momentarily speechless. His mouth had gone dry, and he had deliberately paused to talk to the maître d’ in order to give himself time to get over his initial response.
Kenzie looked beautiful this evening. Stunningly so, with her long dark hair loose down her spine, the figure-hugging green strapless dress she wore revealing bare satin shoulders and the creamy swell of her breasts. The dress was an exact match in colour for the emerald of her eyes, eyes surrounded by the darkest, longest lashes Dominick had ever seen, and her full lips held the promise of a passion he had come to know intimately.
But Kenzie wasn’t just beautiful; she had something else, a grace, an inborn sensuality that was apparent even in stillness, like now.
The first time he had looked at her he had felt as if someone had punched him in the solar plexus. Today, under totally different circumstances, he felt the same painful blow as he studied her beneath hooded lids.
None of that emotion showed in the harsh arrogance of his face as he looked across at her. ‘You’re looking well, Kenzie,’ he told her distantly as he nodded his thanks to the wine waiter who was pouring two glasses of the wine Dominick always ordered when dining here. ‘Obviously taking a lover suits you,’ he added harshly.
‘Letting your overactive imagination run away with you again, Dominick?’ she bit out tartly, firmly pushing away her awareness of him as she tossed the long length of her hair back over her bare shoulders to meet his gaze firmly.
She had dressed carefully for their meeting this evening, choosing to wear her hair down the way she knew Dominick preferred it, and a clinging green dress that showed off the perfection of her figure.
She was going to need every weapon she could find to withstand the scorn Dominick now felt for her, and she had decided that she wouldn’t try to detract from the beauty of the face and figure with which she had made her fortune, but emphasize them instead. If only to show Dominick what he had given up when he had chosen to let her walk away rather than sitting down with her and sorting out their differences.
But the coldness of his dark gaze, as it moved slowly from the top of her head to the slenderness of her waist, didn’t show any regret for that loss!
Twenty-seven and a successful model for the last eight years, she never had been able to withstand the coldly analytical gaze that gave away none of Dominick’s thoughts or emotions.
If he had any emotions.
Besides physical desire, that was.
She had certainly never seen love shining in those dark depths, not for her or anyone else.
‘I prefer not to imagine anything where you and Jerome Carlton are concerned,’ he snapped now as he picked up his glass to take a sip of his white wine. ‘I was merely stating that the demise of our marriage doesn’t seem to have affected your beauty!’
‘Oh, let’s be precise,’ Kenzie muttered with inward resentment for his cool control. If Dominick had seen her a month ago as she had sat for hours by her father’s bedside at the hospital, just willing him to live, then he would have seen that she didn’t always look beautiful, that sometimes she just looked emotionally distraught.
‘Fine,’ she dismissed tersely. ‘If I could just explain to you why I need to talk to you—’
‘I would like to order my food first, if that’s okay?’ he cut in with smooth determination, his tone of voice telling her it wasn’t a question at all but a statement of intent.
He might have left her with no choice but to agree to meet him here at the restaurant, but she really didn’t think she could actually eat anything. Seeing him again, realizing she still loved him as much as she ever had, and knowing there was no return of love for her in his cold, unemotional gaze, was tearing her apart.
She swallowed hard. ‘Go ahead. I won’t, if you don’t mind.’ She closed the menu she had been given without even looking at it, her dark lashes sweeping low over the paleness of her cheeks.
Dominick studied her silently for several seconds, knowing Kenzie had never been one of those models that had to starve herself to stay thin, that her slenderness was as natural as her beauty.
He reached out to cup her chin in his hand and lift her face so that, unless she actually closed her lids completely, her gaze had to meet his.
She had become more adept at hiding her emotions in the last four months, he realized as she easily withstood his searching look.
Yet as he continued to study her he could see very slight changes in her. There was a strain in her green eyes, her face seemed pale beneath her make-up, and her slenderness, now that he had the time to look more closely, bordered on fragile.
‘What’s happened, Kenzie?’ he demanded as he released her chin to sit back in his seat. ‘Surely Jerome Carlton hasn’t failed to live up to your exacting expectations, too?’ he scorned.
She gave a weary sigh. ‘Why haven’t you ever believed me when I tell you I have never been involved with Jerome on a personal level?’ She shook her head.
Why? Because Dominick knew exactly how the other man had pursued her five months ago, desperate to get Kenzie as the ‘face’ for his company’s new line in beauty products.
And with the chasm that had recently developed in their marriage, Dominick knew it had been all too easy for Jerome Carlton to seduce Kenzie, and to persuade her into being a part of his life as well as contracted to his company.
He knew all these things because Jerome Carlton had personally taken delight in relating them to him!
‘Where does Jerome think you are this evening?’ he challenged. ‘Not out to dinner with me, I’m sure?’ he taunted.
She drew in a sharp breath before releasing it in a sigh. ‘I haven’t come here to discuss Jerome with you. I—actually I haven’t seen him for several weeks. My father has been ill, you see, and—’
‘Donald has?’ Dominick echoed sharply, waving away the waiter who came to take their food order, too interested in what Kenzie was saying to even think about food. Especially the part where she said she hadn’t seen Jerome for several weeks…
He also wanted to hear more about Donald. He had only found the time to meet the older man three times during his marriage to Kenzie, but he had liked him and had to admire the easy way he had survived being the only male member of a household dominated by his wife and four daughters.
Kenzie swallowed hard. ‘He wasn’t feeling well for some months, and then a month ago he had a heart attack—’
‘Why the hell didn’t you let me know?’ Dominick questioned immediately.
She blinked across at him in surprise. As she had learnt to her cost, Dominick didn’t ‘do’ family. Coming from a family that had been split apart when he was only eight, and then presented with a series of stepmothers and stepfathers, he could perhaps have welcomed the close-knit family Kenzie had brought into their marriage. But he hadn’t, he didn’t trust or want a family, and had kept his emotional as well as physical distance from all of them.
And only his emotional distance from Kenzie, she remembered achingly.
‘Why on earth would I do that?’ she prompted incredulously. ‘You never showed any interest in my family when we were married, so why would you want to be bothered now that we’re divorced?’
‘Separated,’ Dominick corrected harshly. ‘I haven’t signed the divorce papers yet,’ he reminded her.
No, he hadn’t, although Kenzie didn’t understand why not. She had thought he would be glad to get rid of her and the marriage he wished had never happened. But weeks after they had been sent, as far as she knew the papers remained unsigned as well as unreturned.
In the circumstances, perhaps that was as well…
It certainly made it a little easier to come here and talk to him this evening. A little…