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‘No. But it’s real. It’s not some fake display for Raoul to advertise his business.’
Claudia looked up into his face. Way up. She’d forgotten how tall he was. Or at least how much taller he was compared to her. Raoul, for all his Spanish good looks, didn’t quite make six foot and she had to readjust her centre.
His smooth jaw was just there and she could smell his spicy-sweet aftershave and if they’d been lovers, God help her, she would have stood on tiptoe and licked from the hollow of his throat all the way to his chin.
But they weren’t.
‘Why does me dancing with Raoul bother you so much?’
Luke, who had been trying desperately to look anywhere else but Claudia, found himself looking down at her.
A mistake.
Two ripe swells of clea**vage greeted him, pushed up and out of the V of her halter dress from the way he was holding her all smooshed up against him.
He wished he knew the answer to her question but all he had were bone-headed Neanderthal reactions. Gut reactions.
Because I can’t stand the thought of him looking at your breasts. Any man here looking at them. I can’t stand knowing that he’s touched them.
Not when I haven’t. Not thoroughly anyway.
Yup. So not going to say that.
He dragged his gaze up to her face, her blue eyes glittering like polished turquoise in the spotlights. ‘I don’t know why it bothers me,’ he said. ‘It just does.’
Claudia would have been knocked on her butt had she been sitting near a chair. She hadn’t expected such raw honesty from him and she didn’t know how she felt. Part of her wanted to run and hide. The other part really wanted to lick his neck.
So she did the mature thing: she unlocked her gaze from his, dropping it to the patch of shirt that was right in front of her, and decided to change the subject. She cast around for something that would completely lampoon the warm buzz she could feel gathering down low as the delicious friction between them ramped up.
‘Why don’t you ever talk about Philippa?’
Luke stumbled slightly at the unexpected question. Bloody hell. She sure knew how to kill the buzz. ‘There’s nothing to say,’ he said tersely, keeping his gaze trained on a spot over her shoulder.
Claudia refrained from rolling her eyes. That statement in itself was a big blaring warning signal to his mental health. ‘What happened with you two?’
Luke’s jaw. ‘I don’t really think it’s any of your business,’ he said.
Thinking about Philippa’s betrayal, her infidelity, always left Luke feeling a little emasculated and he didn’t need that while dancing with a beautiful woman.
Even if it was Claudia. Who he shouldn’t be thinking about in relation to his masculinity.
Claudia fell silent for a few moments and just swayed to the music, but that was worse. Because that left her thinking and her thoughts were far from pure.
Far from sensible.
All she could think about was how her brea**sts rubbed against his chest, how hard and meaty his shoulder felt in her palm and the crazy thump in her groin as their bottom halves rubbed together and things got a little heated down there.
‘You broke your mother’s heart, you know?’ she said.
Again, another comment out of the blue but it was something she’d always wanted to say to him. Marrying Philippa and not inviting his parents had really hurt Gloria. She’d made a big deal out of being understanding but Claudia had been just outside the door when Gloria had broken down on her mother’s shoulder and it had been heart-wrenching to hear.
Maybe it wasn’t a fair thing to say but Luke had lived a fairly selfish life for a decade, far away from how many of his decisions had affected them all. Moving to the UK the first chance he got, getting married, not wanting anything to do with the resort.
It was his life and these were his decisions to make but they still had an emotional ripple effect.
Luke kept his eyes firmly fixed over her shoulder. ‘When I moved to London? I know.’
Claudia shook her head. ‘No. When you married Philippa and didn’t invite her to the wedding.’
‘What?’ Luke forgot about not looking at her as he searched Claudia’s face, forgot about dancing. ‘We didn’t invite anyone to the wedding. It wasn’t a...wedding...’ he spluttered, ‘with the dress and the cake and the...other stuff. It was a quick trip to the register office in our lunch break then back to work. We didn’t even go on a honeymoon for three months.’
Claudia blinked at him and barely managed to suppress a shudder. It sounded horrible. No wonder Philippa had left him. She’d known exactly the kind of wedding she wanted from the age of six. A full-on romantic affair on the beach just outside their doorstep and a huge reception at the Tropicana.
