Читать книгу Italian Maverick's Collection - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 65
ОглавлениеTHE HOTEL FOYER was also the dining room and actually the décor inside was much nicer than the façade suggested. About half the tables were occupied when Lara walked in, causing a few brows to rise. She walked straight over to Mark.
‘I was worried.’ He put down his newspaper.
It might have been more convincing without the petulant pout. What did I ever see in him?
‘Really.’ Her glance moved to the buffet breakfast he was tucking into. She struggled to imagine him spending his morning driving around the city to see that the woman he’d spent the night with was safe.
‘As you see, I’m fine.’ She spread her arms wide and hid her irrational hurt behind a flippant façade, trying to ignore the stares she was receiving from the other diners.
‘So how do you feel about the Coliseum?’ His glance slid down her dress. ‘After you’ve changed, obviously.’
Lara shook her head and stared, not believing what she was hearing. ‘What?’
‘I worked out an itinerary. A weekend isn’t long enough to see everything Rome has to offer, but—’
She moved closer to the table and lowered her voice to an incredulous whisper. ‘You expect me to go sightseeing?’
‘Look, this doesn’t have to be a total disaster.’
His attitude made Lara want to hit his fat face. Actually, it wasn’t fat. She held on to her temper with both hands and made herself look objectively at the man she had decided would be a safe bet.
Because that was what it boiled down to. In her determination to find a man who would see beyond her face and body she’d ignored other warning signs. One major flaw in her plan had been assuming a man capable of seeing her as more than a sex object would automatically be sensitive and caring, someone worthy of loving.
No one would have looked at Raoul and thought he was sensitive and caring, she mused, heat accompanying the image of the man she had spent the night with flashing into her head.
If she could have written a list of all the things she had been consciously avoiding in a lover he would have ticked more boxes than she knew existed.
He was all the things, the breathing epitome, of what she had been avoiding in the man destined to be her first lover. Yet his raw, elemental sexuality had been matched by a gentleness and sensitivity... The only flickers of fear had been a fear of the strength of her own response, and that had quickly faded as she had embraced the passion that had blazed between them.
One of life’s little jokes! It turned out she had wanted a man who would rip her clothes off and make her forget where she ended and he began.
With a sigh she tuned back into what a red-faced Mark was saying. ‘The room is paid for.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t possibly stay here with you.’
Folding his napkin with irritating precision, he looked at her over the dark rim of his glasses and sounded annoyed as he asked, ‘What’s the alternative?’
Pushed into a corner, she bit her quivering lip. ‘I want to go home.’ She was embarrassed before she had closed her mouth over the unguarded words; his reaction turned her humiliation to anger.
‘I thought I’d brought a woman away, not some little kid.’ The defensive aggression that she had sensed beneath the surface was now overt as he added, ‘I wasn’t funding a school outing for virgins.’
‘You weren’t funding anything.’ She had paid for her own flight. ‘I’ll leave the cash for my share of the hotel room on the dressing table before I leave.’
Turning, she stalked from the room and stomped her way up the stairs to the bedroom; not a room with a view—that was extra. Walking to the wardrobe, she pulled her clothes off the hangers and flung them in a heap on the bed before transferring them to her case. Next came the toiletries out of the bathroom. It might well be a record, she decided, turning the key on the padlock, for packing and stupidity.
She’d wanted to go away with safe and responsible and she’d got selfish and boring.
‘You know, you’re overreacting.’
She didn’t bother to turn around but sighed and said in a flat little voice, ‘Well, that’s me, isn’t it? A drama queen.’
‘Not the best trait in a PA.’
He threw it in casually, didn’t say outright that she’d be looking for another job as soon as she got home, but she’d need to have been stupid not to get the message. Lara’s stomach went into a nosedive. So this was why office romances were frowned on. When they went sour bad things happened for the person who wasn’t the nephew of the company owner.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve been thinking of moving on...’ Her pride made her say it, but in reality she needed the pay cheque. Without it...she didn’t want to go there! The only place she’d be going was back home with her tail between her legs.
Mark didn’t immediately react. He crossed the room, picked up a tourist guide from the dressing table and shoved it into his pocket. When he finally looked at her she could see the relief on his face.
‘That might be the best idea. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a good reference.’
She lost her struggle to hide her feelings. ‘Don’t make it sound like you’re doing me a favour. I’m damned good at my job.’
‘Yours, mine and everyone else’s. Not everyone likes being told what to do by a secretary.’
Pride alone kept her chin up, another of her life choices coming back to bite her.
It was strange, but last night had not been a decision in her head, more a collision, one of those celestial events that nothing could stop...and if she could have, would she? The answer should have depressed her, but, in the face of Mark’s unremitting nastiness, the fact it had happened made her feel not less in control, but more. She would never regret last night.
No, weirdly it had not been one of her bad life choices. University...? Lara had laughed at the idea—three years out of her life that gave her zero experience of real life and left her with a pile of debt hanging around her neck. Back then she’d had this crazy idea that talent and enthusiasm would make her rise through the ranks. Maybe true in some firms, but not in the one she worked for. Her glass ceiling had been set very low and her lack of paper qualifications meant she was never going to push through it.
There were no glittering prospects on the horizon, and until now she hadn’t admitted it even to herself, because doing so would mean she’d have to admit she’d made the wrong decision.
‘You know, sometimes it’s better to admit you made a mistake,’ she said.
‘But if you fly back without me, people—’
She suddenly got it. ‘You mean the guys in the office you told will think you’re not up to it?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he lied, red-faced. ‘If I’m willing to make the best of this I don’t see why you can’t...’
Arms folded across her chest, she looked at him, not seeing sensitivity shining out from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles but a pretty boring, unimaginative and selfish guy.
‘I’m really not your type, am I?’ Part of his attraction, if she was honest—and that was long overdue—was the fact that Mark had never made a pass. She’d never had to fight off advances or ignore smutty innuendo.
It really ought to have occurred to her that he simply didn’t find her attractive. She huffed out a laugh of self-mockery and thought, That’ll teach you, Lara, for assuming you’re irresistible. As for being the strong, quiet, heroic type—well, he hadn’t even asked her where she’d been last night let alone made any attempt to find her.
Mark gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘You’re beautiful, I was flattered, but—’
Suddenly Lara did not want to hear the but...which was not going to be ego enhancing. Hers had taken quite a battering, and if it hadn’t been for last night and Raoul making her feel... She pushed away the thought. She was not going to turn into the sort of woman who needed a man to tell her she was beautiful in order to be comfortable in her own skin... Skin! A tingle slid through her body.
Images began to tumble through her head, relentless details, vignettes that had been indelibly imprinted. She could hear the soft rasp of her quickened breathing as she relived strong hands against her skin, gliding, and lips warm and moist.
It required every last ounce of self-control she had to banish them, to resist the compulsion to live it over and over. It left her feeling drained and strangely disconnected from reality, which might, she admitted, looking at Mark, not be such a bad thing.
His lips were tight—Lara recognised his fall-back expression when Mark encountered any opposition.
‘And anyway my CV could do with some polishing.’
Her comment succeeded in making Mark look uncomfortable; his eyes darted everywhere in the room except towards her face.
‘I’ll get the first flight home,’ she informed him, and worry about how she was going to pay for it afterwards.
‘You won’t get a refund on your ticket.’
He was right, of course, she didn’t, but the flight had not been as expensive as she had feared, even counting for the bus journey to the airport, which was miles out of the city.
Lara sat amidst frayed tempers and crying babies, sipping something that might have been coffee, when her flight was flashed up as delayed.
Just what she needed!
‘Miss Gray?’
A tall man stood there, brown hair with some premature grey showing at the temples. He carried himself with an air of natural authority—of course, the captain’s uniform helped.
She nodded, immediately wary; airports were not her favourite places.
‘Is there a problem?’ Her imagination went into overdrive, producing any number of disaster scenarios that would bring about this man knowing her name, seeking her out.
Did they send someone in a captain’s uniform to inform you when your family home had burnt down or your mum was lying in hospital after a head-on collision with a bus?
He shook his head and flashed her a reassuring smile. ‘Not at all. No problem, just a message.’
She touched a hand to her chest. ‘For me?’
Her worried frown vanished as logic kicked in. There could be no message for her because nobody knew she was here. She hadn’t explained her travel arrangements to Mark and nobody back home knew she was catching an early flight.
It was obviously a case of mistaken identity.
‘I think you’ve got the wrong person.’ And since when did men in pilots’ uniforms act as messengers?
‘No,’ he said, looking at her hair. ‘If you’d like to follow me...?’
When she thought about it later, Lara put her uncharacteristic docility down to a combination of the uniforms and airports, which were not the sort of places where anyone these days wanted to make a scene.
Airports! How she hated them! Though up to this point the worst thing that had happened to her was lost luggage.
‘I hope this won’t take long, my flight—’
‘Thanks, Justin, I owe you. Give my best to AJ.’
Raoul placed a hand on Lara’s arm before leaning forward, hand extended to the other man. Lara stood there, too stunned to protest the possessive gesture as she watched the two men shake hands like old friends.
‘Any time, Raoul.’ Justin flashed a sheepish apologetic look towards Lara before setting his cap on his head and walking away.
It was a set-up.
As she turned her head to look at the man who remained the life returned to her stiff limbs. Snatching her arm free, she took an angry step away from him.
‘Is he even a pilot?’ she asked bitterly.
‘Yes, he’s a pilot. I called him when I got snarled in the traffic.’ When Raoul had dropped her off and driven back to his place it hadn’t been too bad, but by the time he’d reversed back out it had been straight into rush-hour traffic.
In the interim he’d not actually got out of the car.
The automatic gates closing behind him had seemed to act like a trigger. Without warning the dark thoughts that he had escaped for a few hours last night had come rushing into his head, carrying with them a sense of searing desolation and loss. Unable to fight the downward spiral, he’d sunk deeper and deeper, struggling like a drowning man. Just as his lungs had felt as though they would burst, he had caught a whiff of the perfume that lingered in the confined space, and he had focused on that elusive fragrance, letting it carry him clear.
Over in seconds, minutes or an hour, he had no idea as he sat there feeling as though he’d just run a hard set of sprints, sweat trickling down his back. He leaned back in the seat, pushing his head into the leather rest. The face that belonged to the scent materialised, and he let it form and solidify, allowing the image to push away the feelings of moments before. Sex had always been that for him, an escape, and now the echo of it was doing the same thing.
It was just a shame he hadn’t realised sex had nothing to do with emotions before Lucy. Now he enjoyed it for what it was, which was a better stress-releaser than track work and as good as—though a lot more fun than—solo climbing.
Last night—even for someone who enjoyed sex as much as he did—had been...incredible. He focused on the lips of the face in his head and released a sigh of regret. If what she did for him came in legal prescription form, the next few months would be a hell of a lot easier to get through!
And then it hit him. Like a jigsaw the pieces suddenly slotted together, and he ignored the fact that some of the pieces needed forcing, and thought... Why not?
And then the rest just became clear. He would make the gloriously sexy Lara Gray realise that this was a business arrangement she could not turn down.
Even when she’d been sparking up at him with antagonism he could see that she had been as aware of the crackle of tension between them as he was, just less experienced at hiding the fact. She would come to see that not sleeping with her boss this weekend had been a great career move.
It was also his winning card.
The information he’d requested had come during the airport traffic jam. Owning a law firm with access to first-class investigators could be useful, and these days—as in post-Lucy—he backed up his hunches and gut instincts with hard, researched fact.
The file he’d scrolled through had been thin. It turned out that she didn’t have a criminal record or any skeletons in her closet. She did have a driving licence and a couple of parking tickets, but no fall-back position if she lost her job, and pretty much no qualifications. Lara Gray needed a pay cheque, and her boss was the CEO’s nephew.
Raoul was brought back to the present. ‘Luckily your flight was delayed.’ Raoul had had his jet put on standby to cover that eventuality.
He’d had no trouble rationalising what might on the surface appear an extreme course of action. He never committed to any course of action unless he was willing to follow it through; half-hearted measures were not his style.
Not that his heart had been involved, in this or any other decision he made. It was impossible to remove the risk factor completely, but it could always be minimised.
‘Lucky!’ Lara echoed bitterly as she continued to rub her arm where his hand had lain.
She couldn’t brush away the invisible mark of contact any more than she could brush away the memory of the previous night. It seemed laughable now that she’d spent the bus journey to the airport convincing herself that in time the face that was etched so clearly in her mind would fade, the details would blur. There would come a time when she wouldn’t remember his voice.
She had found the thought soothing because, though she wanted to remember her first, she also wanted to move past it and him. She knew how special last night had been and recognised the danger of souring future relationships by subjecting them to death by comparison. The idea of becoming the dating equivalent of a soccer-team star, who got to be thirty and still considered the winning goal he scored in high school the pinnacle of his life, filled her with horror.
And now he was standing there and the lie was cruelly exposed. Her protection was stripped away and the truth was looking at her through his eyes, his beautiful eyes.
Time was not a factor. His simply wasn’t a face you forgot. Each angle and plane of his face, the subtle shading of his deep voice, the scent of his skin...it was imprinted, indelibly imprinted.
‘Very few people can carry off the open-mouthed look.’
Lara closed her mouth with an audible snap.
‘I didn’t say you were not one of them.’ To his mind Lara Gray could not look anything less than luscious if she spent a day trying.
‘I don’t understand what this little stunt is meant to achieve. Actually,’ she said, lifting a hand to ward off any potential glib or even outrageous explanation, ‘don’t bother. I don’t want to know. Maybe you’ve got nothing better to do with your time, but I have.’
‘You’re not even slightly curious to find out why I tracked you down?’
‘No,’ she lied.
His sardonic disbelieving smile made her grind her teeth.
‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
He shook his head in sympathy. ‘I’d prefer to take you to bed too but—’ He stopped, a rumble of laughter vibrating in his chest as he registered the blush on her face that continued to deepen. ‘Let’s go somewhere you can cool down.’
She ignored his hand and tucked her own firmly behind her back. ‘I am not going anywhere with you. I have no idea what this is about, but my flight could be recalled at any moment and I need to be there.’ She didn’t have the money for another ticket.
‘Relax, you’ll hear from the bar when it’s called.’
‘But—’
‘If you miss it I’ll provide alternative transport.’
‘Oh, really? I suppose you have your own private jet?’
‘Yes.’
Her jeering mockery faded. ‘I’ve no idea why you’re acting like some weirdo stalker, but if you have actually got something to say to me you can say it here.’
‘And have you pass out on me? You’re pale as a ghost. Did you have lunch?’
‘I don’t pass out.’
‘Or breakfast?’
Her stomach gave a loud rumble and, ignoring his grin, she muttered, ‘All right, a coffee.’
* * *
Raoul led her to a table in a corner of the crowded bar-lounge, looking out of place among the groups of cheerful tourists. Without waiting for him to pull out her chair, she sat down.
Raoul shrugged, walked around to his side of the table, and before he had taken his seat a waitress was there, eager to please.
‘Coffee. Grazie... Lara?’
‘Just a coffee for me.’
He responded in Italian this time and the girl bustled away after delivering a melting smile. ‘I ordered you sandwiches.’
‘Why did you ask if you were going to ignore me?’
A moment later, the waitress returned with their drinks and a plate of sandwiches, which she put in front of Lara, who picked one up. It would be churlish to waste good food just to prove a point.
She took a couple of bites; the slices of smoked salmon were interlaced with cucumber. ‘So what is this about?’
‘I have a proposition to put to you.’ He saw her face and sketched a smile. ‘Not that sort of proposition.’
Knowing her face was burning, she stirred her coffee and slung him a look of lofty disdain. ‘I can’t imagine I’d be interested in any sort of proposition you made.’
Unless it involved taking me to bed. She guiltily pushed the thought away and dug her even white teeth into the softness of her full upper lip, focusing on the pain, not on the ache low inside her.
‘My grandfather is dying.’
Lara’s eyes flew to his face. Her wary antagonism was crushed under a wave of inconvenient empathy. He looked as composed as he sounded, but she could intuitively sense the writhing emotions behind his mask.
She didn’t know what she’d expected to hear but it hadn’t been this. ‘I’m sorry.’
His glance stilled on her face and she looked back at him through green eyes soft with sympathy. She hid behind a tough-cookie attitude and he could see why; it was inevitable that individuals who emoted that much frequently got taken advantage of.
Wasn’t that what he was doing?
He shook off the moment of uncharacteristic doubt. He was not using emotional manipulation. This was a business deal, not a conventional one, admittedly, but he wasn’t appealing to her soft heart, just her pragmatism.
‘So am I.’ He leaned back in his seat, his chest lifting as he exhaled and admitted, ‘I’ve not really got used to the idea yet.’
‘Has he been ill long?’ she asked quietly. She’d been a child when she’d lost her father but that had been sudden. Was it worse, she wondered, to know it was coming?
At least then you got the chance to say goodbye— something she’d always wished she’d been able to do.
‘He’s never been ill—at least, if he was I don’t remember it.’ His voice drifted away as he sat there seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
‘Are you very close?’
He seemed to consider the question. ‘He was more of a father to us than our father ever was.’
‘So you have brothers and sisters...?’ Maybe it was the lone-wolf thing he had going on that had made her assume he was an only child or even that he had emerged fully grown with designer stubble and a macho ego!
‘I had a brother, Jamie.’
‘Sorry,’ she said again. His body language made it obvious that he wasn’t comfortable with discussing personal matters, which begged the question, why was he? Raoul did not strike her as the sort of person who did anything without a reason.
‘I’m not telling you this because I’m canvassing the sympathy vote. The fact that I’m the last Di Vittorio standing is relevant.’ Perhaps he ought to tell her that people around him had a tendency to drop like flies, but on balance he decided this might not be a vote winner.
He paused and appeared lost in thought again as Lara, curious despite her determination not to be, sat there willing him to continue.
‘Family matters to my grandfather. He feels strongly about continuity, about living on in his children, passing on his genetic blueprint through the generations, a form of immortality, I suppose. When I was married he assumed that I would provide the next generation.’
‘You’re divorced?’
‘My wife died. There were no children.’
His voice was a little dead as he gave her the information, just the bald facts that probably hid a world of pain.
‘What is this about?’
‘My grandfather’s dying wish.’
‘Which is...?’ she prompted.
‘To have his name live on in my child.’
It took her a few moments to digest his words. He couldn’t be...no...she couldn’t even think it, surely he couldn’t, wouldn’t? Outrage mingled with disbelief as she shook her head. Her chair scraped the floor noisily as she made an attempt to rise but her knees would not support her.
‘Which is where you come in.’
A gurgling sound left her throat. He could not be suggesting... ‘Me!’ She started to shake her head and, hands on the table edge, she pushed her chair back farther as if to physically distance herself from this insanity. ‘You are insane,’ she told him with utter conviction. ‘And this conversation is over. I’m not going to be a baby incubator for you!’
‘I wouldn’t bring a child into the world just to please my grandfather.’ When he had been considering his options that had never even figured.
She remained wary as she subsided in her seat. ‘What was I meant to think? You said—’
‘I want you to marry me, Lara, not have my children.’
‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then.’ She lost the mocking smile, unable to decide if he was serious or this was some sick joke as she directed a searching look of pained incredulity at his face... Hell, he made it sound as though he’d just requested nothing more outrageous than directions! ‘When my flight leaves I’ll be on it. This conversation really is over now.’ She jerked her hands to underline the finality of her statement.
His broad shoulders lifted, the shrug negligent, but the dark gaze that held hers was intense. ‘Hear me out.’
She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘Nothing you can say will change my mind.’
‘Then you have nothing to lose from listening to what I have to say. Give me the consideration you’d give any other job offer.’
She lifted threads of hair from her eyes, tucking them neatly behind her ears. Were you meant to humour insane people? ‘Do you drink in the daytime too?’
He leaned in, the unexpected action bringing his face within an inch of hers. ‘Smell?’ he invited, parting his firm, sensual lips.
As his mint-scented, warm breath brushed her cheek, Lara jolted back in her seat so fast she almost fell off her chair. ‘I’ll pass, and, in case you forgot, I have a job.’
‘Not sleeping with the boss is generally a good thing but in this instance...?’ He shook his head and studied her face, letting the blush of discomfort develop before adding, ‘I see you have worked that one out yourself. Did it not occur to you to ask yourself if a weekend in Rome might have consequences beyond losing your virginity?’ Recognising it was irrational didn’t stop him feeling furious every time he thought of her throwing herself away on some loser—any man who let this woman walk away deserved the definition. ‘Do you ever think ahead? At what point did it seem like a good idea?’
‘How is your offer better?’ she choked back, eyeing him with dislike. Where did he get off lecturing her?
His lips flattened into a hard line. ‘Were you hoping to hook him?’ he speculated.
‘Hook?’ she echoed. Does he think I need reminding of what an idiot I was?
‘Was marriage what you were after?’ he cut back, coldness seeping into his voice as other features superimposed themselves over her vivid face.
Lucy, his cold, calculating wife, had not done anything as extreme as save herself for him. She hadn’t needed to... He felt a stab of familiar contemptuous self-disgust aimed more at his romantic, easily manipulated younger self than Lucy and her mind games.
‘If I was out to catch a rich husband—which, by the way, went out with pearls and twinsets—I’d have chosen someone significantly richer than Mark.’
The furious flash of eyes like emeralds burnt away that other face and as she lifted her rounded, determined chin Raoul knew he had earned the dislike blazing in them.
Lara Gray was easy enough for a child to read! Not only could she not hide her feelings, she broadcast every emotion she felt on her beautiful face.
‘It wasn’t a judgement,’ he said quietly.
She gave a snort. ‘Not much!’
‘If it’s any comfort I think you got off pretty lightly. It can take some people a lot longer to realise the person they fell for doesn’t really exist outside their own imagination.’
‘Speaking from experience, are you?’ she mocked, finding it totally impossible to imagine that situation.
He pushed his empty cup away from him, the action allowing him the time to smooth out his expression. ‘Well, it wasn’t all bad. Look, last night we had a good time.’
Lara struggled to fight her way out of the images that flickered relentlessly through her head.
He said, ‘I made you forget.’
Where she began and he ended.
‘And you returned the favour.’ The dark glitter in his eyes was mesmerising.
The butterfly kicks had been a struggle to handle but now her stomach dissolved.
‘So what do you think?’
She blinked like someone waking up and choked out, ‘It was sex and it was one night.’ She shook her head and loosed a shocked, incredulous laugh. ‘What you’re suggesting...beyond being certifiably insane—’
‘Could work. I’m not asking for you to sign over your life.’
‘Isn’t that what marriage usually entails?’
‘Have you read the divorce statistics? The contract I am suggesting would only last for...’ he paused, the muscles around his jawline quivering before he voiced the grim reality ‘...my grandfather’s lifetime, which according to the doctors is around six months, that or...’ He stopped, cancelling the unnecessary codicil in his head: until we want it to.
He didn’t like the vagueness of it, the sense that it was not within his control. No, there had to be a definite cut-off point.
His problem was thinking past the hunger she had shaken loose in him, a hunger he’d not felt, well, ever. Right now he felt as if he’d never be able to get enough of her. But inevitably he would; six weeks, six days...even this consuming passion had a sell-by date. It would not last as long as his grandfather, but, while it did, finding the sort of escape he had last night held a lot of appeal.
‘He doesn’t expect to see his grandchild, but being able to think there will be one will make his last days... It will give his life a purpose. Do you understand?’
Lara tried a change of tack, knowing that she was doomed to lose any argument that hinged on him not being the perfect lover and her not wanting more of what he’d shown her last night.
‘I understand you’re going to lie to your grandfather and you want me to help you.’
‘You’ve never lied?’
She flung him a resentful glare. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘This is business. I’m not expecting six months of your life for free. You admit that you are going to be out of work...?’
She chewed on her lower lip. ‘Probably,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘But that doesn’t change anything.’ Except my bank balance, she thought gloomily.
‘You’re right, there are always jobs for people with the right skill sets and qualifications,’ he agreed blandly.
‘I look on this as an opportunity to go back to school.’
‘I like your glass-half-full attitude, but of course university fees are not cheap and you have to live, pay the bills...or you could give me the next six months and walk away with enough money to put yourself through college without going into debt.’
He mentioned a sum that would do a lot more than that.
‘It would be wrong.’ But it would really be a solution to the situation she found herself in...
‘Why? Who would be harmed?’
‘You’re paying me for sex. That makes me feel like—’
‘The sex is optional,’ he said, hoping he would not live to regret the gesture, but as risks went it was barely registered.
Raoul knew about sexual chemistry but just breathing in the fragrance of her skin ignited a hunger in him that broke new ground. And he knew it was mutual. Lara Gray didn’t have the ability to hide her own responses. And, yes, it was a massive turn-on to know that he could make her quiver without even touching her.
The idea that they could live as man and wife and keep sex out of the equation was the equivalent to throwing a lit match into a pile of dry leaves and expecting nothing to happen.
‘If you chose to sleep in another bedroom, so be it.’
‘And you’d be all right with that?’
His grin flashed at the note of pique in her voice. ‘No, I wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t be a deal breaker.’
‘I couldn’t do it. I’d have to pretend that I’m...I’m...I’m—’
‘Madly in love with me,’ he inserted helpfully. ‘That’s precisely why it will work. You can’t hide your feelings.’
‘If you think that one night in your bed makes me in love with you you’re seriously deluded!’
Her vehemence drew a dry smile from him. ‘If I thought you were in love with me that would be a deal breaker. I have no need of love.’ The contemptuous curl of distaste on his expressive lips backed up the claim. ‘But love and lust can look very much the same to an observer. The sensual side of your nature has just woken up. I woke it up...you look at me and you want me—it shows.’
An embarrassed choking sound left her throat; he hadn’t even attempted to lower his voice. ‘You have a very high opinion of yourself,’ she retorted, failing to come even halfway to delivering the haughtily contemptuous tone she was aiming for.
‘So none of what I have just said is true?’
Lara shook her head. ‘Look, I understand why you came up with this idea,’ she babbled. ‘I’m sympathetic, but if you just stop and think about it you’ll realise it would never work. Your grandfather sounds like an intelligent man...?’
A smile quivered across his expressive lips. ‘His brain makes razor blades seem blunt.’
She threw up her hands in an ‘argument won’ gesture.
He looked at her; the gleam in his heavily lidded eyes was sensual and teasing. ‘He’ll like you.’
‘For my good child-bearing hips?’
Her stomach lurched as she watched the smile fade from his eyes, leaving something much harder and more predatory.
She knew that he was thinking of her naked...and she was thinking of him the same way.
‘Will you stop doing that?’ she pleaded. ‘People might—’
Her agonised whisper made him grin, dissipating a little of the tension. ‘People might, what, know your knees are shaking under the table and your throat is dry; they might notice that your pupils are so dilated there is only a thin ring of green left?’
The finger he placed to her lips silenced a fresh rush of denial, but not the voice in Raoul’s own head that without warning acknowledged the fact he had so far successfully dodged: he liked Lara Gray.
