speak English, Spanish and French with full fluency and passable Italian.’
‘Prove it,’ he said, switching to his own language.
‘Why?’ she retorted, also in Italian. ‘Are you trying to catch me out?’
He shook his head and laughed. ‘You call that passable?’ It had been rapid and delivered with near-perfect inflection.
‘Until I can watch a movie in the host’s tongue without missing any cadence, I don’t consider myself fully fluent,’ she said, switching back to English. ‘I have a long way to go before I reach that with Italian.’
‘Then let us speak Italian now,’ he said. ‘It will help you.’
Her ponytail swished as she shook her head. ‘You said you had important things to discuss with me. Your English is as good as mine and I would prefer to understand everything and not have anything lost in translation that will give you the advantage.’
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘I admire your honesty.’ It was a rare thing in his world. His family were faultlessly honest with him but since he’d really stamped his authority in the architecture world and made his first billion—canny investments alongside his day job had helped with that—he hadn’t met a single outside person who openly disagreed with a word he said or ever said no to him.
The butler returned to the terrace with their first course. He set the bowls out on their placemats and placed a basket of bread rolls between them.
Eva dipped her head to inhale the aroma and nodded approvingly. ‘It smells delicious.’
The butler beamed. ‘The rolls are freshly baked but we have some gluten-free ones if you would prefer.’
‘I’m not gluten-intolerant,’ she said with a smile. ‘But I thank you for the offer.’
Eva was the only woman Daniele had been on a date with in at least three years who hadn’t been gluten-intolerant or on a particular fad diet. It had been refreshing, yet another difference between herself and the other women he’d dated. It showed on her physically. She had curves for a start and heavy breasts that just begged to have a head rested upon them. Eva Bergen was one sexy lady and he couldn’t wait to see what she looked like when wearing feminine clothes. No clothes at all would be even better.
When they were alone again, she helped herself to a bread roll and broke it open with her fingers. ‘What is it you wished to discuss?’
‘Let’s eat first and then talk.’
She put the roll down. ‘No, let’s talk while we eat or I’ll think you’ve brought me here under false pretences again.’
‘There were no false pretences on our last date,’ he countered smoothly.
‘I was very specific that it wasn’t to be a date. You made it one. The questions you asked me about the hospital could have been dealt with over a five-minute coffee.’
‘Where would the fun have been with that?’
‘My work isn’t fun, Mr Pellegrini—’
‘Daniele.’ He must have told her a dozen times not to address him so formally during their date that, according to Eva, wasn’t a date. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be anything but delighted with his attention. His family name and looks had always been a magnet for the ladies. Once the architectural accolades and money had started rolling in he couldn’t think of a single woman who hadn’t looked at him with fluttering eyelashes, not until he’d met Eva. There had been a spark of interest there, though, a moment when their eyes had locked together for the first time and a zing of electricity had passed between them.
It had been the first real hit of desire he’d experienced since his brother had died. In the two months since Pieta’s death, Daniele had lost all interest in women. The opposite sex had flown so far off his radar that the electricity between him and Eva had been a welcome reminder that he was alive.
After that initial zing her manner had been nothing but calm and professional towards him, which he’d assumed had been a product of the environment they’d been in. He’d also assumed that getting her out of the pit of hell that was Caballeros and into the more picturesque setting of Aguadilla would remove the straitjacket she’d put around herself. He’d certainly got that wrong.
Despite the zings of electricity that had flown between them that evening, she’d remained cool and poker-faced, his usually winning attempts at flattery being met with stony silence. She’d outright rejected his offer of a nightcap. Not only that, but there had been contempt in her rejection too.
There had been no denying it—Eva Bergen had been looking down her pretty little nose at him. At him.
No one had ever looked at him like that before. It had felt bitter and ugly in his guts and he’d dismissed her without a second thought. Rejection he could deal with but contempt?
It had been too much like the expression he’d seen on his father’s face when the media reported on one or another of Daniele’s dalliances with the opposite sex. His parents had been desperate for him to marry. Pieta had found a woman to settle down with—even though it had taken him six years to actually exchange vows with her—which meant it had been time for Daniele to settle down too.
Daniele had had no intention of ever settling down. His life was fun. He pleased himself, not answerable to anyone. If he wanted a weekend in Vegas, all he had to do was jump on his jet and off he would go, collecting some friends on the way to share the fun with. His perfect brother had never behaved anything but...perfectly, and he’d been held up as the shining beacon for Daniele to emulate. He’d been held up as the shining beacon before Daniele had even been out of nappies.
Well, Daniele had had the last laugh. He’d earned himself a fortune worth more than Pieta’s personal wealth and the estate Pieta would inherit combined.
And then the last laugh had stopped being funny. Pieta had died in a helicopter crash and the man he’d loved and loathed in equal measure, his brother, his rival, was no longer there. He was dead. Gone. Passed. All the terms used to convey a person’s death but none with the true weight of how the loss felt in Daniele’s heart.
‘I take my job very seriously, Mr Pellegrini. I’m not here to have fun.’ Eva said it as if it were a dirty concept. ‘Your flirting was inappropriate and your offer of a nightcap doubly so.’
No doubt his sister would call him a masochist for choosing to marry a woman who openly despised him. Francesca wouldn’t understand how refreshing it was to be with a woman without artifice. She wouldn’t understand the challenge Eva posed, like an experienced mountaineer peering up from the base of Everest, the peak so high it was hidden in the clouds. To reach the top would be dangerous but the thrills would make every minute of danger worthwhile.
The only danger Eva posed was to his ego and he would be the first to admit that his ego could use some knocks. He despised thin-skinned men and looking back to his reaction when Eva had rejected his offer of a nightcap, he could see he’d been as thin-skinned as the worst of them.
‘I would have thought an intimate meal for two in a Michelin-starred restaurant was the most appropriate place to flirt with a beautiful woman.’
The faintest trace of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘If you flirt with me again I’ll leave.’
‘Without hearing what I wish to discuss first?’
‘That’s up to you. If you can control your natural tendency to flirt and actually get to the point, it won’t be an issue.’ She put a spoonful of soup into her wide, full-lipped mouth.
Daniele took hold of his spoon. ‘In that case I shall get straight to the point. I need a wife and want you to take the role.’
A groove appeared in her forehead, crystal-clear