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‘Neither did I, but me? I’m hungry.’
She gasped and her eyes flew wide.
‘I hope you’ve used plenty of sunscreen.’ The words were innocuous but the expression in his dark eyes was not. Her stomach went into instant free fall and as she squirmed a little in her chair she was painfully aware of the ache between her legs.
‘Always—but actually, I tan quite easily. I got my mum’s eyes—she was half-Irish—but my dad’s colouring.’
He nodded. Even after the short time exposed to the sun her smooth skin was already tinged with a golden glow that made the green of her eyes even more dramatic.
‘I noticed,’ he said, thinking of the faint demarcation lines hidden under her clothes he had enjoyed discovering last night, and the tasty gold dusting of freckles on her skin dark against the protected, vulnerable pale parts of her slim body.
The image sent a fresh streak of heat through his already aroused body.
The best way to stop this obsessing about sex, or at least sex with one particular woman, was not to deprive himself of it, he decided, privately likening the deprivation to someone who was dieting but could think of nothing else but food.
The logic might not survive scientific scrutiny but Ezio was not feeling scientific; he was feeling the sort of desperation that he had never experienced in his life.
It had always come easy for him. Women had not often refused him, and the possibility of them doing so had not concerned him; the idea of rejection had never bothered him.
And now it did.
He had broken his own rules, and the hell of it was she couldn’t wait to do it again. It wasn’t her vulnerability that should have put her off-limits, it was the fact that he wasawareof that vulnerability that made warning lights flash.
‘I know you’re worried about Sam boarding—’
She cut across him. ‘I know you don’t want to play happy families, Ezio, you just want sex...but it just so happens that I do too, so it’s all good, isn’t it? We don’t have to pretend.’ If only that were true, she thought with a sigh
‘That sounds cold, Tilda.’
‘You were pretty cold to your girlfriends.’
‘I really don’t think they were looking for kindness. They were looking for sex, a headline to help a career, or a chapter in their tell-all biography, and not necessarily in that order.’
His analysis was probably pretty accurate but she also found it chilling. ‘But didn’t you ever want...morethan that?’
‘Likelove?’
‘How about liking...friendship?’
‘If I want friendship, I’ll get a dog,’ he said, not even believing himself as he looked ahead. Sam would soon be gone, and soon Tilda would be too; she was building her life without him.It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?Ezio mocked the voice in his head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HETOOKTHEsteps up to his office two at a time, aware as he dialled into the video meeting with the board that the sight of him without a tie was going to raise a few brows. He hadn’t had time to change; the traffic getting to the suburb where the parents of Sam’s friend lived had been snarled up for miles.
The boys had not noticed. The spontaneous trip away to the mountain cabin and the construction of a very smoky fire seemed to have made them both happy. Sam had been nagging to go and experience ‘off-gridlife’, as he put it, ever since Ezio had mentioned his trips up there with his grandfather.
He’d been relying on Tilda refusing permission, but rather to his surprise she had given the plan the green light—but then, Tilda had been a little distant this last week. If that distance had extended to their bedroom, he might have suspected she was cooling off, but she wasn’t. She was still the most exciting and uninhibited lover he had ever had.
And that was what mattered, wasn’t it? The sex was incredible and she was not clinging...what more could he want? He ought to be actively not wanting more.Moreinvolved the sort of complications that would turn his life upside down, and his life was just one long complication.
He was constantly dodging and burying his feelings, but they refused to stay buried... He sighed, caught the scent of her perfume in the air and tuned out of the meeting for a full thirty seconds before coming back, like a man coming up for air, with a curse that turned the air blue.
It was a productive meetingafterhe had cut short all the congratulatory remarks that threatened to take up half the allowed time.
‘Thank you for your good wishes! Yes, I’m married, yes, it is business as usual—so let’s move on, shall we?’
After that, they whipped through the agenda at a speed that seemed to fluster some members, but Ezio didn’t see much point hanging around. There were places he’d prefer to be and people...well,oneperson...he’d like to be with.
