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And at that thought Jennifer blanched. Had she remembered...?
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. ‘You aren’t going to faint on me?’
‘Faint?’ She spoke with a brightness she was far from feeling. ‘Don’t be silly.’
He shook his dark head with dissatisfaction, because even though his jacket covered her to mid-thigh her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wild. Her appearance gave away exactly what they had been doing. And this was a service lift, true, but that didn’t guarantee that some sharp-eyed employee looking to make a quick buck wasn’t waiting at the bottom armed with a camera or a mobile phone which could transmit an offending picture around the world in minutes. Was he prepared to take the risk? Did either of them dare?
No.
Without warning he bent and scooped her up into his arms, cradling her automatically against his chest so that she could feel the muffled thunder of his heart.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.
He thought that was maybe a question she should have asked before they’d had that highly charged and erotic encounter, but he chose not to say it. Even thinking about it was making him grow hard again. He shifted position slightly, not wanting her to sense that he had another erection—because having sex with your soon-to-be ex-wife once could be classified as a mistake. But twice? No. That would defy description.
What was done, was done—they just had to deal with the immediate fall-out before they parted again for the last time.
‘What do you think is going to happen now?’ he demanded. ‘That you are just going to stroll out of here with your messed-up hair and your smudged make-up and your rumpled dress? You don’t think that will excite some sort of comment?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, obviously—but—’
‘But what, Jenny? You don’t think that anyone with more than one brain cell will put two and two together and come up with exactly the right answer?’
‘So what’s your solution?’
‘That you act! Just act, Jenny,’ he urged, as he saw her perplexed frown. ‘Act like you’ve passed out and you’re leaning on me—act as if your life depended on it.’
And maybe it did, in a way—when she stopped to think what he’d just said. Certainly her reputation and her dignity demanded that she emerge from that lift not looking as though she had been ravaged by her unfaithful ex-husband.
The lift juddered to a halt, and it was worse than Matteo had anticipated. Outside was an excited crowd of four waiters, a couple of chefs, what looked like a maître d’ and a cleaner.
But no one from the studio. Thank God. He knew that their giant protective machinery would have whirred into action to minimise the outcome, but then it would be out of his control. And he would not let that happen. Not in this case.
He saw one of the waiters surreptitiously slide a mobile phone from his jeans and spoke in furious and rapid French to him. The chastened man shrugged and replaced the phone.
Jennifer’s ear lay against the strong pounding of his heart and she closed her eyes—Matteo’s words seemed to come at her from a great distance. His French was as fluent as his English, and she didn’t even attempt to understand what he was saying, only knew that there was an excited and jabberin
g response from the staff.
He bent his head and whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said softly in English. ‘You’re going to be okay.’
She wished he wouldn’t talk in that masterful and protective way to her, even though he was being both those things. But it was going to make it harder, she just knew it was—so much harder to say their inevitable goodbyes.
She opened her eyes to find that they were following someone down a long and draughty corridor and then outside, through an ill-lit yard which was lined with bins and a large skip containing hundreds of empty bottles.
We must be at the back of the hotel, Jennifer thought, and pressed her head against him as an overwhelming fatigue began to wash over her. But then sex with Matteo always made her sleepy. What was that she had read once? That some hormone was released when you orgasmed, which made you want to curl up and snooze.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘You bring me to the nicest places,’ she mumbled, and gave a low laugh.
The sound was so delightfully inappropriate that Matteo couldn’t prevent the memory which stole over his skin as he remembered the precious gift of laughter which they had brought to each other in the early days. Ruthlessly, he blocked it.
‘It won’t be much longer,’ he said tightly. ‘They’re getting hold of a car for us.’
She had to stop herself from snuggling up to him, as if they were real lovers instead of estranged spouses who just happened to know the way to turn each other on.
‘I ought to get back to the Hedoniste,’ she said unenthusiastically.
