AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In answer her stomach gave a loud, complaining rumble.
‘Here.’ He pushed the plate across the table towards her.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and slid onto one of the seats. ‘Thank you.’
He watched her sit down. Her cheeks were flushed and her pupils were dilated—both signs of being agitated.
Or aroused.
His breath caught in his throat and, needing to do something to force his mind away from his body’s instant hard response to that distracting possibility, he said, ‘Would you like something to drink? There’s wine, or beer...’
Something shifted in her face.
‘No, thank you.’ She glanced away across the kitchen. ‘You have a beautiful home. Is this where you grew up?’
‘No.’
Her eyes rested on his face. ‘But you did grow up in Macau?’
‘Yes.’
‘So do the rest of your family live nearby?’
They did. But their geographical proximity was not in any way reflected by familial closeness. His relationship with his half-sisters had always been fraught. How could it not be when they were all still fighting one another for their father’s approval? Even after his death.
Charlie looked over at Dora, his skin tightening. He didn’t want to think about that now, much less talk about it—and especially not with a woman who seemed to have this uncanny power to throw him off-balance.
‘Some do,’ he said.
She looked at him, her expression intent, curious. ‘You don’t like answering questions, do you?’
There was a beat of silence, and then, realising what she had just said, she smiled—a smile of such genuine sweetness that for a few half-seconds he forgot that he had found her snooping in his room. Forgot too, that she was the sister of his father’s mistress.
All he could think about was how to make her smile at him like that all the time.
‘Only if there’s a purpose to them,’ he said slowly.
‘Oh, I have a purpose.’
She leaned forward. The soft glow from the downlights caught her face as she spoke, and he felt a sudden urge to run his finger over the curve of her cheekbone. To lean into her as she had leaned into him in his apartment.
A pulse twitched in his groin. The kitchen was large, and yet it felt suddenly disconcertingly intimate.
‘You do?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I want to make Archie a family tree for his bedroom, so that after we go home I can show him all his family in Macau.’
His chest tightened, and he felt the disconnect between her words and his agenda opening up beneath his feet like a sinkhole.
How could he be so stupid? Was that all it took to derail him? One smile and the memory of an almost-kiss?
Dora Thorn was beautiful and sexy, but he wasn’t about to lose his head over a soft pink mouth. She wasn’t here so they could finish what they hadn’t started in London.
And if he was starting to forget that, then maybe now was the time to encourage her to keep her distance—and remind himself of the kind of woman she was.
‘That’s a lovely idea.’ He paused. ‘And to think if you’d gone through with the adoption you would never have been able to do that for him.’
There was a moment’s silence, and then she inched backwards silently, sliding off the seat and tilting her head up so that her grey eyes were steady on his face.
