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‘I’m not here for the jacket. We’re here because Rosie invited us to join you for Christmas.’
Chapter Five
She what?
My sister had invited him without telling me.
I didn’t know whether to kill her or kiss her.
Kiara was looking anxious. ‘It was kind of you to invite us both. Are you sure it’s all right?’
No, it wasn’t all right.
Why hadn’t she told me?
Coward.
I turned my head to look accusingly at Rosie. I felt like yelling ‘chicken’ but then realized it would confuse people as she currently had her head buried in a turkey.
I produced what I hoped was a smile, but felt closer to the face I pulled when I was on the receiving end of the wax. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘The food is going to be a while,’ Rosie said brightly, ‘so why don’t you just go into the living room and get to know each other better. Chill out and play some games.’
Chill? I was boiling hot. And as for games—there were already enough games going on in this kitchen. Unfortunately no one had told me the rules.
One look at Rosie’s face told me she not only thought she’d already played the first game, she was the winner.
She wafted past me and murmured under her breath, ‘Happy Christmas. Enjoy your present.’
Nico was my present?
That was what she’d meant when she’d said it would be arriving later?
I wondered if she’d told him he was my gift. I sincerely hoped not, but knowing my sister she probably had.
I followed her into the living room, avoiding his gaze. Not that I was particularly shy or anything, but I’d been thinking about nothing but sex with him for the past four days. I wasn’t confident that my eyes wouldn’t light up like slot machines.
Thank goodness he couldn’t read my mind.
He sat down on the sofa, nudging my laptop to one side. He’d abandoned Tom Ford, presumably because I was now in possession of half of it, and was wearing a pair of black jeans. They molded themselves to his long, powerful legs as if there was nowhere they’d rather be than snuggled against those hard thighs. I didn’t blame them. In fact I envied those jeans. Through the gap in the neck of his shirt I could see a hint of dark hair against bronzed flesh.
I was just pondering the etiquette of accepting a gift who didn’t know he was your gift, when he reached idly for my laptop.
‘I don’t normally work on Christmas day, but do you mind if I just check something?’
I opened my mouth to tell him to help himself when I remembered that not only had I not shut my laptop down the night before, but that the last search had been ‘vibrator—the Niccolò’.
I flung myself across the room but it was too late. He’d already opened it and I stood, marinating slowly in embarrassment for the second time in less than four days. It seemed I was destined to humiliate myself around this man. First he’d seen the outer me stripped bare, and now he was seeing the inner me similarly naked.
I was doomed.
‘Nico can’t stop himself checking the court cases.’ Kiara walked across the room balancing the bowls of nuts and crisps my sister had given her. ‘Normally he does it on his phone, but I unplugged his charger last night, so I’m in trouble.’
Nowhere near as much trouble as I was in.
Shit, shit, shit.
I waited for him to skewer me with one of his severe, disapproving looks, but he didn’
