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‘Could you come out? Or let me in?’
Her heart went into overdrive. ‘I’ll—Just a moment.’ She disconnected the call, her pulse firing like crazy, her eyes running over her reflection in the hall mirror before she wrenched the door inwards. He was a little way across the drive, his back to her, the darkness of the night making it difficult to see much more than his frame. His large, strong frame. A body that had possessed her and driven her wild. A body she had foolishly started to think of as ‘hers’.
She closed the door behind herself, Starbuck at her heels as she walked towards him on legs that felt made of jelly. Every step was the beating of a drum, slow, over and over, reaching into her soul, until her footsteps alerted him and he turned to face her and her world tilted wildly off its axis. Her heart beat way too fast. She couldn’t do this. She was so completely in love with him that seeing him like this just made her want to fall to the ground and weep.
But she had to be strong. Not for ever, just for the next few minutes.
‘I had to know.’
She shook her head, frowning. ‘What do you need to know?’ The words were barely a whisper.
‘Are you—’ But he didn’t speak. He moved closer, their bodies almost touching, his gaze devouring her face in that way he had, so she closed her eyes, their past so perfect that to contemplate it was to experience a deep, sharp sense of pain. He smelled of his cologne, but there was the undertone of liquor, Scotch or vodka, something strong, so she frowned. He’d driven here, so he couldn’t be drunk, but she could smell it on his breath...
‘Your last night in Barcelona. That dress. When we didn’t use—’ His face contorted and his pain was like a whip, slicing through her.
‘I’m not pregnant.’ She blurted out the words, pressing a hand to her flat stomach regardless, ignoring the strange wave of longing that dragged on her. ‘So you don’t have to worry about that.’
‘I see.’ But he didn’t move. He didn’t step back, and his face didn’t relax. Every line in his body was taut with tension. She knew she should put space between them but being close to him was hypnotic and necessary, after more than a month apart. She’d missed him so much.
And he’d only come to make sure she wasn’t pregnant. He just wanted reassurance that he never needed to see her again, that was all. Fool! She cursed herself for allowing hope to catch hold of her.
‘That’s good.’ But his voice sounded heavy. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t jumping for joy. He took a step backwards then, lifting a hand to his head, dragging fingers through his hair.
‘Is that all you wanted?’
He pinned her with sparkling grey eyes. ‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She braced herself for whatever was to follow. The truth was, she wasn’t strong enough for this. She wanted to be. She wanted to feel nothing, but instead she felt too much. A river of emotions was coursing through her body, transforming her, so she found it impossible to fight this.
‘That morning, with Luca...’
She swallowed, the words she’d overheard burned into her brain.
‘I need to explain.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she cut him off unevenly. Because nothing he said could fix it, and there was no point in trying. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to me,’ he growled, so Starbuck trotted over from where she’d been tinkering with a dropped apple. He softened his voice. ‘Indulge me, for two minutes.’
Sienna looked towards the house and shivered. Only her lonely life and mother awaited her up there. ‘Fine.’ She tried to brace her heart for whatever would follow.
‘Luca asked me to look after you, and, yes, he prohibited me from touching you. I appreciate how that must make you feel. In hindsight, I should have questioned him on the spot, but I didn’t know you then. I wanted to help my best friend. Who you were was somewhat irrelevant.’
‘Thanks.’
He grimaced. ‘Let me finish.’ She nodded jerkily, but her pulse was on fire, her throat hurt—everything hurt, in fact. ‘From the moment I met you, I was waging a war, between what Luca had asked of me and what I wanted. At first, I thought you were like any other woman, that I wanted you because that’s what I do when I meet a beautiful woman, but that’s not true. You got under my skin, Sienna. Even then, on that first night, you bewitched me, with your two left feet and quick tongue, so I had to know more, to understand you completely. I wanted you—just you—and Luca had nothing to do with that.’
She tilted her chin, refusing to believe him, refusing to allow her heart to be vulnerable to him again. ‘That’s who you are. You said it yourself, you see a woman and you seduce her.’
‘Not you. Not that night.’
‘Because I wasn’t your “usual” type?’
‘Right.’
She sucked in a hurt, sharp breath.
‘Because you were better,’ he insisted angrily. ‘You were so much more than any person I’d ever met. Have you ever had the sense that everyone in the world is like a shadow? I’d been so bored, Sienna, so restless, until I met you and you brought everything into focus for me.’
