Joe ignored my prickly attitude. He rolled his sleeves to his elbows and tipped the lid off the first platter. Clouds of fragrant steam billowed out. He sighed with pleasure.
That sigh I recognised. Joe must have been sighing like that since the very first time he blasted off. Annoyed with the sharpness of my memory, I flipped my napkin into my lap. 'Do you want to tell me what this is about?'
He set the lid aside, revealing medallions of veal and steamed asparagus, both swimming in juice. He slid a portion on to my plate. My stomach growled.
'I'm thinking of establishing a recording studio,’ he said, serving himself just as deftly. I watched the tendons shift in his forearms and the fine, dark hair that veiled them. "This party is to take the local temperature, to find out who else would use the studio, who'd back it, and who'll help me get a permit. Now that my career is somewhat established, I plan to return to serious composing.'
'And you wanted me here because ...?'
'Kate.' His eyes sad, he covered my hand with his and caressed my wrist with a flush-inducing sweep of his thumb. I couldn't help noticing what nicely manicured nails he had. 'I asked you to come because I haven't seen you in half a year. I thought it was time we made peace.'
I tried to retrieve my hand but he wouldn't let go. My thighs were sweating. 'I didn't make war on you,' I said. I didn't want it to happen but my eyes filled with tears. Damn those vodkas, anyway.
'Kate,’ Joe said again. He tugged my hand closer and turned the palm for a soft, lingering kiss.
Unfortunately for my composure, he didn't stop with one kiss. Over and over, he pressed his warm, mobile lips to the sensitive skin, travelling the length and breadth of my palm as if its print held not just my future, but his. Chills broke out in waves along my limbs. My lungs stalled. When he reached my wrist, he closed his eyes and ran the tip of his tongue slowly, sinuously up and down my veins. The longing that tautened his face was so intense, I could have sworn it wasn't feigned.
'I know you didn't make war on me,’ he said, his voice whisky rough. 'I'm the one who needs to make peace.'
I didn't trust myself to speak; I didn't dare caress the smooth line of his cheek, mere inches from my hand. If he wanted to punish me for rejecting him, if this was all a trick... I curled my fingers back towards my palm.
He set my hand down, on his thigh this time, and leant so close his cinnamon-scented breath warmed my ear. His lips whispered down my hairline. 'I haven't slept with anyone for the last two months.'
I shivered. 'Is that supposed to impress me?' I said, though in truth it did. This was Joe, after all, the fellow who could take it two, three times a day and still be up for more.
Then the emotional half of my brain ticked the other way. Why only two months? He'd been gone for six.
Joe spied my involuntary frown. He chuckled, a sexy, confident sound, then caught the back of my neck so I couldn't pull away. The way he massaged the knotted muscles made me forget I'd wanted to.
'For the first few months I did what you expected,’ he said in that same intimate murmur, 'or what I thought you expected. I slept around - young and old, gorgeous and plain, women I liked, women I didn't like, plus a few men for variety's sake.' His shoulders lifted and dropped philosophically. 'Some of it was fun. A lot of it was awkward. None of it was the same. I didn't love any of them. And I still loved you.'
I pressed one fist to the sudden ache in my chest. I reminded myself how deeply he'd hurt me, and how changed he was from the boy I knew. 'If you loved me so much, why did you stay angry so long?'
He stroked my cheek the way I'd wanted to stroke his, following the curves and hollows with the back of his fingers. 'I wasn't angry.' He smiled. 'Well, maybe at first I was. Mostly I was humiliated. That's why I left the way I did and broke off all contact. Call it the Heathcliff Syndrome. I couldn't come back until I'd made something of myself. Problem was, back then I didn't know what that something was.' 'And now you do?'
Fine lines crinkled around his eyes, brought to life by an infinitely gentle smile. His expression mesmerised. I saw the old Joe in it, and the new. I couldn't decipher all the separate parts, not in my current state of mind, but I knew the combination frightened me in some deep, atavistic way. I put my fork down, certain I'd never swallow the bite it held.
Joe drew his fingertip down the valley beneath my nose, then continued across my lips and over my chin. 'Now I know I don't have to make myself into anything at all. Now I know everything that really counted I had all along. I just wasn't smart enough to see it - and neither were you.'
I tensed at the sureness in his eyes. "That sounds like quite a revelation.'
His smile turned wicked, a thousand watts of devastating Capriccio charm. Even though I'd seen that trademark smirk a hundred times on Manhattan Nights, I found I was not immune.