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This couldn’t last. Maybe that was why it was so exciting. They both knew that these moments were stolen, and that real life would take them back soon enough.
He held her tenderly, his breath caressing her ear as he murmured words she couldn’t help wanting to hear. That she was beautiful. How much he adored kissing her on a moonlit summer’s night.
‘So a tent in Siberia doesn’t push any of your buttons?’ She smiled up at him.
‘You can organise the tent and I’ll get the plane tickets. We’ll find out.’
He obviously found the thought as interesting as she did, but she knew they could talk this way because they both knew they’d never do it. They had something that was much too important to both of them to contemplate anything more than a forbidden fantasy.
‘Or we could go to Egypt. Ride out into the desert on camels... Or to Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower...’
‘We could. And there’s always Camden. Hoxton. Maida Vale...’
The familiar names sounded suddenly exotic on his lips. Alex would make anywhere exciting, and his kiss would be equally intoxicating.
‘Or we could go back inside. Finish off the job we came to do.’
‘That would be good, too. In a completely different way.’
Alex’s arms loosened around her waist. They both knew this had to end, and that they’d never go to Siberia or Egypt or Paris together. That Camden, Hoxton and Maida Vale would seem perfectly ordinary in the morning.
He was the one who had the strength to move, to take the first step back. Marie had his arm, but when they emerged from the shadows she stopped.
‘Lipstick.’ She pointed to her own mouth, to indicate where the smear was on his, and then pulled the handkerchief from his pocket, shaking out the folds and giving him the end that would be hidden when it was refolded.
‘Did I get it all?’
‘Bit more.’ Marie took the handkerchief and wiped tiny smudge from the side of his mouth.
‘Thanks. You’ve got some...er...’ He waved his finger in a circle, pointing at his own face.
That wasn’t a lot of help. Marie was sure she didn’t have lipstick in her eyebrows. She wiped her lips, deciding she would go straight to the ladies’ room and repair the rest of the damage.
‘Okay?’
He nodded, offering his arm again. Marie took it and they walked together back up the steps to the terrace. They had a job to do, and it didn’t involve kissing.
CHAPTER TEN
LAST NIGHT HAD been a mixture of emotions: wanting to protect Marie and the horrible suspicion that one of the things he needed to protect her against was him; meeting Mark and finding that he was an ordinary man and not an ogre; the feeling that if Sonya made any more introductions he was going to go out onto the terrace and yell for mercy.
And also sheer, unthinking delight.
Alex had tried to convince himself that their kiss was something that happened between friends. Out of curiosity. Like the way that, as boys, he and Andrew had kissed the backs of their own hands, to practise what it might be like to kiss a girl.
But kissing Marie had been nothing like kissing the back of his hand.
He felt a little less awkward at seeing Marie again than he might have done. She’d made it easy—going back to the party with him, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm just as she had before. They’d talked about the evening in the taxi together without mentioning the kissing part. And then they’d said their goodnights and he’d watched her to her door.
It was over. Done. And even if it couldn’t be forgotten they’d both put it behind them because it was impossible to do anything different.
He saw Marie strolling across the front courtyard now, chatting to Zack. She seemed happy, smiling in the late-morning sunshine.
Alex quickly got the papers he was supposed to be working on out of his briefcase and laid them on his desk to make it look as if he had actually been doing something. He heard a knock on his door and then Zack entered, leaving a respectful distance between himself and the desk.
‘Is it okay if I help Marie, please? She’s going to do some more wall-painting.’
‘Yes, of course, Zack. Thank you very much.’
