wide, his elbows resting on the arms. ‘Aren’t we?’

      ‘We were never friends.’

      ‘Come now, Valentina.’ Something about the way he said her name seemed almost as if he were stroking her again with that velvet glove and she crossed her arms over her chest to hide an instinctive and unwanted reaction. ‘Surely, given what we have shared …’

      ‘We shared nothing! We spent one night together, one night that I have regretted ever since.’ And not only because of the things you said and the way we parted.

      ‘I don’t remember it being quite so unpleasant.’

      ‘Perhaps you recall another night. Another woman. I’m sure there have been so many, it must get quite confusing. But I’m not confused. You are no friend of mine. You are nothing to me. You never were, and you never will be.’

      She thought he might leave then. She was hoping he might realise they had nothing more to say to each other and just go. But while he pulled his long legs in and sat up higher in the chair, he did not get up. His eyes lost all hint of laughter and took on a focus—a hard-edged gleam—that, coupled with his pose, with his legs poised like springs beneath him, felt almost predatory. If she turned and ran, she thought, even if there was a way to run in this cluttered showroom, he would be out of his chair and upon her in a heartbeat. Her own heart kicked up a notch, tripping inside her chest like a frightened gazelle.

      ‘When your mother first came to me for a loan,’ he said in a voice that dared her not to pay attention to each and every syllable, ‘I was going to turn her down. I had no intention of lending her the money.’

      She didn’t say anything. She sensed there was no point in asking him what had changed his mind—that he intended telling her anyway—even if she didn’t want to know. On some very primal level, she recognised that she did not want to know, that, whatever it was, she was not going to want to hear this.

      ‘I should see about that coffee—’ she said, making a move for the stairs.

      ‘No,’ he said, standing and barring her exit in one fluid movement, leaving her wondering how such a big man could move with such economy and grace. ‘Coffee can wait until I’ve finished. Until you’ve heard this.’

      She looked up at him, at the angles and planes of his face that were both so beautiful and so cruel, looked at the place where a tiny crease betrayed a rarely seen dimple in his cheek, studied the shallow cleft in his chin, and she wondered that she remembered every part of him so vividly and in such detail, that nothing of his features came as a surprise but more as a vindication of her memory.