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The more she looked at him, the more the excited nausea increased. Was it even nausea she felt? She didn’t know; she had no name befitting the ache that pulsed so, so low within her.
While she stood there rooted, helpless for the first time to know what to do, all her bravado and certainty from the night before gone, Francesco finished his brandy and laid the glass on the bar. ‘Time for bed.’
Bed...
Immediately the butterflies inside her began to thrash about, her heart racing at a gallop.
It was late. She’d been awake the best part of two days after a night of hardly any sleep, yet she didn’t feel the least bit weary.
But sleep wasn’t what Francesco was implying with his statement.
She gulped her drink down, completely forgetting it had alcohol in it. It had a bitter aftertaste that somehow soothed her skittering nerves a touch. She felt like grabbing the bottle and pouring herself another, this time without the lemonade.
Francesco must have read what was going on beneath her skin, for he stepped out from behind the bar and stood before her. He reached out a hand and pulled her chopsticks out. After a moment’s suspended animation her hair tumbled down.
‘That’s better,’ he murmured. Before she could ask what he meant, he inhaled deeply and took a step back. ‘I’m going to my room. I will let you decide if you want to join me in it or if you wish to sleep alone.’
‘But...’
‘I can see you’re nervous. I want you to be sure. I meant what I said last night—I will not take advantage of you. My room is two doors from yours. I leave the ball in your court.’ With that, he bowed his head, turned on his heel, and strode away.
After a long pause in which all the blood in her body flooded into her brain and roared around her ears, Hannah expelled a long breath of air.
What had she expected? That Francesco would take charge, sweep her into his arms, and carry her manfully all the way to his bedroom as if she weighed little more than a bag of sugar? That he would lay her on his bed and devour her, taking command of every touch and movement?
Hadn’t she known he was far too honourable for that?
How right she had been that he would never do anything to hurt her—even taking her phone had been, according to Francesco’s sense of logic, for her own good. Saying that, if he ever stole it from her again she certainly wouldn’t be so forgiving.... Oh, what was she thinking? After tonight he would never have another opportunity to steal her phone. Once this weekend was over she would throw herself back into her work—her life—and Francesco would be nothing but a memory of one weekend when she’d dared embrace life in its entirety.
If she wanted Francesco to make love to her, she would have to go to him....
But could she do that? Could she slip into his room and slide under his bedcovers?
Could she not?
No. She couldn’t not do it.
She would never meet another man like him—how could she when she’d spent twenty-seven years having never met anyone who made her feel anything?
It had all felt so different last night, though, when she’d practically begged him to make love to her. Before she’d spent time with him and discovered the complex man behind the cool facade, the man who could be both cruel and yet full of empathy. A man who was capable of both great brutality and great generosity. He was no longer some mythological dream figure. He was flesh and blood, with all the complexity that came from being human.
* * *
Francesco stood under the shower for an age, fixing the temperature to a much lower setting than the steaming-hot he usually favoured. If he kept it cold enough it might just do something to lessen his libido.
He pressed his forehead to the cool tiles.
Hannah was his for the taking. She’d been his for the taking since she’d first strolled into his nightclub carrying a bunch of flowers for him. All he had to do was walk two doors down and she would welcome him into her arms.
It unnerved him how badly he wanted to do that. How badly he wanted her.
Would she come to him?
He honestly could not guess.
She was not one of the worldly women he normally spent time with, for whom sex was a form of currency.
Hannah was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin who’d hidden the essence of herself from the world—from herself, even—for the best part of fifteen years.
He’d seen the hesitation in her eyes when he’d said it was time for bed. All the boldness from the night before had vanished, leaving her vulnerability lying right there on the surface.
He would not be the man to take advantage of that vulnerability, no matter how easy it would be and no matter how much she would welcome it.
