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He inclined his head and then carefully removed his sweater and shirt.
With brisk efficiency, Grace picked up the first-aid kit and brought another chair over to sit opposite him.
She tilted her head and studied him. ‘You’ve torn the stitches.’ Unzipping the kit bag, she removed a square foil package and ripped it open with her teeth. ‘Keep still.’
Her head bowed in concentration, she used the antiseptic wipe to clean the blood with her right hand, her left hand resting lightly on his thigh to steady herself.
His senses filled with the fragrance of her shampoo tickling his nose. The trace of turpentine that had become more elusive the longer she had been gone was there too, more pronounced than it had been in months.
Being back in her studio with her filled him with emotions he could not begin to comprehend.
How he had loved watching her paint, watching the deep concentration she applied to her art. She would cut out the world from inside her head so all that remained was her and the canvas that became an extension of herself. If he was home, he would bring his laptop to the studio and work while she painted. For the most part she would be oblivious to his presence, but every now and then she would turn her head and bestow him a beaming smile that left him in no doubt how happy she was to have him there with her.
Even before she disappeared he had missed those times, but the running of the casinos and nightclubs had taken him away from home more frequently than he would have liked, especially in the evenings.
‘I like what you’ve done to your hair.’
She stilled and raised her eyes. ‘I thought you would hate it.’
‘Is that why you cut it so short? To spite me?’
‘Partly. Mostly it was to make it harder for you or anyone searching to recognise me. Every time I moved on I would cut a little more off and change the colour.’
‘It’s just as well I found you when I did or you would have ended up looking like a Tibetan monk.’
She laughed, but it sounded forced. ‘Yes. I might have ended up in a proper working monastery. You would never have found me then.’
‘Probably not.’ He expelled a breath. There was something incredibly soothing about the way she tended him, her fingers gentle and unrushed. He closed his eyes as he felt the now familiar hardening in his groin.
He did not want to want her.
He shouldn’t want her.
But dear God he did.
‘The bleeding’s stopped,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll put a clean bandage on it but I think you should get the doctor to check it out, just in case.’
He didn’t want to hear the concern lacing her voice.
Her eyes creased in concentration as she carefully placed the bandage over the wound but there was now something less assured about her movements, a faint tremor in her fingers, a shallowness to her breathing. He recognised the sound. Its familiarity was akin to pouring petrol on a flame.
His hands clenched into fists but this time it was not anger he was fighting. It was desire, the desire to run his fingers through that short crop, to trace her cheekbones and the softness of her skin.
Grace cleared her throat. When she spoke her voice was husky. ‘All done. Let’s take a look at your knuckles.’
She lifted her eyes to meet his and for an instant he was thrown back in time to a place where nothing had existed for them but each other. There was the light sprinkling of freckles across her long nose, the same freckles he had been determined to count every last one of, the small beauty spot on her left cheekbone and the tiny childhood scar above her top lip that was the result of an accident with barbed wire. A thousand memories filled him and the desire to press his lips to hers and capture a taste of that remembered honey sweetness came on the verge of consuming him.
Only the ring of his phone saved him.
Those memories were from a different life when he had been a different man and Grace had been a different woman.
Now she was poison.
Shoving his chair back, he got to his feet and dug his stinging hand into his pocket. ‘Ciao.’
He sighed as he listened to his PA explain about a production problem in the bottling factory.
‘I need to go,’ he said once he had ended the call. ‘We will finish this conversation another time.’
Grace opened her mouth then closed it. Then opened it again. He braced himself for the anticipated insult she was certain to throw at him. The only thing she threw at him was another antiseptic wipe.
‘For your knuckles,’ she explained tightly. ‘And make sure you see your doctor about the wound.’
For the briefest of moments he caught the desolation in her eyes before she straightened and turned her back on him.
Outside in the fresh air he took a moment to compose himself.
