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“It doesn’t matter,” she lied.
Her unwillingness to discuss this was obvious. He let the conversation go for the moment. “Where did you meet the father?”
She froze. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
His expression was impatient but he said nothing.
“I’m not here to talk,” she said softly. “Nothing can be served by getting to know one another again.” She placed her champagne flute down on the table and willed herself to be brave. To be strong. To stay committed to what she knew. If they talked, and shared thoughts and ideas, her heart was in real danger. Sex was one thing. She was pretty sure she could approach it with a level of emotional detachment. But talking?
Danger lay there.
His frown was pronounced. “There is no rush.”
She laughed, a harsh sound. “Isn’t there?”
“You want to go to my bed, now?”
Her heart turned over in her chest. No. She wanted him to love her. She wanted him to look at her as he’d used to. She wanted to pretend they were Sarah and Sy, just as they’d been then.
But it was a futile hope. Dashed years earlier, and the remnants of those hopes were ashes in her mind. She couldn’t ignore them. “It’s all we have left,” she said with desolate honesty. “Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
The statement was acid against his flesh. It was an irony that in bed he could prove her wrong. He could remind her there of the depth of the connection they’d shared.
“If it is your wish,” he said darkly, moving towards her with determined concentration. He stood behind her, and with fingers that were confident and deft, lowered the zip of her dress until it was at the base of her spine.
“No bra,” he murmured, as he pushed the dress apart and slid it down her shoulders.
“No need,” she quipped. “Are these windows …”
“One-way,” he promised. “We are in complete privacy.” She nodded, relieved, because looking at Manhattan as his hands moved over her body was incredibly surreal.
He slid the dress lower, but once it was on her hips, he paused, turning her within the circle of his arms.
“You used to fill my hands,” he murmured, lifting his palms to her breasts and cupping them.
Her cheeks flushed pink. “Puppy fat,” she whispered throatily.
“Not fat,” he shook his head. “Perfection.”
“I grew out of it,” she murmured.
His eyes met hers, and she couldn’t fathom the darkness she saw there. He slid the dress lower, and lower still, until she stood in a pair of scuffed heels and a black thong. A scrap of fabric that was everything his fantasies were made of.
“You are so beautiful,” he muttered, as though it pained him to admit it. “Different, but no less spectacular.”
“Spectacular?” She shook her head. “Yeah, right.”
His fingers dropped from her breasts to her flat stomach. “No marks to show you bore a child,” he observed, moving his hands lower still, to glance across the curls at the apex of her thighs. She groaned huskily at the promise of contact.
She said nothing, but the truth was in her mouth, and she realised she did want to be honest with him. What was the point in lying? Why not simply tell him that Lexi wasn’t her biological daughter? He wouldn’t care. It had no impact on what he wanted from her.
“Lexi isn’t…”
“I do not want to talk or think about your child now,” he said with a lift of his eyes. They slashed through her angrily. “For it leads me to think of the man who enjoyed your body after me. And so soon after me.” He shook his head. “Was I so easy to forget?”
She felt the sting of tears and shook her head. “No.” It was a brutally honest admission. “I didn’t forget you.”
He nodded. “No.” His kiss was an assault. Her senses were overtaken by the strength of his command. His tongue lashed hers; it was punishment and power. She succumbed, naked before him, as his hands held her to his hard body. “This is not something either of us could forget.”
