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He smiled at her and she thought it best not to test him on it.
‘Thanks, Rufus, you’ve been very patient with me.’
‘It has been my pleasure. I’ll see you again tomorrow, Ms Capuletti.’
She tried to tip him but he refused, merely wishing her good luck with a tip of his cap and driving away.
So she was left standing on the suburban pavement of her old home—James’s home—in her Dolce suit, make-up glamorous enough to outdo any movie star, and her heart on her sleeve.
She wheeled the brand-new BMX bike she had just bought up the driveway, eyes focused on nothing but the front door, until she found herself rapping on carved wood with an antique lion’s head knocker that she had bought her father for his sixtieth birthday.
Voices on the other side of the door came closer until the door was opened. Matt, of the long grey ponytail stood staring at her.
‘Well, if it isn’t Siena Capuletti, sister of Rick Capuletti, defensive driver and one time inhabitant of this house.’
‘Matt,’ she said, her voice overly breathy. ‘Hi. Is … is James about?’
As if he had come to the whisper of his name, James backed around the far kitchen doorway, a tea-towel over his shoulder, in old jeans, a fitted blue polo shirt, endearingly torn at the collar, and bare feet, talking to someone he had left behind in the kitchen.
‘James, you have another visitor,’ Matt called out before fading into the next room.
James turned, saw her and stopped talking. His eyelids flickered, his mouth twitched, then all of a sudden, as though someone had flipped a switch on inside him, his whole face lit up.
He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he had feelings for her. She had feelings right back. And that was all it took for her to know that she wasn’t feeling torn up for nothing.
‘Siena, hi,’ James said, coming to her.
‘Hi,’ she said, feeling terribly small in the large open doorway. She shuffled from foot to foot. ‘I have a present for Kane.’ She motioned to the bike so obviously positioned by her legs.
His grey gaze trailed slowly to the bike via her red high heels, fancy suit and glamour make-up and she suddenly felt ridiculous. And the bike was so obviously only a ploy to get her to his side that it felt more like an albatross at her feet.
But when his gaze locked back on to her eyes, all feelings of ridiculousness just slipped away. The smile in his eyes was real. Utterly lovely. And important.
His hand rested against his heart. ‘You look … amazing.’ He reached out to take her by the tips of her fingers so he could look her over again. Then his smile slipped ever so slightly as he asked, ‘Your interview—you’ve been?’
She nodded, her mouth dry as she found herself melting under his tender gaze. It had been so very long since she had known tenderness, if ever. The true warmth of a human touch, being looked upon as if she was something precious; it really was addictive.
‘I know Kane is at school still, but I thought I should drop this off while I had the means to do so. The limo Max sent for me was huge. It seemed a waste not to take advantage.’
‘You shouldn’t have,’ he said.
‘Yeah. I should,’ she returned and she wondered if they were both talking about something other than the bike.
‘Right. Then come in. Please.’ He took the bike and leant it against the wall in the entranceway, and then he took a grip on her hand, tugging at her. Siena felt his thick calluses rubbing against her soft palm and she had to suppress a shiver.
She heard a woman’s laugh ring out from the kitchen and hesitated.
‘No, really it’s okay,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have come without calling. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
Well, she had been thinking of him, and he would have to be as thick as a plank not to know it. And James was anything but thick. The moment he had seen her he’d known; he was just too much of a gentleman to gloat.
‘Rubbish, and it doesn’t matter,’ James said to both of her statements, and he stepped through the doorway to join her outside so that they were within inches of one another beneath the trellis.
Siena was suddenly reminded of her first kiss with … what was his name? Some boy she had dragged home for just that reason in the hope that Rick would find her and blow his top so that she could triumph like a right little teenager. She and what’s-his-name had kissed. It had been all too brief and nicer than she had expected; Rick had been none the wiser and she had spent the next month catching a different bus home from school to avoid the poor guy.
She’d never been good at commitment, even then.
‘Siena.’ James’s deep voice washed over her and she gazed up into his heavenly grey eyes. ‘There is plenty of food and they are old friends whom I would love you to meet, so please come in. Join us.’
