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The next reveal had been made after he had doubled down on the ‘sex god’ thing and stopped her detaching herself from the post-coital warmth of his body, reminding her that Sam’s induction day didn’t start until eleven-thirty.
She hadn’t needed that much persuading.
‘There might be a few others at lunch...’ He had dropped this additional information while stroking her back.
The rest of the information had had been extracted slowly, and when Tilda had the full picture of what her day would entail she had leapt out of bed. The full guest list for thecasual littlelunch party made it obvious that that it would be neither casual nor little.
Sitting at the table with them would be a UK government minister and his wife, a well-known journalist and his husband and a couple of highly placed Greek officials, and she assumed their partners, along with the inventor of an eco-fuel and, last but not least, an actor-director of award-winning films. His equally successful beautiful wife was away shooting on location.
‘How could you do this to me?’ She didn’t wait for a response; she’d had plenty of time to get ready for a meeting with a headmaster, but now this... Now she had to find an outfit that was acceptable forbothoccasions. She had finally settled on understated. She glanced down, experiencing a quiver of uncertainty at her choice.
The shift she was wearing was a smoky-grey silk mixture, high at the neck with a high waistline, tiny pleats stopping it from being figure-hugging.
The fabric was butter-soft and it was classic, short but not indecently so; she could live with the amount of leg it revealed.
Navy rather than silver, and soft suede rather than leather, the heels she wore today were similar in style to the ones that Ezio had removed last night... The memory sent a rush of warmth through her body and stoked the phantom feeling low in her belly. It was as if, even though he wasn’t inside her, her body was reluctant to let go of the feeling.
Her thoughts drifted... If she’d had an ounce of sense, she wouldn’t have let it happen. She knew she was heading for massive hurt; the measure of her madness was she’d make the same choice again—she’d take that reckless step into the unknown.
There had been moments during the morning when she’d felt as though she were still falling and a sense of unreality would hit her, almost as if she were living someone else’s life.
She felt lighter, somehow, as if the responsibilities that had been resting on her shoulders had lifted. She knew it was only temporary but she was going to enjoy it while it lasted... She was going to enjoy Ezio and explore this hitherto unexpected sensual side of her personality that he had revealed.
She hardly recognised the person she was becoming, the things she was feeling. It was if some invisible protective film had been peeled away from her skin... The image of long, brown fingers peeling layers of clothing off her skin that appeared in tandem with the thought sent a surge of heat through her body.
A moment later, the heat was surging again!
‘You look very beautiful.’
‘God, you make me sound like a trophy wife!’
His brows lifted at her spiky response. ‘You and those compliments...why do you deflect them? Andtrophy? You are no one’s trophy. You are your own woman.’
Blinking at the compliment, she wondered, did she reallydeflectthem?
She was her own woman, but surrendering to him and her own sensuality had given her another sense of power. Who would have thought that surrender could be so liberating?
Once inside the car, it purred to life.
‘Is it far?’
‘No, not far.’
‘Do you think that he, Saul, is he testing...?’
‘I think this is lunch.’
She flashed a look of irritation at his perfect profile. ‘I don’t see how you are so calm. This matters to you—it matters enough to marry me!’
‘Relax or people will think we have just had a lover’s tiff.’
‘Is that why you slept with me, to make things look more realistic?’
She knew she’d made him angry, but she couldn’t bring herself to apologise. After all, it was a legitimate question, it wasn’t as if he lacked anything in the ruthlessness department.
‘You think I manipulated you into my bed?’
She shook her head and lifted her chin. ‘No, you didn’t take me anywhere I didn’t want to go.’ She sensed some of the tension in his powerful shoulders slacken.
