Stefano was silent long enough for Allegra to look up and meet his knowing gaze.
‘There isn’t another art therapist who has the experience you do,’ he replied, his tone flat and final. ‘One who is also Italian, who has the ability and willingness to spend several months in a rather remote place.’
‘You’re assuming rather a lot—’ Allegra interjected and Stefano smiled, although it was a gesture tinged with sorrow.
‘Am I? The girl I knew would have done anything—gone anywhere—to help someone in need. But perhaps you’ve changed.’
‘It’s not that simple, Stefano,’ Allegra replied. She wouldn’t be manipulated or emotionally blackmailed. She wouldn’t let Stefano use those tactics on her. Not now. Not again.
‘It never is,’ he agreed, and Allegra was silent.
Their desserts came and Stefano turned the conversation to easier topics—films, the weather, London’s sights. Allegra was relieved to talk without considering how every word she said might be interpreted, and what every rejoinder of Stefano’s might mean.
It was quite late in the evening when they finally left the restaurant. Stefano’s car was waiting as they left the hotel, and Allegra wondered how he did that.
Had Stefano rung the driver? Had the driver waited there the whole evening? How did everything come so easily to people in power?
Except, perhaps, where it mattered. She thought of Lucio, and how much he obviously meant to Stefano, with a compassionate pang.
They drove back to Allegra’s flat in virtual silence. Allegra didn’t know if she was imagining the heavy expectancy of that silence, as if something had already been decided.
As if something was going to happen.
A light, misting rain was falling, softening the street into a grey haze, as Stefano pulled up to Allegra’s building.
‘You don’t have to come in,’ Allegra protested vainly, for Stefano was already through the front door.
‘I’ll see you safely to your door,’ he said, but there was nothing safe about his presence, filling up the tiny hallway. He was too big for the space, she thought, too much. He towered over her, near her.
‘It’s perfectly safe,’ she protested and Stefano just smiled. He was gazing at her, that familiar glint in his amber eyes, a spark Allegra knew could become a fully-fledged blaze. She swallowed, pressing against the wall as if she could put some distance between them.
‘Stefano …’ she began, and then stopped because she didn’t know what else to say.
‘I wondered what it would be like, when I saw you again,’ Stefano said. His voice was pitched low, a husky murmur that still managed to make Allegra tremble.
‘I have too, of course,’ she said, and tried to keep her voice light, friendly. She failed.
‘I wondered if you would be the same,’ Stefano continued. He lifted his hand as if to touch her and Allegra held her breath.
‘I wondered,’ he continued, his voice turning huskier, ‘if you would look at me the same way.’
‘We’re different, Stefano,’ Allegra said. She wished she could tear her eyes away from his burning gaze, wished she could keep her body—and perhaps even her heart—from reacting. Wanting. ‘I’m different,’ she added, but it was no deterrent. He smiled, his fingers touching her cheek, tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear.
‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘you are.’
The light touch of his fingers was enough to send sensation spiralling through her. Enough to make her dizzy, to close her eyes. She snapped them open.
‘Don’t do this, Stefano,’ she whispered. She didn’t have the will power to pull away and it shamed her. ‘You’re hiring me in a professional capacity. You shouldn’t do this.’
‘I know I shouldn’t,’ Stefano agreed, but there was no regret in his voice, only decision.
He was moving closer, his body inches from hers—chest, torso, stomach, thighs. She felt his heat come off him in intoxicating waves and she took a deep, gulping breath.
‘We should say goodnight,’ she managed, her voice turning breathless because suddenly it seemed as if there was no air in the hallway, no air in her lungs. Her body was transfixed, her eyes on his, watching his lids lower, his lashes sweep his cheeks and still he moved closer. ‘We should shake hands,’ she added desperately, for she knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Something else was.
‘We should,’ Stefano agreed. His fingers drifted down her cheek, traced the full outline of her lips. His fingers left a trail of tiny shocks along her skin and Allegra forced herself to remain still, not to lean into his hand, into him, because at that moment she wanted nothing more.
‘Of course,’ Stefano continued, ‘we could seal a business deal with a kiss.’
‘That’s not how I do business,’ she countered, choking on air.
‘Don’t you want to know, Allegra?’ he whispered, his lips a scant inch from hers. ‘Don’t you want to know how it is between us … how it could have been, for all these years?’
She tried to shake her head, tried to frame a word, a thought. Why was it so hard to think? Her mind was as misty as the evening outside, her thoughts evaporating into haze.
Then his lips came down on hers, a mere brush turning into something hard, demanding, a possessive brand.
Mine.
His.
Allegra realized dimly in the last cogent part of her brain that Stefano had never, not even remotely, kissed her like this before. The kisses they’d shared all those years ago had been chaste pecks, brotherly brushes, and she’d thought those had sent a spark spiralling through her body!
This kiss turned her to fire.
His mouth moved on hers, his tongue tasting, testing and finding.
Her arms came up around his shoulders and she revelled in the sheer size and power of him, her hands bunching on his arms, her nails digging into his skin.
Stefano’s arms came around her, holding and supporting her for Allegra realized she’d sagged bonelessly against him, needing his strength.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, his arms still around her, she had not a single thing to say. To think.
The feelings blazing through her were simply too much.
‘Sealed with a kiss,’ he whispered in satisfaction and stepped back. ‘I’ll ring you on Wednesday,’ he promised. ‘But now I’ll leave you to your dreams.’
Dream of me.
‘Goodnight, Allegra.’
Wordlessly she nodded, watched him open the door and disappear into the drizzle. In the shattered silence of the hallway she let out a choked gasp, a half-laugh, her mind and heart seething with both confusion and unfulfilled desire.
She touched her fingers to her lips as if she could still feel him there, his sure possession, and thought numbly that the past was not forgotten.
As his car pulled away from the kerb, Stefano could still see Allegra in the hallway. She sagged against the wall, one hand touching her lips, and he smiled—smiled with a hard satisfaction that settled in him, through him, with savage pleasure.
She wanted him. Just as before. Perhaps, he thought musingly, more.
She wanted him, even though she didn’t want to, even though