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Riccardo, naked and shaving in front of the bathroom-cabinet mirror, saw her enter and freeze. He rinsed his face and turned around.
‘What’s the problem? You’ve seen this body naked before.’
Charlotte, clutching her bundle of clothes for dear life, glued her eyes to his face. That was safe. And right now she needed that safe haven because her legs had turned to lead.
‘Argh…’
‘Did you want to use the bathroom?’ He strolled towards her. Eight years on and she still blushed like a virgin. He had been out with women who were willing to do the most explicit things and had never turned a hair, never mind looked as though they wanted the ground to open up and swallow them.
‘Ah…umm…’
‘What is it about me that you don’t like?’ That passing remark had been niggling away at him like a thorn in his side. Resentment and even hatred he could deal with, because he could tie them up to a reaction to how they had parted company, and whether or not he agreed with it he could now understand it. But just not liking him was a bit more difficult to get his head around. He knew that physically he could still affect her. Experience with the opposite sex had made him a master in reading their responses. But just not liking him implied something that bordered on emotional indifference, and for the first time in his life the physical was just not good enough. He wanted more from her, and he told himself that that was because their situation was so complicated.
Charlotte made an inarticulate sound and began feeling for the door behind her.
‘No, no. Not so fast.’ Physically, he had to admit, she certainly still affected him, evidence of which was all too visible should she allow her eyes to travel due south. He snatched his towel from where he had draped it over the shower rail and slung it around his waist. ‘There. Better?’
‘I’m not having a conversation with you in here!’
‘Why not? It’s as good a place as any.’
‘It’s a bathroom!’
‘Since when did you become so conventional, Charlie? If I recall, you never allowed inappropriate locations to get in the way of what you wanted to do.’ He leaned against the door, effectively locking her in.
‘I don’t want to talk to you, though, Riccardo. I want to have a bath.’
‘Feel free.’
‘This is my house.’ She tilted her head up mutinously and swallowed down the unsettling feeling in her stomach as she stared into his eyes, feeling a bit like plummeting sharply and unexpectedly down on a rollercoaster ride. ‘You may have taken it upon yourself to move in temporarily, because you just can’t bear not to get your own way, but you’re still under my roof, and just so long as you are I won’t have you disrupting my life and what I want to do!’
‘This isn’t a question about me!’
‘Yes, it is!’ His bare torso was only inches away from her and she could feel her body prickling with awareness. It was unbearable, especially as she knew he was aroused. How could she not? She might have kept her eyes plastered on his face, but she still hadn’t been able to miss his very obvious erection. She told herself that that meant nothing. She had fallen in love with a man who was capable of conducting a relationship based solely on sex. She just wasn’t going there again.
Nevertheless, her breasts ached; every part of her ached.
‘It’s about us trying to make something work for the sake of someone else. Gina didn’t ask to be born into a single-parent family, and I’m giving us both the chance to try and do something about it.’
