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He ended the call to Clements, feeling dispirited. The faint tap had him swinging round.
‘Hi, sorry to bother you.’ Maddy stood in the doorway, looking rumpled and sexy in last night’s jeans and vest, her face pale.
A surge of longing hit him. He shoved his hands back into his pockets.
For God’s sake, King, isn’t it about time you put a chokehold on your appetite?
‘Hi, you didn’t bother me,’ he said.
Although she did. He’d been having regular sex—make that non-stop sex—for sixteen days on the trot now. But he couldn’t seem to stop behaving like a hormonally charged adolescent boy whenever she was around.
‘Um, I should shoot off.’ She took a step back, jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘My shift at the café starts in a couple of hours. I need to shower and change.’
Shower here. With me.
He clamped down on the thought. Stopped himself from asking. Maddy was proving to be more of a distraction than he had anticipated. Last night was proof of that. He still couldn’t believe he’d let her seduce him into telling her things he’d never told anyone.
Time to stop letting his libido take charge. ‘Okay. Thanks for dinner last night.’ He paused, forced the words out. ‘I probably won’t make it over tonight.’
She nodded, an unusually bright smile on her face. ‘No problem.’
And with that she was gone.
He listened to the muffled thump as the front door closed behind her. Glancing towards the window, he resolutely resisted the urge to cross the room and look through the curtains.
Things had got way too intense last night. And he suspected she knew it too, from that stilted and unbearably polite conversation. A night apart would do them both good. They needed a cooling off period.
He had at least a week before he had to make the trip to California, by which time he planned to be ready to cut any lingering ties to Cornwall.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘SO WHAT are you conjuring up tonight?’ Rye’s arms circled Maddy’s midriff as he whispered the question in her ear.
She smiled, and tried to concentrate on the feel of his warm body against her back. ‘Comfort food with a hint of spice.’
She looked out of the window above the sink into the gathering gloom. December was just around the corner. Summer, or rather the miserable excuse for one they’d had this year, was now barely a memory. The cottage’s garden had lost all its blooms and the café would be closing in less than a week. Which meant she had to start scouring the classified ads and find another job to tide her over until spring. And stop wasting time mooning over Rye and their non-existent relationship.
‘Well, it smells fantastic,’ he said, giving her a final squeeze as he let her go. ‘I’ll set the table; I’m famished.’
‘Aren’t you always?’ she teased with a lightness she was finding it harder and harder to feel.
Their affair would be over soon. It had always been understood. She’d learned her lesson after that night at the Manor and had been careful not to pry since. But she couldn’t quite quell the silly fantasy that he needed her. Even though he’d made it blatantly obvious he didn’t.
It had been over a week and he still hadn’t mentioned the trip to California she’d overheard him arranging. And try as she might not to let his silence bother her, it did. His reluctance to share the information with her had forced her to accept how little she meant to him. And that hurt. Even though she knew it shouldn’t.
She watched him bend over her kitchen drawer, his golden hair flopping over his brow as he rummaged for the correct cutlery, and bit back a sigh.
Snap out of it, silly. This is how it has to be. This is what you wanted. No strings. No promises. No one gets hurt.
As she listened to him laying the table in the sitting room and heard the pop of a cork as he opened the bottle of Chablis he’d brought, Maddy busied herself in the kitchen, steaming the chard he’d picked up at the farmer’s market and ladling the risotto onto the plates she’d had warming in the oven.
It was just the sex, she thought determinedly as they sat down and she watched him eat her food with his usual enthusiasm. And the company. Also, it had been nice to have someone to cook for who appreciated it. Steve had had a list of food allergies that seemed to multiply every time she tried something new. She adored cooking for Rye. Because he devoured her food with the same enthusiasm as he devoured her body.
And then there was the routine they’d established. It made them seem like a real couple when they never had been.
She stared back down at her plate, pushed the fragrant food around with her fork. This odd sense of regret, of impending loss, couldn’t be anything more than endorphins and habit. She’d been repeating the mantra to herself for over a week now. Why couldn’t she make herself believe it?
She heard the clink of his knife and fork on her grandmother’s china and looked up to find his mesmerising blue eyes fixed on her face. ‘Maddy, I have something to tell you.’
