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“He saw my body,” she said dryly. “I was nineteen, wearing a G-string and pasties and performing onstage at a gentleman’s club. Not my finest hour and definitely not the career I envisioned when I traded in my Podunk Ville address for a cockroach-invested walkup in Tinsel Town.”
A G-string and pasties.
Angelo had too much testosterone not to hone in on those words and be turned on by the erotic image they evoked. Somehow, however, he managed to say in a remarkably normal tone, “It takes more than a hot body and pretty face to become a mainstay in Hollywood. Lots of actresses with only that to recommend them have come and gone, while you’ve remained a box-office draw. You’re selling yourself short again.”
He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. Neither did she agree. Instead, she tore open a white packet of sugar and added it to her beverage. Another act of defiance, he was sure.
“So what does all of this have to do with a couple of cannoli and caffeine laced with whole milk and now some sugar?” he asked.
“Zeke was strict about what I could eat.” She exhaled and shook her head. “And about what I could drink, wear…you name it.”
“Controlling?”
“He claimed that he was only looking out for my best interests.”
Of course he did.
“Controlling,” Angelo said again, this time not as a question but as a statement.
“He was right about a lot of things, though. He got me my first big break. I didn’t want the part of Daisy Maddox.” It was the role that had made her a bona fide star. “He insisted I take it and it wound up being my best-grossing movie.”
“Are you defending him?” Angelo asked.
“No.” She looked insulted. “I’m merely pointing out the hand he had in making my career.”
“So, you’re defending him.”
“No!”
“He could have had the same impact on your career without treating you like a lump of clay to be molded to his exact specifications.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“Do you?”
“He managed what has been a very successful career for me.”
“So, that meant he got to manage your life, too?”
“Of course not.”
“As for your career, is it all you envisioned for yourself?”
He wasn’t sure what made him ask the question, but he was glad he had when he saw her mouth drop open. “I…I have other ideas, other avenues I’d like to explore.”
“Let me guess. He didn’t want you to explore them.”
Her gaze slid away. “Let’s drop it.”
“Sure.”
Atlanta grew quiet. He considered apologizing, but he wasn’t really sorry. She’d been under the guy’s thumb for way too long. Angelo didn’t want to see her slip beneath it again, even for a moment. No one deserved that kind of treatment.
She dipped the tip of her index finger into the custard that oozed from the end of the cannolo and licked it off. All thoughts of Zeke vanished. In fact, thoughts of every variety except the lustful kind vanished. It was all he could do not to groan.
“That’s a good start. But you can do better.”
When she looked at him in question, he nodded to the cannolo.
She dipped her finger in a second time for another nibble. He snagged her wrist before she could and brought it to his mouth instead, taking his time licking off the last of the rich filling. The quick intake of her breath was all of the encouragement he needed.
“I know all about indulgence, Atlanta. You might say I’m an expert.”
She pulled her fingers free and reached for her cappuccino. The hands holding the cup weren’t completely steady. He knew the feeling.
“Seduced in Italy.”
“Excuse me?” She gaped at him and his ego needed to believe she looked every bit as guilty as she had over the cannoli.
“The name of the movie you learned Italian for.”
“Oh. Right.” She smiled. “That was the one. It was shot on location in Venice. I loved it there.”
“Was Zeke with you?”
“Only for the first couple days, then he had to fly back to LA for business.”
“Perhaps that’s why you enjoyed Venice so much. It’s a city known for indulgence.”
She shrugged, non-committal, and took another sip of her cappuccino. “I’m guessing you were on a date when you saw the movie.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s a chick flick. I can’t see you going with a couple of guys from the team.”
“You’re right.” His expression was unrepentant when he said, “I don’t remember the woman I was with, but I remember the scene where you danced in the fountain in that really sheer top.”
“What a surprise,” Atlanta replied dryly.
Angelo was flirting with her again, although at times it seemed as if he was testing himself as much as her. Either way, flirting was harmless, she decided. Come to that, even though she’d had precious little practice at it away from the big screen, it was all but required when two healthy and unattached adults got together in an idyllic setting. In Angelo’s case, it was second nature and indicative of nothing more than his interest in a romp in the sack. The man had a one-track mind.
He needn’t bother. She was the polar opposite of her celluloid twin, the recent stirrings of her libido notwithstanding. With a crew looking on and a camera recording her every move and emotion, she’d enticed and seduced her leading man or fallen victim to his charms. In real life, however, she’d always been careful not to send out signals or offer come-hither glances and coy smiles. She considered that to be too close to her mother’s method of operation when it came to men. Too close to what her stepfather had accused Atlanta of doing to assuage his conscience for the petting and pawing that had begun even before she’d hit puberty.
Even with Zeke, Atlanta had felt awkward and had approached sex with a straightforwardness that had siphoned off every last ounce of romance from the act. He hadn’t seemed to mind, which she realized now was because for him romance had never entered into it.
“Is something wrong with your dessert?” Angelo’s question roused her from her thoughts.
“No. It’s fine. Delicious, in fact.” She reached for her napkin and blotted the corners of her mouth.
“Then why are you frowning?”
“I wasn’t aware that I was.”
“You are.”
“If I am, it’s not the company.” She said it automatically. She’d had a lot of practice placating men.
“Sure it is.” Angelo’s eyes narrowed. “I make you nervous.”
“Please.” She waved a hand. “What do I have to be nervous about?”
“You’re attracted to me.”
She huffed out an impatient breath to camouflage the truth. “Right. And that would make me nervous?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “You’re not as confident in real life as you are in your movies.”
So, he’d figured that out, had he? Well, points to him.
“That’s because I’m a person, not a character for whom every action and reaction has been scripted.” She crossed her arms. “You, on the other hand, come across as grossly overconfident.”
“It’s not overconfidence if you can back it up with actions.”
“I’m talking off the ball diamond.”
“So am I.”
“Is that so, sweetheart?” she drawled. “I hate to tell you this, but, all of your bravado aside, you’re no more certain of yourself than I am. It’s easy to flirt and throw out pickup lines, but you’ve admitted that you aren’t capable of cultivating a real relationship.”
“I didn’t say I was incapable.” The calf that had been rubbing against hers under the table stilled. “I said it’s not what I want.”
“Uh-huh. The right woman doesn’t exist for you. I remember the conversation. Have you ever had a relationship? And I’m talking about something that involves more than the exchange of apartment keys and regular sex.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “As I said, that’s not what I want.”
“Why?” It was her turn to play therapist, and if it kept her out of the hot seat, all the better. “Is your life so perfect flying solo all the time?”
“That’s right.”
“No. That’s what you want everybody to think. Most people buy it. I don’t. What insecurities are you trying to mask? Hmm? What are your secrets?”
He shifted back in his chair, his gaze turning guarded. She’d struck a nerve.
“You know, I almost turned around and walked the other way when I saw you today,” he admitted.
“Regretting that you didn’t?”
He didn’t answer.
“You don’t like it when the shoe is on the other foot,” she said.
“It’s damned uncomfortable,” he surprised her by admitting.
“Then maybe you’ll resist the next time you’re tempted to analyze me.”
“Maybe. I probably should.” He shrugged. “For that matter, I should probably leave you alone entirely. You’ve asked me to. I don’t usually pursue a woman who tells me not to bother.”
“Then why are you?”
She expected him to mention attraction again. What he said was, “I can’t quite figure you out, Atlanta.”
Her laughter was bitter. “No one else seems to have a problem.”
“Yeah, I thought I had, too. But you’re a bundle of contradictions. Strong one moment, vulnerable the next.”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m neither. I am an actress.”
“Uh-uh. My turn to tell you I’m not buying it. This is you. Not an act. Contradictions,” he said again. “Like the way you keep telling me no but—”
That was as far as he got. She shot to her feet, rapping her hip against the edge of the table and spilling both of their beverages.
“When I say no, I mean no.”
“Atlanta.”
“No means no!”
He reached out a hand in entreaty, but she shook her head, turned and fled.
CHAPTER FIVE
What was that all about?
Alone at the café, Angelo slumped back in his chair and replayed the encounter. Atlanta had surprised him twice. First, by turning the tables on him and questioning what his secrets and vulnerabilities might be. And then with her overreaction to his admittedly poor choice of words.
He was a firm believer that when a woman said no, she meant no, but that was in the bedroom. He hadn’t been talking about sex, at least not directly; although where Atlanta was concerned, it was much on his mind.
“I should have walked the other way,” he muttered.
He didn’t have time to sort through her emotional baggage. As she’d already figured out, he had enough of his own.
Standing, he tossed some bills onto the table alongside her discarded cannoli and left to meander through the town. He had a little more time to kill before seeing Isabella.
Everyone he passed in Monta Correnti was friendly. From the shop owners to their customers to the people milling about on the streets, they smiled and called out polite greetings. But not one of them asked for Angelo’s autograph. Not one of them asked him to stop and pose for a photograph. Almost absently, he rubbed his shoulder. Just as he had at the airport in Rome, he found anonymity disturbing. He also found his need for fame disturbing.
What insecurities are you hiding? Atlanta had asked.
“Buongiorno.”
