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Yes, he was definitely on the right path because her nostrils pinched.
‘I pulled back...’ he said.
She swallowed.
‘We’re not in a meeting, Beatrice. You don’t have to go straight in for the kill.’
His words were starting to seep in, and the worst part was, Beatrice knew he was right.
He wasn’t completely right, because he didn’t know just how big a part of her heart she’d shared, but her question had been beyond inappropriate. She screwed her eyes closed in bitter recall as she replayed her own words.
‘Got it?’ he asked, but kindly.
She nodded, took a breath, opened her eyes and nodded again. ‘Got it. Be more subtle next time.’
He laughed a one-burst laugh and she felt it on her cheek. ‘You still wouldn’t have got an answer.’
His eyes widened at the very thought, as though there was no one—not a soul—who could have asked him that and received an answer. She had everyone’s backs up, yet somehow, not his.
Never his.
He liked the distance she kept.
He liked how it amplified things when they were close.
They were—despite their half-row, despite her walking off, despite so little having been revealed—somehow closer than before.
In fact, if there was anyone he could tell his secrets, then he’d probably choose the woman staring back at him now.
He’d been waiting for her kiss a few moments ago...wanting to take her to bed and end this frustration.
Now there was a new craving.
The desire to take her to bed was not new, but far more dangerous was the desire to know her, and for her to know him better too.
He stepped back. ‘I’ll say goodnight.’
‘Goodnight. Sir.’
‘Best left,’ he said, and returned to his office and closed the door behind him.
She carried on down the stairs when all she wished was that she were back there... Wished she’d been more subtle.
Yet Julius had just revealed something.
He had said she’d gone straight for the kill. And that told her that whatever promise had been made it was his agony to bear it.
She walked towards Prince’s Lane, caught the shuttle bus, and tried to make sense of things as the bus hissed its way through town. Only when she got home did she remember to turn off her work phone.
Except she checked the messages first.
Not for work, but just in case there might be a message from him.
It wasn’t so much that something had shifted—it was more as if something had been revealed. A tiny fault in the heavy veil between them had been exposed...a little glimmer of a light...a star that had always been there but which had previously been unseen. That was how it felt.
Not as though she was standing behind a stage curtain, peering out, more that she was sitting on the other side of the curtain and had suddenly glimpsed a scintilla of the Julius behind the royal veneer.
One, two, three... Like stars in the night sky things emerged, and she was entranced by them, far too aware.
