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‘Now we get a massage,’ he said casually, looping a towel around his waist.
She gave a nervous laugh, clearly unsure of his motive. ‘You have masseurs on tap?’
‘I have a phone. I’ll take a shower and meet you by the massage tables.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You have massage tables?’
‘I have a gym with tables at the far end,’ he said a trifle wearily, but she’d become so tense and serious he had to try and lighten things up. ‘What type of place do you think I run here?’
‘I... I don’t know. If I believed your press—’
‘Don’t believe my press,’ he warned.
‘Y-you seem to forget I’ve got a b-brother,’ she stammered.
‘And?’
‘And until Luc got married I wouldn’t have put anything past him.’
He huffed a dry laugh. ‘Getting married certainly slows a man down.’
She took a moment and then visibly recovered. Drawing herself up, she said, ‘I don’t expect that’s anything you have to worry about.’
He shrugged, ‘Your brother’s a greatly changed man—and for the better, in my opinion.’
She had to agree with that. Luc had made a good choice of wife, and Emma had no trouble putting up with him, by all accounts.
‘I’ve never seen my brother so happy,’ Karina confirmed. ‘Emma’s been good for him, but the two of you are so similar I don’t know how she puts up with him.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Use your imagination,’ she suggested.
That was a very dangerous idea where Karina was concerned.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KARINA WAS SHOWERING, feeling tense, tracing her scars as she thought about Dante naked in the shower stall next to her. Every part of her was tingling and aware, but her emotions were in turmoil. She couldn’t let him touch her again. It had raised the ghosts of the past and stirred them up into a shrieking frenzy. She should never have agreed to this.
What made it even more poignant, more painful was that on the night of her eighteenth birthday it hadn’t been all about sex. There had been quiet times when they had lain naked on the bed, staring into each other’s eyes, when she had believed they had never been closer. She’d been so na?ve, imagining that making love with Dante meant they’d stay together for ever, and now here she was, blundering into another emotion-fuelled mistake.
She stilled as he turned off the shower.
‘I’ll be waiting for you outside, Karina.’
‘Okay.’
Turning off the water, she reached for a towel. Confident he’d left the changing room, she stepped out of her own shower stall to find Dante just a few feet away. In the split second it took her to realise that he had his back turned and couldn’t see her scars, ice shot through her.
Her heart lurched a second time. There weren’t many men with a back view as good as their front, but Dante was one of them. He had a towel slung around his waist and was dripping water everywhere as he eased his powerful shoulder muscles in a gesture she was all too familiar with.
She stiffened as he turned to look at her.
Without losing eye contact, she reached blindly for another towel. He frowned as she wrapped it tightly around her. ‘No need for that, Karina. The masseur’s waiting for you.’
No point?
She made a disappointed face. ‘I’m afraid I really have to take a rain check—not that I don’t appreciate the offer of a massage, but by the time I dry my hair—’
‘You’re coming with me,’ he said firmly.
Dante took hold of her arm to guide her out of the changing rooms, but she pulled back.
‘What are you frightened of, Karina?’
‘Nothing.’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘Five more minutes to dry your hair and then I’m coming back for you.’
When he’d gone she stared in the mirror at her rabbit-in-the-headlights face. She couldn’t keep running like this for ever.
‘Where do I go for this massage?’ she asked, when she came out of the changing room.
Barefoot, but dressed in jeans and a black top that emphasised his powerful physique, Dante led the way to the far end of the gym, where a luxurious sunken area had been designed to induce peace and relaxation. There were comfortable sofas and massage beds arranged around a decorative fountain; the scent of essential oils fragranced the air.
