He’d wanted her.
‘Eve,’ she’d told him when he’d cornered her during a break and asked her name. Breathless Eve with the lush mouth and amazing eyes and a body made for sin, a body all too willing to sin, as he’d discovered in that storeroom.
And he’d cursed when he’d had to leave all too suddenly for Santiago, cursed that he’d missed out on peeling her clothes from her luscious body, piece by piece. He’d had half a mind to return to Sydney after his business in Chile concluded, but by then something else had come up. And then there’d been more business in other countries, and other women, and she’d slipped from his radar, to be loosely filed under the-ones-that-got-away.
It wasn’t a big file and as it happened she hadn’t got away after all. She’d been right there under his nose, answering his emails, handling his paperwork, organising meetings, and she’d never once let on. Never once mentioned the fact they’d already met.
What was that about?
His hand drifted back to his pretend fiancée’s back, letting the conversation wash over him—something about an island the Culshaws owned in the Whitsundays—his fingertips busy tracing patterns on her satiny-soft skin as he studied her profile, the line of her jaw, the eyes he’d noticed and should have recognised. She was slightly changed, the colour of her hair more caramel now than the sun-streaked blonde it had been back then, and maybe she wasn’t quite so reed thin. Slight changes, no more than that, and they looked good on her. But no wonder he’d thought she’d looked familiar.
She glanced briefly at him then, as the party rose and headed for the dining area, a slight frown marring an otherwise perfect brow, as if she was wondering why he’d been so quiet. He smiled, knowing that the waiting time to meeting her again had passed; knowing that her time had come.
Knowing that for him the long wait would soon be over. She’d been like quicksilver in his arms that day, so potent and powerful that he hadn’t been able to wait the few hours before closing the deal to sample her.
There was no doubt in his mind that the long wait was going to be worth it.
So what, then, that he had a rule about not sleeping with his PA? Rules were made to be broken after all, some more than others. He smiled at her, taking her arm, already anticipating the evening ahead. A long evening filled with many delights, if he had anything to do with it. Which of course, he thought with a smile, he did.
Maybe it was the fact everyone so readily accepted Evelyn as his fiancée. Maybe it was the surprising realisation that playing the part of a fiancé wasn’t as appalling or difficult as he’d first imagined that made the evening work.
Or maybe it was the thought of afterwards, when he would finally get the opportunity to peel off her gown and unleash the real woman beneath.
But the evening did work, and well. The drinks and canapés, the dinner, the coffee and dessert—the hotel catering would get a bonus. It was all faultless. Culshaw was beaming, his wife was glowing and the Alvarezes made such entertaining dinner companions, reeling out one amusing anecdote after another, that half the time everyone was laughing too much to eat.
And Evelyn—the delectable Evelyn—played her part to perfection. Though he frowned as he caught her glancing at her watch again. Perfect, apart from that annoying habit she had of checking the time every ten minutes. Why? It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. Certainly not before they’d had a chance to catch up on old times.
Finally coffee and liqueurs had been served and the staff quietly vanished back into the kitchen. Culshaw stifled a yawn, apologising and blaming his habit of going for a long early walk every morning for not letting him stay up late. ‘But I thank you all for coming. Richard and Leo, maybe we can get those contract terms nutted out tomorrow—what do you think?’
The men drew aside to agree on a time to meet while the women chatted, gathering up purses and wraps. They were nice people, Eve thought, wishing she could have met them in different circumstances, and not while living this lie. She knew she’d never meet them again, and maybe in the bigger scheme of things it made no difference to anything, as they would all go their separate ways in a day or so, but that thought was no compensation for knowing she’d spent the evening pretending to be someone and something she was not.
‘Shall we go?’ Leo said, breaking into her thoughts as he wrapped his big hand around hers and lifted it to his mouth, and Eve could see how pleased he was with himself and with the way things had gone.
The final act, she thought as his lips brushed her hand and his eyes simmered with barely contained desire. A look filled with heated promise, of a coming night filled with tangled limbs in tangled sheets. The look a man should give his fiancée before they retired to their room for the night. The final pretence.
No pretence necessary when her body responded like a woman’s should respond to her lover’s unspoken invitation, ripening and readying until she could feel the pulse of her blood beating out her need in that secret place between her thighs, achingly insistent, turning her thoughts to sex. No wonder everyone believed them to be lovers. He acted the part so very well. He made it so easy. He made her body want to believe it.
A shame, she thought as they said their final goodbyes and left the suite. Such a shame it was all for nothing. Such a waste of emotional energy and sizzling intensity. Already she could feel her body winding down, the sense of anticlimax rolling in. The sudden silence somehow magnified it, the hushed passage devoid of other guests, as empty as their pretend relationship.
‘Will the car be waiting for me downstairs?’ she asked, glancing at her phone as they waited in the lift lobby. No messages, she noticed with relief, dropping it back into her purse. Which meant Mrs Willis had had no problems with Sam.
‘So anxious to get away?’ the man at her side said. ‘Do you have somewhere you’re desperate to get to?’
‘Not really. Just looking forward to getting home.’ And she wasn’t desperate. There no point rushing now, Eve knew. She’d been watching the time and chances were Mrs Willis was well and truly tucked up in bed by now, which meant no picking up Sam before morning. But equally there was nothing for her here. She’d done her job. It was time to drop the make-believe and go home to her real life.
‘No? Only you kept checking your watch every five minutes through dinner and you just now checked your phone. I get the impression I’m keeping you from something—or someone.’
‘No,’ she insisted, cursing herself for being so obvious. She’d gone to the powder room to check her messages during the evening, not wanting to be rude or raise questions. She hadn’t thought anyone would notice a quick glance at her watch. ‘Look, it’s nothing. But we’ve finished here, haven’t we?’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What?’ He took her hand and lifted it, the sapphire flashing on her finger. ‘Oh, of course. I almost forgot.’ She tried to slip her hand from his so she could take it off, but he stilled her.
‘Not here. Wait till we get to the suite.’ And she would have argued that it wasn’t necessary, that she could give it to him in the lift for that matter, only she heard voices behind them and the sound of the Alvarezes approaching and knew she had no choice, not when their suites were on the same floor and it would look bizarre if she didn’t accompany Leo.
‘Ah, we meet again,’ Richard said, coming around the corner with Felicity on his arm as the lift doors whooshed open softly behind them. ‘Great night, Leo, well done. Culshaw seems much more comfortable to do business now. He agreed to call to arrange things after his walk in the morning.’
Leo smiled and nodded. ‘Excellent,’ he said, pressing the button for the next floor as they made small talk about the dinner, within seconds the two couples bidding each other goodnight again and heading for their respective suites.
And,