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And he was not sorry that he had to take a call then, though he assured himself it was in no way arelief. Because he was Lionel Asensio and he did not look for ways to avoid uncomfortable conversations. He reveled in them.
Or he always had before.
Possibly because you have never had anything at stake, a voice inside him suggested.
He did not believe he had anything at stake now, he assured himself. And was perhaps even more inflexible in a negotiation than usual later that day, to prove it. Because he had nothing to prove. Because he felt nothing.
Because he had decided a long, long time ago that feelings were for the weak.
Yet soon enough, weak or not, the sun went down and he could once again sit across from Geraldine at their little table in the garden.
Lionel had never taken his meals out in this garden before her. He had lived in this house for years, preferring his own space to what privacy he could cobble together at the main house. But he had always viewed this as a place of duty. He was far happier moving between his various offices around the world than staying here too long, mired in memories of his childhood.
He could not recall the last time he’d spent so many consecutive days on the estate. And yet with Geraldine here, he found he did not think back to a great many of those memories as he’d always assumed he would. Lionel was far more concerned with her.
Because during the day she could ignore him. She could pretend she didn’t understand the references he made to the way this honeymoon should have been progressing, if it was traditional.
Everything was different at night.
It was because of the food, perhaps, because Andalusian cuisine never failed to impress and his cook was a wonder. Perhaps it was the wine, sourced from the Asensio vineyards, and always the perfect accompaniment.
Perhaps it was these sultry fall nights themselves. Because in the depths of all the shadows, as the nights grew cooler, Lionel found he could see far different truths than were visible in the light of day.
Tonight there was something edgier than usual, there in the flickering candlelight between them.
Tonight everything seemed...a little bit brighter. A little bit hotter.
They had taken their time over the meal and were sitting there now it was done, speaking of everything and nothing. Lionel wasn’t certain when this had become their habit.
He wasn’t sure he had ever hadhabitswhere women were concerned. Not ones that involved anything outside the bedroom.
And if he was tempted tofeelsomething about this strange turn of events, he reminded himself that he had never had a wife before, either.
He did notfeelanything, he told himself. He simply wanted her, and so he stood—enjoying a little too much the way her eyes widened. The way whatever she had been telling him about the Spanish language course she had started taking on her mobile simply...stopped. Midsentence.
“Dance with me,” he commanded her.
Or perhaps he was kidding himself. Perhaps it was an invitation, no command, just entreaty.
And he waited, when he had never waited. When he was so tired of waiting. Whenwaitingwas beginning to sit in his bones, making them ache.
Lionel’s whole body tightened with that same bright fire, that same wild need that these days had only honed to an ever-sharpening hunger.
Geraldine gazed up at him from the table, her fine lips parting as if she could taste it too, this maddeningthirst.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, but she hardly sounded like herself. Her voice was low and rough. “There is no music.”
“There is always music,mi media naranja,” he murmured. “If you listen hard enough, you will hear it.”
Then he held out his hand.
And he did not pretend that he could not feel the heat between them, now. Or that this was precisely the sort of inflection point they had been talking about earlier.
A moment to choose.
Lives were choices, he had told her earlier with such great confidence.
Lionel could not pretend to be unaware that this was one. Right here. Right now.
