LITMIR.BIZ

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stared at the last half of his snack, tucking a straggly piece of lettuce back inside. “What did you make for Kolby?”

      His question surprised her, but if it kept him talking…

      “French toast. It’s one of his favorite comfort foods. He likes for me to cut the toast into slices so he can dip it into the syrup. Independence means a lot, even to a three-year-old.” It meant a lot to adults. She reached for her bowl to scrape the final taste of custard and licked the spoon clean. The caramel taste exploded into her starving senses like music in her mouth.

      Pupils widening with awareness until they nearly pushed away his brown irises, Tony stared back at her across the table, intense, aroused. Her body recognized the signs in him well even if he didn’t move so much as an inch closer.

      She set the spoon down, the tiny clink echoing in the empty kitchen. “Tony, why are you still awake?”

      “I’m a night owl. Some might call me an insomniac.”

      “An insomniac? I didn’t know that.” She laughed darkly. “Although how could I since we’ve never spent an entire night together? Have you had the problem long?”

      “I’ve always been this way.” He turned the plate around on the table. “My mother tried everything from warm milk to a ‘magic’ blanket before just letting me stay up. She used to cook for me too, late at night.”

      “Your mother, the queen, cooked?” She inched to the edge of her chair, leaning on her elbows, hoping to hold his attention and keep him talking.

      “She may have been royalty even before she married my father, but there are plenty in Europe with blue blood and little money.” Shadows chased each other across his eyes. “My mother grew up learning the basics of managing her own house. She insisted we boys have run of the kitchen. There were so many everyday places that were off-limits to us for safety reasons, she wanted us to have the normalcy of popping in and out of the kitchen for snacks.”

      Like any other child. A child who happened to live in a sixteenth-century castle. She liked his mother, a woman she would never meet but felt so very close to at the moment. “What did she cook for you?”

      “A Cyclops.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “It’s a fried egg with a buttered piece of bread on top.” He swirled his hand over his plate as if he could spin an image into reality. “The bread has a hole pinched out of the middle so the egg yolk peeks out like a—”

      “Like a Cyclops. I see. My mom called it a Popeye.” And with the memory of a simple egg dish, she felt the connection to Tony spin and gain strength again.

      He glanced up, a half smile kicking into his one cheek. “Cyclops appealed to the bloodthirsty little boy in me. Just like Kolby and the caterpillar and snake pasta.”

      To hell with distance and waiting for him to reach out, she covered his hand with hers. “Your mother sounds wonderful.”

      He nodded briefly. “I believe she was.”

      “Believe?”

      “I have very few memories of her before she…died.” He turned his hand over and stroked hers with his thumb. “The beach. A blanket. Food.”

      “Scents do tend to anchor our memories more firmly.”

      More shadows drifted through his eyes, darker this time, like storm clouds. Died seemed such a benign word to describe the assassination of a young mother, killed because she’d married a king. A vein pulsed visibly in Tony’s temple, faster by the second. He’d dealt with such devastating circumstances in life honorably, while her husband had turned to stealing and finally, to taking the ultimate coward’s way out.

      She held herself very still, unthreatening. Her heart ached for him on a whole new and intense level. “What do you remember about when she died? About leaving San Rinaldo?”

      “Not much really.” He stayed focused on their connected hands, tracing the veins on her wrist with exaggerated concentration. “I was only five.”

      So he’d told her before. But she wasn’t buying his nonchalance. “Traumatic events seem to stick more firmly in our memory. I recall a car accident when I couldn’t have been more than two.” She wouldn’t back down now, not when she was so close to understanding the man behind the smiles and bold gestures. “I still remember the bright red of the Volkswagen bug.”

      “You probably saw pictures of the car later,” he said dismissively, then looked up sharply, aggressively full of bravado. The storm clouds churned faster with each throb of the vein on his temple. He stroked up her arm with unmistakable sensual intent. “How much longer are you going to wait before you ask me to kiss you again? Because right now, I’m so on fire for you, I want to test out the sturdiness of that table.”

      “Tony, can you even hear yourself?” she asked, frustrated and even a bit insulted by the way he was jerking her around. “One minute you’re Prince Romance and Restraint, the next you’re ignoring me over dinner. Then you’re spilling your guts. Now, you proposition me—and not too suavely, I might add. Quite frankly, you’re giving me emotional whiplash.”

      His arms twitched, thick roped muscles bulging against his sleeves with restrained power. “Make no mistake, I have wanted you every second of every day. It’s all I can do not to haul you against me right now and to hell with the dozens of people that might walk in. But today on the water and tonight here, I’m just not sure this crazy life of mine is good enough for you.”

      Her body burned in response to his words even as her mind blared a warning. Tony had felt the increasing connection too, and it scared him. So he’d tried to run her off with the crude offer of sex on the table.

      Well too damn bad for him, she wasn’t backing down. She’d wanted this, him, for too long to turn away.

       Ten

      He’d wanted Shannon back in his bed, but somewhere between making a sandwich and talking about eggs, she’d peeled away walls, exposing thoughts and memories that were better forgotten. They distracted. Hurt. Served no damn purpose.

      Anger grated his raw insides. “So? What’ll it be? Sex here or in your room?”

      She didn’t flinch and she didn’t leave. Her soft hand stayed on top of his as she looked at him with sad eyes behind her glasses. “Is that what this week has been about?”

      He let his gaze linger on the vee of her frothy nightgown set. Lace along the neckline traced into the curve of her breasts the way his hands ached to explore. “I’ve been clear from the start about what I want.”

      “Are you so sure about that?”

      “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

      Sliding from her chair, she circled the table toward him, her heels clicking against the tile. She stopped beside him, the hem of her nightgown set swirling against his leg. “Don’t confuse me with your mother.”

      “Good God, there’s not a chance of that.” He toppled her into his lap and lowered his head, determined to prove it to her.

      “Wait.” She stopped him with a hand flattened to his chest just above the two closed buttons. Her palm cooled his overheated skin, calming and stirring, but then she’d always been a mix of contradictions. “You suffered a horrible trauma as a child. No one should lose a parent, especially in such an awful way. I wish you could have been spared that.”

      “I wish my mother had been spared.” His hands clenched in her robe, his fists against her back.

      “And I can’t help but wonder if you helping me—a mother with a young child—is a way to put her ghost to rest. Putting your own ghosts to rest in the process.”

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