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The conversation, thanks to the presence of waiting staff, was pretty stilted.
Then finally they were alone.
Soren seemed tense, she assumed something to do with the business that had taken him away.
‘I have been thinking about what you said about going home and I want to propose a compromise. You could commute.’
She stared at him. ‘Between Sicily and London?’
‘I do...’
‘That is not practical and you know it. I’ll help you find someone to replace me. There are actually a lot of people who are better qualified than I am.’
‘It’s not your qualifications, it’s your...enthusiasm.’
Anna paused with her fork in mid-air, about to put a mouth-watering spicy prawn into her mouth.
He planted his elbows on the table and mirrored her actions. ‘I actually would like to be closer to your...enthusiasm.’
Her eyes darkened and danced. ‘In that case, shall we take our puddings to my room?’ This might not last for long but she was going to extract every single moment of pleasure that she could.
‘You want a pudding and me...’ He waved a hand across the table. ‘After what you just put away.’
‘It’s my metabolism. I can eat what I like and never put on an ounce. I know, I’ve tried. Anyway,’ she added, getting to her feet and shaking out the napkin that had been lying across her knees, ‘I can always take more pudding.’
A lot later that night she realised that she could always take more Soren. Her appetite for him seemed to be utterly insatiable.
‘Are you asleep?’
She lifted her head off his warm chest; in the darkness her eyes were luminous. ‘Nearly.’ She yawned.
‘Sorry.’ He started stroking her head again. ‘Go to sleep.’
She sighed and sat up, the covers sliding to her waist. She marvelled at how unselfconscious she felt, knowing he was looking at her, liking that he was looking at her. The knowledge made her nipples, still tender and aching from his recent ministrations, harden.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing...’
He rolled away and she stroked his smooth back, enjoying the way the muscles contracted under her fingertips.
From nowhere, it seemed, he asked, ‘Do you remember your father?’
‘No, I was a baby when he drowned.’
‘So you have no memories of him? How I envy you!’ he pushed out in a growl of pain that shocked her.
She pulled herself against his back and laid a hand on his chest. Where his heart had been thudding slow and strong moments before, it was now pumping frantically, seeming to be trying to batter its way out of his chest.
‘You must miss him...?’
There was a long silence. ‘I remember him...’ he said, his mind sliding back to that day. The window he’d come in to latch still banging as the storm outside picked up, the smell of the place, hay—he still couldn’t stand the smell of hay. ‘I knew he was dead, but I couldn’t, Iwouldn’tlet myself believe it.’
She bit her lip to stop herself crying out, afraid that if she did or said anything he would close up again like earlier; he would freeze her out the same way he froze the world out.
Her tender heart ached for his pain.
‘I tried to wake him up and then I just... I hate that he’d been alone and I didn’t want to leave him alone...’ She slid her hand into his, interlacing their fingers before she carried his hand to her lips.
