Robson nodded. “Yes, I knew. But he didn’t know who I was at all. I hadn’t seen him in years. We moved to California when I was four.”
“And you never saw him again?”
“Not until November when I came to work. And then I didn’t want him to know who I was. I use my stepfather’s last name. Max didn’t know it. I wanted to make it on my own before I told him.”
Seb rubbed a hand against the taut cords at the back of his neck. He was still ticked by her having gulled him with her pretense, but he could appreciate the reason she had given for not telling Max or anyone else who she was. If he was honest, he knew that in her shoes, he’d have been tempted to do the same.
“You’re not telling me he still doesn’t know, are you?” Because there was no way on earth he’d believe that.
“No, of course not. After I won the Balthus Grant and he invited me to work on the Wortman project with him, I knew I had to. If we were going to be working together, I wanted him to know. Besides by then I’d won the grant, so I knew and he knew—and so did everyone else—that I could do the job. See?”
Seb grunted. He rocked back on his heels, muttering under his breath. Yeah, he saw. It made sense, what she’d said. But it still annoyed him.
“You could have told me.”
“Like you told me you were buying the houseboat!”
“That’s not the same thing at all!”
“No? Well, it sure felt like it. One minute I thought I knew what was going on—I was buying a houseboat from Frank—and the next minute you walked in and it was yours! My home belonged to you!” “
Her face flushed again, the heightened color making her more beautiful than ever, and Seb felt an overwhelming urge to stop arguing and kiss her again.
He took one step toward her and she said abruptly, “Stay away!”
He stopped, brows drawing down. “Stay away?”
“Yes.” She wrapped her arms even more tightly across her breasts as if she were cloaking herself in body armor.
He gave her a sardonic look. “You’re going to go all cool and detached and claim that I forced myself on you? Another prevarication, Robson?”
Her lips pressed in a tight line. “I’m not lying, Savas. And I’m not claiming any such thing. But—” and here she shook her head fiercely “—you’re not doing it again.”
“Why not? You liked it. You kissed me back.”
Let her deny that if she dared.
For a moment he thought she might, but then she shrugged. “Yes, I did.”
“So…why stop? Don’t you like kissing? It felt as if you liked kissing,” he told her with a knowing grin.
“Kissing’s fine.” Her voice rose, as if she were going to say more, but in the end, she didn’t. She simply shook her head.
“But…?” Seb coaxed her.
Her eyes flashed. “But there’s no point!”
He could definitely think of a point to a passion as hot as the one that had raged between them. “Seems like we could have come up with one.” He grinned again.
Robson didn’t. “Well, one point,” she allowed. “I suppose we could tear each other’s clothes off and make—have mad passionate sex. But we’re not going to.”
“You don’t like sex?” He’d noticed how she cut herself off, changed what she’d been going to say. Make love.
“It’s fine,” she muttered.
“Ah, kissing’s fine. Sex is fine, but…” he goaded her now. “But what, Robson? You’re frigid? Can’t convince me of that.” His body was still humming from the heat generated by their passion.
“I’m not trying to convince you,” she fired back. “I’m just saying it isn’t happening again. Not with you.”
Their gazes met, locked, battled. Dear God, he wanted to stop fighting with her and take her to bed!
“You wanted me,” he argued.
“I already admitted to that. I’ll say it if you want—my body wants yours.” She flung the words at him. “But I don’t do ‘sex for sex’s sake,’ Savas. I don’t do ‘one-night stands.’”
“No one said anything about one night.”
“I don’t do ‘affairs,’ damn it.”
“You’re a virgin?”
The flush on her face deepened. “No. I’m not a virgin. But I’ve learned my lesson. And I want sex to matter. I want it to mean more than just making my body and yours feel good. I want it to be an expression of love, commitment, even marriage!”
He gaped at her. “With me?”
“Good God, no! With the man I fall in love with!”
Seb opened his mouth to argue—and shut it again.
The smile Neely gave him was both bitter and knowing. “Exactly,” she said.
It could have been worse.
Neely told herself that over and over, like a mantra, as she huddled shivering in a perfectly warm shower. Right now it didn’t seem like such a beautiful morning after all.
It wasn’t telling him about Max that bothered her. That bit of information was long overdue and she knew it. She hadn’t known how to work it into the conversation. Somehow “Oh, by the way, Max is my dad” just wouldn’t fall easily from her lips.
Still didn’t.
But he knew it now. And that was pretty much the least of her problems.
She could have been swept away by his damned kiss.
She could have slid her hands under the soft cotton of his T-shirt to caress the hard-muscled warmth of his back. Could have lain right down with him on the sofa and lost all her inhibitions.
Could have, let’s be honest, done exactly what she’d said when she’d thrown the “we could tear our clothes off and have mad passionate sex” words at him.
No, not could have. Might have.
Or even more accurately, would have, had Sebastian not stopped when he had.
Neely was beyond mortification. It didn’t bear thinking about.
And yet, she had to think about it—to come to terms with it.
You never got past things you didn’t face. She’d learned that from all the years she’d spent watching her mother simply move on rather than confront her demons.
But after having come within a hair’s breadth of making mad passionate lo—having mad passionate sex—with Sebastian Savas, God help her, a little retreat and regroup seemed in order.
So she had taken her tote bag and what was left of her shattered composure and climbed the stairs.
There she took a shower, washed her hair, scrubbed her body and, especially, her face, as if she could remove every vestige of Sebastian’s kiss, and tried to get a grip on her life.
She should move out.
But if she did, he’d think she was running away from him.
“You are running away from him, idiot,” she said aloud, wringing out a cold washcloth and pressing it to her face, tried to reduce the heat she still felt.
But even so, she resisted actually running. She wasn’t a wimp. She was a strong