The Valtieri Marriage Deal by Caroline Anderson

Out it came. He hardly even lifted it. He made it look so damned easy!’
    She picked up a slice of toast that Sarah had just buttered and bit into it. ‘It’s all in the wrist action,’ she mumbled round the toast. ‘I expect it’s from twirling all that spaghetti,’
    Sarah chuckled. ‘And he’s so gentle with them. I’ve never seen a doctor treat a woman more carefully, with so much—I don’t know, respect, I suppose. Almost reverence.’
    And then she looked at Isabelle, and her eyes widened in distress. ‘Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m being so tactless. I’d completely forgotten—’
    ‘Sarah, it’s fine,’ Isabelle lied, trying not to think about those reverent hands and how they’d touched her with tenderness and respect as well as passion. ‘I met him, we spent the day together—it was nothing.’ Except it hadn’t just been the day, it had been the night, too, and that was so much harder to forget. ‘Really,’ she repeated, forcing her voice to sound casual, ‘it was nothing—nothing out of the ordinary at all.’
    And then she looked up and saw Luca standing there in the doorway. His face was like stone, and without a word he turned on his heel and walked away, and for some inexplicable reason she wanted to cry.
     
    Nothing out of the ordinary.
    Dio! He wanted to put his fist through the wall, slam doors, hurl something good and heavy through the nearest sheet of glass.
    Instead he went into the office, shut the door with exaggerated care and threw himself down in the chair.
    Nothing out of the ordinary.
    He closed his eyes and made himself breathe slowly and deeply. She didn’t mean it, of course. She was just being defensive, because of whatever it was in her past that she wouldn’t give him access to. And she was angry with him for finding her. But she wasn’t indifferent. He knew that, knew it in his bones, and slowly the anger dissipated.
    She was just saying those things to Sarah. She didn’t mean it, didn’t believe it. It had been out of the ordinary—so out of the ordinary that it had made him throw away all his plans for the future and fly back to London on a wild goose chase to find her.
    Nothing out of the ordinary?
    No. Isabelle was trying to ignore her reaction to him, but she was very, very far from indifferent—and that gave him hope. Oh, it wouldn’t be easy, he was under no illusions about that. But he’d get there. Especially if he could ever get her to tell him her story.
    And now he had that out of the way, he was suddenly starving. Maybe there was some toast left in the kitchen…
     
    ‘Right, time to go home.’
    She sighed and glared at him. ‘Are we going to have this fiasco every single night?’ she asked crossly, but he just gave her that lazy smile and shrugged.
    ‘I don’t know. Are we? I hope not. You’ve had a long, busy day and you’re late, which I suspect is not unusual. And I know you haven’t eaten anything remotely like a vegetable all day, so I’ve made you supper, and then afterwards I’ll run you home.’
    ‘You’ve—I said no!’ she protested, but he wasn’t listening, just tucked his hand into her elbow and steered her to the lift.
    ‘No arguments. You’re no use to anyone hungry and exhausted, and besides, I’ve gone to a lot of effort.’
    ‘Well, I could have saved you all of that. All you had to do was listen to me a little harder.’
    He grinned. ‘I have problems with my hearing sometimes.’
    ‘Evidently. You need to learn to lip-read. I—said—no!’ she mouthed, but he just laughed and shut his eyes, and she found herself smiling.
    Not that it mattered, because his eyes were shut—or so she thought. But then she caught the gleam of an eye through his lashes, and realised he was laughing at her.
    ‘Crazy woman,’ he murmured, his hand tightening on her arm in an affectionate squeeze. ‘Come on, it’ll be overcooked.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Pasta with chicken and roasted Mediterranean vegetables in