companionship, but it won't satisfy me. I don't intend to have a sweet piece of ice for a wife, and you'll melt, Julia, one way or another.'
'Would you like to take a bet on it, Rome?' His self-assurance seemed to curl across her skin like the tip of a lash. 'You're a gambling man, so a bet with such long odds should appeal to you.'
'The odds aren't all that long, my dear.' His smile was taunting. 'There is one formula in this life that no scientist has been able to mix in a test tube, and that's the magnetism that brings a man and woman together. Fight it, deny it, and try to suppress it, but when I touch you, just here on your inner arm, you feel it elsewhere, don't you—just as I do?'
Julia jerked her arm from the insinuation of his hand up the butterfly sleeves of her robe. 'Don't confuse my reactions with those of your numerous girl-friends,' she said coldly.
'I wouldn't dream of doing so. They were never the challenge that you are,
madonna
. They never had your defiant green eyes and your hair that I know to be naturally that colour and texture, nor your virginal shrinking.' He softly laughed as his eyes moved over her hair and down her figure. 'You have my baby in you, and yet you still manage to look as if you had never been touched.'
'You haven't touched my heart, Rome, so perhaps that's the reason.'
'Always you have an answer, haven't you, Julia?' His lip quirked as he started to eat his dinner, beautifully cooked pheasant meat and sweet corn, with potatoes which had been perfectly baked. Everything of the best, Julia thought, as she ate the food. A superb cook in his kitchen, a manservant who served him as if he were a scion of the nobility, and a house whose fundamental charm he had gradually restored until it was probably worth three times what he had paid for it.
He was without doubt a shrewd, clever and ruthless man, and it gave her a curiously helpless feeling that she could no longer find in him the boy outside the French windows who watched her dance in her rose-coloured dress and buckled shoes. There was no trace of him in the Roman nose, the lean and darkly defined jaw, deeply clefted at the centre of his chin. Yet that night in Naples she had known who he was from the moment she set eyes on him. She had walked into his casino and their eyes had met beneath the glitter of the chandeliers above the gaming tables and for an instant time had stood still… briefly, between one heartbeat and another, they had been boy and girl again, that very last time on the terrace of her grandmother's house.
'Come, eat up your dinner,' he said, as she dawdled, lost in her thoughts. 'It's good for you, and remember you have two to feed.'
'I don't forget it for a minute,' she flashed back at him. 'It really gives you a kick, doesn't it, to have humiliated me! When did the vendetta begin, Rome? That day long ago when I felt sorry for the boy on the outside looking in? I was only a child. I didn't know about the snobbery of people and the stupid distinctions they make because someone has a few more dollars in the bank. I was as much a victim of my background as you were of yours, so why use me to revenge yourself on the system? Don't you do enough of that at the casino when you watch the rich losing their dollars at your tables? That's why you run a casino, isn't it? You know you could do other things, that you have the shrewd mentality to make any sort of business a success.'
'Is that what you'd like, Julia, a respectable businessman for a husband?'
'What I'd like is not to have you for a husband at all!'
'Too bad, my dear. Will you have a few more potatoes and a spoonful of corn? You don't need to worry about your figure.'
'You—I could kill you!' Reluctantly she laughed at his impudence, and at the unavoidable fact that daily her appetite seemed to increase and she knew it was due to her pregnancy. 'This darned child of yours is going to be monstrously big, damn you!'
'That's the Julia I know and love,' he
'Would you like to take a bet on it, Rome?' His self-assurance seemed to curl across her skin like the tip of a lash. 'You're a gambling man, so a bet with such long odds should appeal to you.'
'The odds aren't all that long, my dear.' His smile was taunting. 'There is one formula in this life that no scientist has been able to mix in a test tube, and that's the magnetism that brings a man and woman together. Fight it, deny it, and try to suppress it, but when I touch you, just here on your inner arm, you feel it elsewhere, don't you—just as I do?'
Julia jerked her arm from the insinuation of his hand up the butterfly sleeves of her robe. 'Don't confuse my reactions with those of your numerous girl-friends,' she said coldly.
'I wouldn't dream of doing so. They were never the challenge that you are,
madonna
. They never had your defiant green eyes and your hair that I know to be naturally that colour and texture, nor your virginal shrinking.' He softly laughed as his eyes moved over her hair and down her figure. 'You have my baby in you, and yet you still manage to look as if you had never been touched.'
'You haven't touched my heart, Rome, so perhaps that's the reason.'
'Always you have an answer, haven't you, Julia?' His lip quirked as he started to eat his dinner, beautifully cooked pheasant meat and sweet corn, with potatoes which had been perfectly baked. Everything of the best, Julia thought, as she ate the food. A superb cook in his kitchen, a manservant who served him as if he were a scion of the nobility, and a house whose fundamental charm he had gradually restored until it was probably worth three times what he had paid for it.
He was without doubt a shrewd, clever and ruthless man, and it gave her a curiously helpless feeling that she could no longer find in him the boy outside the French windows who watched her dance in her rose-coloured dress and buckled shoes. There was no trace of him in the Roman nose, the lean and darkly defined jaw, deeply clefted at the centre of his chin. Yet that night in Naples she had known who he was from the moment she set eyes on him. She had walked into his casino and their eyes had met beneath the glitter of the chandeliers above the gaming tables and for an instant time had stood still… briefly, between one heartbeat and another, they had been boy and girl again, that very last time on the terrace of her grandmother's house.
'Come, eat up your dinner,' he said, as she dawdled, lost in her thoughts. 'It's good for you, and remember you have two to feed.'
'I don't forget it for a minute,' she flashed back at him. 'It really gives you a kick, doesn't it, to have humiliated me! When did the vendetta begin, Rome? That day long ago when I felt sorry for the boy on the outside looking in? I was only a child. I didn't know about the snobbery of people and the stupid distinctions they make because someone has a few more dollars in the bank. I was as much a victim of my background as you were of yours, so why use me to revenge yourself on the system? Don't you do enough of that at the casino when you watch the rich losing their dollars at your tables? That's why you run a casino, isn't it? You know you could do other things, that you have the shrewd mentality to make any sort of business a success.'
'Is that what you'd like, Julia, a respectable businessman for a husband?'
'What I'd like is not to have you for a husband at all!'
'Too bad, my dear. Will you have a few more potatoes and a spoonful of corn? You don't need to worry about your figure.'
'You—I could kill you!' Reluctantly she laughed at his impudence, and at the unavoidable fact that daily her appetite seemed to increase and she knew it was due to her pregnancy. 'This darned child of yours is going to be monstrously big, damn you!'
'That's the Julia I know and love,' he
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