Intoxicating.
The worst thing about it was that he had been perfectly well aware of exactly how much of a risk he was taking. It was, without doubt, the first real risk with potentially catastrophic consequences that he’d ever taken in his life.
It was certainly the first time he’d ever had unprotected sex.
Oh…God… He groaned aloud, following the sound with a muttered oath as he jerked his dinner suit off the clothes hanger.
He had to walk past the gymnasium as he left his bedroom suite, but it felt like only minutes since he’d been in there with Bella. Good grief, ithadonly been a matter of minutes. At least the alarm sounding on his watch to remind him of his obligations elsewhere had been an excuse to escape having to deal with the aftermath of what he’d done.
He couldn’t just leave things like that, though, could he? Bella might think it had been the start of… something. She might say something, even, in front of his mother.
Was she still in there? As he’d rushed off to have a shower and get changed, she’d said something about having a quick swim before going back to check on Lady Dorothy.
Yes. Wrapped in a towel, Bella seemed to be lying on the floor of the gymnasium, her limbs jerking in a fashion that made alarm bells ring for Oliver. He was beside her in seconds.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘N-nothing…’ Bella wriggled, pulling her arm out from beneath the treadmill. She scrambled to her feet, the movement loosening the towel and giving Oliver an unwanted glimpse of her still naked body.
And he’d thought that shaft of renewed desire he’d had moments earlier was as much as he’d have to resist from now on?
He’d been dreaming. This was going to be torture. Oliver sucked in a steadying breath. He had to gain control here. Better late than never.
‘That…’ He had to stop and try to find the right word, but how could he describe something when he’d never experienced anything like it before in his life? He cleared his throat. ‘What happened here… it shouldn’t have happened, Bella.’
She was eyeing his dinner suit, and Oliver suddenly felt ridiculously overdressed in his Armani suit and velvet bowtie.
‘You’re employed by my mother,’ he continued.
It was a good enough reason to excuse himself from the almost palpable awareness that what had happened here might possibly happen again. No, make thatprobablyhappen again. And again.
He simply couldn’t let that happen.
Not after a lifetime of doing the right thing. Doing what he was supposed to do. Oliver wasn’t about to fall off the rails on a regular basis. Tasting the freedom of pleasing only himself was intoxicating enough but the lure of doing it again was dangerous. Self-indulgence could only undermine what his life had been about for as long as he could remember.
It could turn him into the kind of person his father had been.
He had made his own rules and learned how to earn self-respect, if nothing else.
‘It can’t happen again,’ he heard himself say, his voice curiously raw. ‘It’s just not… appropriate.’
‘No… I guess not.’ Bella’s smile was crooked. She gave his suit another glance and then looked over her shoulder, taking in their surroundings. ‘Bit like shagging one of the servants, really, wasn’t it?’
Oliver’s jaw dropped. ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to suggest.’
‘Is it?’ Bella fiddled with the towel again, tucking it more firmly around her body. As she did so, something came loose from her hand.
‘What’s that?’
The query came out as a snap because Oliver realised he was angry at her inference that he’d taken advantage as someone in a more powerful position than she was. Or that she was in some way socially inferior.
That wasn’t the reason it was inappropriate at all. It was because she was his mother’s nurse. Or maybe that wasn’t therealreason either. Bella was so totally the opposite of anyone he’d ever been remotely attracted to. So carefree and full of life and… well, just…Bella. The way she was right now, with her face lighting up with a smile.
She personified rebellion, that’s what it was. And while the attraction was undeniable, could there be a space in his life for something like that on a regular basis?
Oliver could feel a hard, grim band curling around inside his gut and it tightened with a painful jerk. Of course there wasn’t.
Bella held out her hand to show him the object, and Oliver recognised the necklace he’d given his mother so many years ago.
