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Feeling like a character in a movie, she pulled open the window and yelled out in a stage whisper. ‘Stop throwing things or you’ll break the glass! Stay right there. I’m coming down.’
She ran from her room, down the stairs two at a time and out on to the front lawn, the cool grass squishing beneath her feet. She only realised she was in her pyjamas when James’s mouth dropped open.
‘Jeez Louise.’ He whistled, his eyes raking in the skimpy expanse of crushed red velvet and the crescent of exposed skin above the elastic of her trousers.
Doing her best to ignore the effect such a comment had on her libido, she stormed over to him, grabbed him by the bouquet-free hand and dragged him into the shadows of an overhanging willow tree at the side of the house.
‘What the hell do you think you are you doing?’ Her lungs were tight with the extra work her pumping adrenalin was giving them.
She stared at the flowers—iceberg roses, at least a couple of dozen of them—though he wasn’t quite suave enough to have given them to her in order to give her hands something to do other than poke him in the ribs, as she was doing now.
‘When you left the house today you gave me the sense that you weren’t coming back,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think that I can let that happen.’
‘Oh, you can’t?’ She crossed her arms, staving off the thrilling shivers that were running up and down her body at his words.
‘I had planned to serenade you,’ he said, his mouth kicking into that half-smile that had made her half crazy for him in the first place, ‘if that was what it took to get you to see me, but it turns out you are easier than I had expected.’
Her hands dropped to her hips and she glared back at him. ‘I’m easy?’
He grinned and her giddy heart all but went kaput.
‘Easy? I don’t think any man in the history of time has had to put as much work into wooing a woman as I have. It has been very demanding attempting to get you to realise how much I think of you.’
Her hands dropped to her sides and all her self-fuelled anger fled. ‘You think of me?’
‘Siena, sweetheart.’ He took a step towards her. ‘Since meeting you I’ve thought of little else.’
He moved in again, taking her by the arms so that the flowers squished up against her sides, the soft petals and sharp stems creating the strangest sensation against her skin. Or maybe it was his nearness that was giving her such new sensations. But when she glanced up into his warm grey eyes, all sensation was lost to her.
‘James, I’m not all that special,’ she said, trying to drag herself out of the whirlpool of affection in his eyes. ‘Believe me. When one lives alone and has no responsibilities bar one’s occupation, that person can’t help but be fascinating to a person with the responsibility of the world on their shoulders.’
His smile deepened and she was all but undone. ‘You’ve got me there. With a child in your life the term responsibility-free time becomes a pipe dream.’
She swallowed and managed to gather her thoughts. ‘Are you really trying to sell that life to me, James? Because you really are making a hash of it.’
But he just shrugged. ‘I’ve realised I can’t sell it to you by having Kane butter you up, or plying you with beers in the sunshine, or taking you on long leisurely trips up to Kuranda. If this is meant to be I shouldn’t have to sell it to you as some sort of alternative to the glamour of Rome. You should want it despite the inducements.’
‘I like inducements,’ she said, glancing at the roses he was waving about. But he didn’t seem to get it. ‘Oh, just give me the damn flowers.’
Siena reached out a hand, flapping her fingers against her palm to hurry him up. James handed them over. Once she had them, she couldn’t help but bring the bouquet to her nose, burying her face in the familiar scent.
The roses weren’t just any roses. They were his, cut from his own garden, and they smelled as good as the one she had kept by her bedside. They weren’t glistening in fake dew like roses she had received from suitors before. They weren’t wrapped in layers of fabulous tulle and ribbon. Some were bruised, others had lost petals. But to Siena they were the most beautiful gift she had ever received.
‘They’re beautiful, James.’
‘Not nearly as beautiful as you.’
She could have laughed. It really had been some time since he ha
d done this. But she couldn’t. The tone of his voice told her how true he thought his words. It wasn’t some line. It was a declaration.
But, after the topsy-turvy evening she’d had, a declaration was the last thing she was prepared to deal with. If she could somehow send him away until morning.
She looked up to find he was inches from her, the big bouquet the only thing between them. His grey eyes glittered in the moonlight, serious and intent, despite the banter he had kept up the whole time.
He was going to kiss her. Any moment now she was going to find herself enveloped in his warm, intimate embrace.
She swallowed down a sudden flash of trepidation. When she had left his house that day she had planned on not looking back, but that didn’t make a lick of difference to her determination if James had every intention of remaining in her future.
