A Deal with Di Capua

She had had her hair cut. The last time he had seen her, it had been long, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back. Now it was still wavy, but cut in a graduating bob that fell to her shoulders. She looked as chic and eye-catching as she always had.

“I had a call from Lizzy, her friend.”

“And you immediately thought that you would bury the hatchet and rush here to shed big crocodile tears. Do me a favour.”

Rosie took a deep breath. She found that she couldn’t quite look at him. Too many memories. Not that it mattered whether she actually looked at him or not. In her mind, his image was stamped with ruthless efficiency. The raven-black hair close-cropped; those fabulous eyes that were a peculiar shade of opaque green; the harsh, unforgiving angles of his face that heightened his sexual appeal rather than diminished it; a body that was lean and muscular and lightly bronzed.

“I wasn’t going to shed any tears,” she said quietly. “But we grew up together. And, now that I’ve come, I think it’s time for me to leave. I just…Whatever’s happened, Angelo, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Angelo threw back his head and laughed. “You’re sorry for my loss? We’d better step outside, Rosie, because if we don’t I might just burst out laughing again, and somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate for the inside of a chapel.”

Before she could protest, her arm was in a vice-like grip and she was being frog-marched out, her breath coming and going in staccato bursts, her brain in complete shutdown mode.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Really? Surprisingly, I don’t honestly care.” They were outside, standing to one side in the bitterly cold, gathering gloom. “Now, why the hell have you shown up here?”

“I told you. I know there’s a lot of water under the bridge, but Amanda and I go back a long way. We were at primary school together. I felt sad about the way things turned out…”

In the darkness, she couldn’t make out the expression on his face. She didn’t have to. His voice was as sharp as a shard of glass. This had been a big mistake.

“I’m not buying it. You’re a gold-digger and, if you think that you can show up here and see if there are any nuggets for the taking, then you can think again.”

“How dare you?”

“Let’s not go down that road, Rosie. You and I both know exactly how I dare. I should have known better than to expect anything else from a semi-clad waitress I happened to meet at a cocktail bar once upon a time.”

Rosie saw red. Her hand flew up and she felt the sting of flesh meeting flesh as it hit his cheek, sending his head back. Before she could back away, he was holding her wrist, pulling her towards him until she could breathe in that uniquely masculine scent she had always found so intoxicating.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t try that again.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, appalled at her lack of self-control and even more appalled at the way her body was reacting to the proximity of his. She tried to wriggle free of the steel band of his fingers around her wrist and just as suddenly as he had caught her hand, he released it to step back.

“I just don’t appreciate being called a gold-digger. I’m not here to see what I can get from you, Angelo. You must think I’m crazy, to imagine for a second that I would—”

“Once an opportunist, always an opportunist.”

“I’ve already told you that—”

“So you have. It’s a well-worn road, Rosie, and not one I’m about to travel down again.” His mouth twisted in a cynical half-smile. Even after all this time, and with enough loathing and bitterness towards the woman standing in front of him to sink a ship, Angelo still couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Any more than he could have controlled his reaction when he had felt her supple body pressed up close against his.

“Angelo, I haven’t come here to argue with you.”

“Fine.” He shrugged in a gesture that was exotically foreign and typically sexy.

From the very first instant she had laid eyes on him, Rosie had been bowled over. She had been working in London for over a year, serving drinks in an expensive club for well-heeled members, most of whom, she had clocked very early on, were married men either having illicit affairs or arranging to. Not even on the rough council estate where she had been brought up had she had to fend off so many unwanted advances.

It wasn’t exactly what she had dreamt of when she had left behind her life of no hope and limited chances. Growing up, she’d had big plans to work in one of the high-class restaurants, starting from the bottom and working her way up and into the catering side of it. She loved cooking. She was good at it. But the high-class restaurants had all knocked her back. Do you have any qualifications? Have you been to any cookery schools? No? Well…sorry. Don’t call us, we’ll call you if anything comes up…

So she had ended up dressed in skimpy clothing, serving over-priced drinks to overweight businessmen. Her incredible looks had assured her a generous income and what choice had she had? She’d needed the money. And then, one night, dead on her feet, she had looked across the room and there he was—Angelo Di Capua. Six-foot-four of pure, unadulterated alpha male surrounded by six well-dressed businessmen, wearing a bored expression on his face. Had she but known it at the time, that was the very instant her fate had been sealed.

She surfaced from memory lane to find Angelo staring down at her with eyes that were as cold as the wind whipping through the layers of her clothes.

“You want to be civil?” Angelo shot her a curling smile that sent shivers racing up and down her spine. “Let’s play that game, then. What have you been up to for the past few years? Still trawling cocktail bars in search of wealthy men?”

“I never did that.”

“So many things we disagree on.” Yet it hadn’t always been that way. Before everything had collapsed, he had considered her to be the best thing ever to have happened to him. Just thinking about it now made something deep inside him twist with pain.

“I…I haven’t done any waitressing for a while,” Rosie told him, determined to keep the conversation as remote and as polite as possible. She knew that what she should really be doing was leaving, walking away, but she couldn’t fight the small cowardly part of her that wanted just a little bit longer in his company because, like it or not, such a big part of her was still wrapped up in him.

“In fact, I finished at catering college a couple of years ago and I’ve been cooking at one of the top restaurants in London ever since. It’s hard work, but I enjoy it.”

“I can’t picture you behind the scenes. Nor can I picture you giving up a lucrative lifestyle of generous tips to take a pay cut.”

Rosie flushed. “I don’t care whether you can picture it or not. It’s the truth. You know I always wanted to go into the food business.”

“I stopped believing what I thought I knew about you a long time ago. But you’re right. Who wants to waste time bickering over a piece of history that has little relevance now? Let’s change the subject. Have you managed to net some poor guy? I can’t imagine you’d still be single after all this time.”

Angelo had no idea what possessed him to ask that question, but why fight the truth? It was something he had wondered about over the years. He didn’t like himself for his curiosity, not about a woman he had so thoroughly eliminated from his life. But, like some low-level virus, the question had circulated in his bloodstream, pernicious and resistant to the passage of time.

Rosie stilled. She could feel the sudden grip of clammy perspiration.

“I’m still single.” She tried to laugh but there was a nervous edge to her laughter.

Angelo looked at her narrowly, head tilted to one side. He hadn’t seen her for years, yet it seemed that he could still tune in to the nuances in her voice, the slight pauses and small hesitations that were always a clue as to what was going through her head. So there was a man in her life. His lips thinned as the silence hummed between them, broken only by the hushed voices of the people waiting to enter the crematorium.

“Now, why is it that I don’t quite believe that?” he asked softly. “Why lie, Rosie? Do you think I care one way or the other what’s going on in your life?”

“I know you don’t. And it’s none of your business whether I have someone in my life or not.” She was tempted to tell him about Ian, to pretend that there was someone significant in her life, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. In fact, just the thought of Ian made her feel a little ill.

“I should go,” she said with a hint of desperation. She took a couple of steps back and nearly stumbled. She was no longer accustomed to wearing heels.

“Good idea,” Angelo said smoothly. “And then we can put an end to this charade of pretending that we’re actually interested in each other’s lives.” He turned away abruptly, but couldn’t walk away because the group who had attended the cremation, now standing outside, was splintering apart.

Rosie guessed that they would be making their separate ways to whatever pub they intended to go to. She saw Lizzy give her a little wave and wondered what the other woman must be thinking—that a friend had rolled up and after a three-year absence had shown surface interest before disappearing outside with the husband of the deceased.

She had barely paid attention to any of the other people there, but now she could recognise that a short, rotund man bearing down on them had also been there in the front row and she forced herself to stand her ground. As did Angelo, although once again she saw him glance at his watch.

She wondered what their marriage had been like. She had walked away and never looked back. Had they been happy? She couldn’t think so, but who knew?

“Foreman.”

Angelo greeted the man curtly before reluctantly turning around to make introductions.

It seemed that James Foreman was a lawyer.

“Nothing big and fancy.” James extended his hand out to Rosie. “Small practice near Twickenham. Brr, cold out here, isn’t it? Still, what can you expect in the middle of February?” He seemed to suddenly remember that he was at a funeral and altered his tone accordingly. “Terrible shame, all this. Terrible shame.”