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Sephy was stunned. ‘What? No, of course I didn’t live with him,’ she said unthinkingly, before coming to an abrupt halt.
‘In this day and age there is no “of course” about it,’ he said tersely.
‘There is for me.’ She tried to remove herself from his grasp but his grip on her forearms tightened. ‘It was nothing like that.’
‘So, tell me.’ His eyes were holding hers, their blue blinding.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she said defensively. And there wasn’t, not really. ‘He, David, was just a boy I knew in the place where I grew up. I thought he liked me, he didn’t, so that was that. It happens all the time in one way or another. End of story.’
He let go of one of her arms, but only so he could cup her small jaw. ‘The hell it is,’ he said softly. ‘He hurt you badly, didn’t he, this David. Put you off the male sex for a long time?’
She shrugged, showing him her pure sweet profile as she looked away. ‘It happens,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s history now anyway.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Eighteen.’ Oh, God, please make him stop asking these probing questions, she prayed silently. She couldn’t tell him all of it; she would rather die. A broken love affair was one thing; there was at least some street cred in that. But what had happened to her was just debasing and humiliating and horrible. And he was a man who had had hundreds of women; his experience was vast and his mind was blasé and sophisticated. He would find it laughable that she had allowed it to happen in the first place, and be incredulous that it had continued to affect her up to this present time. What would he say if he knew she had never had a steady boyfriend, just the odd date now and again?
‘Eighteen.’ Anger thickened his voice and he swore, a raw profanity that shocked Sephy into lowering h
er thick lashes and jerking away. She couldn’t talk about this any more.
‘Please, Conrad…’ She took a silent pull of the icy air and forced her voice to be steady. ‘I don’t want to talk about this, okay?’
‘Okay.’ He reached out and pulled her roughly into his arms, his voice controlled again. ‘I’m sorry he hurt the young eighteen-year-old Sephy,’ he said quietly, his voice deep and sincere, and with a note in it that brought her head up to meet his eyes. He touched her mouth tenderly with one finger as he added, ‘But if he hadn’t, you might have settled for boring domesticity instead of turning into the career woman you are now, and then we wouldn’t have met.’
Career woman. She felt a sharp stab as guilt pierced her conscience. All this, to him chasing her and everything that had happened, was because she had misled him from the start. She wasn’t a career woman. Not in the way he assumed anyway—the way all his other women were. Boring domesticity—she would give the rest of her life for a day of boring domesticity with him. And he would run a mile if he knew that! This was all suddenly very muddled.
She knew he was going to kiss her and she had never wanted anything so much in her life. Nevertheless she stiffened, attempting to pull away, but then she was crushed against him in the dark shadows of the badly lit street and his lips moved against hers, dominating and hungry.
And immediately, without any warning, she felt the desire rise up in her with such desperate need that she sagged against him slightly as his whole body seemed to enclose her.
He was too good at this; that was the trouble. The warning thought was there, but it did nothing to help. He was too tender, too sensual, too strong, too powerful to resist, and dangerous. Frighteningly dangerous. Excitingly and thrillingly dangerous.
Her head had fallen back as she’d instinctively allowed him even greater access to the sweet confines of her mouth, and he swiftly drained her response, taking everything, until she was limp and trembling against him.
‘Come on.’ His breathing was ragged and not quite steady when he at last lifted his head and released her. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Home? She stared at him for a second, utterly unable to pull herself together, and then he tucked her arm in his and forced her to begin walking along the wet, shiny pavement, the dull, opaque glow from the street lamp at the corner of the road making a soft circle of gold on the ground.
What would it be like if he really began to make love to her? She almost missed her footing, and his arm tightened as he drew her more securely against his protective bulk. If his kisses could reduce her to this, what would she feel then? Heaven. Heaven on earth—devastating, shattering, fantastic.
And when he left? a separate part of her brain asked coldly. Because he would leave; he had already told her so. An affair with Conrad would be a finite thing, subject to tight limitations even as it happened. He would terminate their liaison as he terminated certain business deals; swiftly and without regret.
She shivered, but it was nothing to do with the bitterly cold night air and all to do with the brief glimpse her heart had revealed of a bleak, hopeless, unthinkable future. He would eat her up and spit her out and she wouldn’t even leave a taste in his mouth. He wouldn’t set out to hurt her, she believed that, but the end result would be the same.
And it was that vision that enabled her to say, once they reached the door leading up to her flat, ‘Thanks for tonight, Conrad,’ in a tone that was intentionally dismissive as she extracted her arm from his. ‘I’ve enjoyed it.’
‘It should be me thanking you,’ he said quietly, his eyes glinting down at her. ‘You paid for the meal.’
‘But you paid for the wine and it was as much as the food,’ she returned smilingly, determined to keep it light and easy.
‘I gather I’m not being asked up for coffee?’ He didn’t sound particularly concerned about it, and perversely it caught her on the raw. It was no trouble for him to take her or leave her.
She didn’t trust her voice not to betray what she was feeling so she merely shook her head coolly.
And to her surprise he didn’t try to persuade her. He didn’t even attempt to kiss her goodnight, he merely nodded, his voice pleasant but somewhat remote as he said, ‘Goodnight, Sephy.’
That was it? She stared at him as he turned away with an easy smile and began walking down the street. After all he’d said and that kiss outside Giorgio’s that was it? He was leaving?
