I am doomed.
He’s over there channellingBoss Man, and I’m on my hands and knees on the floor, no makeup, my hair in an untidy updo, and I’m wearing a tracksuit, again.
I didnotplan for this.
Lizzie straightens, and he must have hung up the phone because she says, “Hey, Dad. I wanted to introduce you to my friend, Diana.”
Shit.
Lizzie cannot find out that we know each other. That we’ve ever met before.
I bite my lip as my nervous system performs the precarious balancing act of teetering between giggles and tears. If I allow myself to laugh, I could get hysterical. I want the ground to swallow me up, but seeing as that’s impossible, and I can’t stay down here forever, I decide to take control of the situation.
Popping up beside Lizzie like some unruly Jack-in-the-box, I try to keep the horrified expression off my face as I greet her father.
“Hello,” I squeak. It’s the unsexiest noise I’ve ever made.
He barely lifts his eyes from his phone screen, and Lizzie gives a one-shouldered shrug as if to say, ‘Sorry, he’s always like this’.
She urges me towards him, and the familiar scent of his cologne drifts closer, triggering another windfall of memories that have absolutely no place in my head whilst my best friend is hanging on to my arm.
My heart is racing so fast, it might leap right out my chest.
Her dad, AKA the best fuck I’ve ever had, raises his gaze from the phone for a millisecond and gives me a smile that’s…
Wait. Was that even a smile?
Did he actually look at me? Did heseeme?
His phone rings again, and he answers it. “Give me two minutes,” he snaps into the receiver, then hangs up. He paces towards us, and even though he’sstillflicking through hisphone, barely paying me any attention, I’m mesmerised by the way he moves. There isn’t a scrap of hesitation. He’s elegance and grace and power, and against my will, a sinful heat burns low in my hips.
This man turns me on. Even now, with his daughter—my friend—standing right beside me.
“Diana,” he says brusquely. “Rafe Bastion.” He takes my hand in his, and a jolt of electricity zaps up my arm. Every cell in my body tingles with the shock of it. His long, masculine fingers wrap around the back of my hand. Fingers that, not long ago, were slipping in and out of my wet, needy pussy, working me until I came all over them. I rode his hand like a jockey, and now, here it is, wrapped around mine in the most civil of handshakes.
What a mindfuck.
My heart is definitely about to explode. This is horrendous. Every muscle in my entire body feels like it’s seized up, and a searing heat is rolling up my arm from his hand.
Is he feeling this too?
Shit, shit, shit.
I drag my gaze from our joined hands, tracing his muscular forearms, over his shoulders, up his throat, and, like I’ve been saving the best for last, all the way up to his face. His absolutely, how-dare-you-be-this-good-looking, gorgeous face.
But he’s not looking at me because his phone, clutched in his other hand, has started buzzing again.
“Good to meet you, Mr Bastion,” I murmur, but all the reaction I get is the tiniest flick of his eyes to meet mine before they’re back on his phone.
“Rafe,” he says, still brusque. “Call me Rafe.”
Rafe. I try to repeat it, but I can’t say it aloud. For weeks, I haven’t known his name, didn’t ask to know, and now he’s telling me to use it like it’s no big deal. “Okay, sure,” I manage.
“Diana’s the one I told you about,” Lizzie says to him. “I’ve moved her into the park-side guest suite.”
“Great,” he says, sounding as though he barely registered her words. He clicks the phone screen off and finally glances at both of us. I must look like a rabbit in the headlights, but, alarmingly, he doesn’t mirror me. There isn’t a scrap of recognition in his gaze. Total, authentic, emotional detachment.
Wait a fucking minute.
