Читать книгу Bombshell For The Boss: The Bride's Baby - Jackie Braun, Nicola Marsh - Страница 11

SYLVIE took a few moments to splash water on her face. Regain her composure.

She shouldn’t have asked him. She’d promised, but she had to be sure. She didn’t want to believe him so incapable of feeling …

She blew her nose, tucked a wayward strand of hair back into her scarf. Regarded her reflection in the glass. ‘Serves you right, my girl,’ she said, then laid her hand against her waist. ‘Be thankful for what you’ve got.’

And with that she changed into sensible shoes and rejoined Tom McFarlane at the foot of the stairs. Neither of them spoke but she was intensely conscious of him at her side, then at her back as she led the way up the last flight of narrow stairs to the attics.

Why on earth had he waited?

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know the way …

She reached for the light switch but he was a fraction faster and, as their hands connected, her mind was filled with the image of long fingers holding his pen, ticking off invoice after invoice, on that endless afternoon. The memory of their strength as he’d lifted her down from the van, the way they’d felt against her skin.

Demanding, tormenting, sensitive …

‘I’ve got it,’ he said pointedly and she yanked her hand back as if stung.

The tension between them was drawn so tight that she half expected the bulb to blow as he switched it on, but only the dust burned as, throwing a dim glow over the abandoned detritus of generations of Duchamp lives, it began to heat up.

‘Good grief!’ she said, more as a distraction than a genuine exclamation of surprise as she glanced around. ‘What a mess!’

‘I thought that was the general rule with attics? That they were a dumping ground?’