Elizabeth jolted to a halt. Her pulse jumped into an erratic beat. This looked too much like a playboy setting. Was Harry about to turn into a wolf now that business was over for the day? She shot him a hard, suspicious look.
‘I don’t see any staff.’
‘Waiting for me to get you settled,’ he said, moving ahead to hold out one of the chairs for her.
Was it true? Surely he wouldn’t lie when the lie could be so quickly disproved. It was okay, she told herself, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly as she forced her feet forward and sat where Harry had directed. He lifted the bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket, popped the cork and filled the flute glasses before sitting down himself.
‘A celebratory drink,’ he said, smiling at her as he raised his glass, expecting her to do the same.
She did, though his smile did nothing to calm her down. Quite the opposite.
‘To a new start,’ he added, clicking her glass with his.
‘A new start,’ she echoed, hoping the staff would hurry up and appear. Her nerves were twitching. Her heart was thumping. There was too much intimacy about being alone with Harry out here, and the control she was trying to hold on to was frayed by having had to deal with too many difficult situations.
Harry’s eyes caressed her with admiration as he complimented her again. ‘You’ve been brilliant today, Elizabeth.’
For some stupid reason, tears pricked her eyes. She managed a half smile of acknowledgment and quickly sipped the champagne, needing it to loosen up the sudden lump in her throat. The day had been overloaded with tensions but it was almost over. All she had to do was hold herself together a little bit longer.
‘Ah! Here it comes!’ Harry said happily, looking up towards the restaurant.
Elizabeth blinked hard, set her glass down, mentally gathered herself to deal with the welcome ceremony, then turned her head to see...
Not a group of staff members.
Only one person walking down the steps.
It was Daniel Marven, carrying a cake on a platter.
She looked for others to come streaming down behind him but no one did. He proceeded to the table alone, placing the platter in front of her.
‘Enjoy,’ he said, smiling at her.
Happy Birthday Elizabeth was written across the chocolate icing on top of the cake. She stared at it, barely finding voice enough to say, ‘Thank you.’
‘Good work, Daniel,’ Harry said, and the chef took off, leaving the two of them together.
A dam of tightly held emotion burst inside Elizabeth. Her birthday. Her thirtieth birthday. She’d so much wanted it to be...not how it had turned out. Tears spurted into her eyes, welling over and streaming down her cheeks. Impossible to stop them. Her heart was not strong enough to absorb any more stress. It felt as though it was breaking.
Strong hands lifted her out of her chair. Strong arms engulfed her, clamping her to a strong chest. Her head was gently pressed onto a strong shoulder. There was no resistance in her. None at all. She was as weak as a baby—a baby who had been born thirty years ago and didn’t know what life had in store for her. Still didn’t. And she was too much at sea to think about it...think about anything.
HARRY had not anticipated having a weeping Elizabeth in his arms. The birthday cake surprise had been planned to give her pleasure and undermine her resistance to a friendly goodnight kiss, which could have easily escalated into something more, sparking up the chemistry that she’d always been so determined to deny. He didn’t feel right about taking advantage of this situation.
What had caused such deep distress? Was it the reminder that she had turned thirty today? Single women could be rather touchy about reaching that age goalpost, particularly if they weren’t in a relationship and wanted to be. Was it the lost chance with Mickey catching up with her at the end of the day?
It was so damnably frustrating. He’d finally got her to himself. She felt good in his arms—all woman—soft, warm and curvy. Smelled good, too. He rubbed his cheek over her hair, breathing in the scent of her—a fruity shampoo and an enticing trace of exotic perfume. He patted her back, trying to impart comfort, and felt relieved when the weeping started trailing off, interrupted by deep, heaving breaths that made him very aware of the lush fullness of her breasts. He wanted to pick her up, carry her over to the nearest day bed and blow her mind with wild, passionate sex.
The emotional storm eventually came to a shuddering halt but she remained leaning on him, her head resting on his shoulder, her body still, limp, spent of all energy. His hands wanted to wander, travelling down the very female curve of her spine to her even more female bottom—the bottom that swished provocatively every time she’d turned away from him. His fingers itched to curl around it, press her body into a more intimate fit with his, stir the same desire in her that was heating up his blood, arousing the beast.
He couldn’t stop himself from hardening, didn’t want to anyway. Let her feel what she did to him. Let her know she was desirable even as a limp, tear-soaked rag doll. It might jolt her out of whatever sea of misery she was swimming in. Life was for living, not wallowing in a trough of depression.
* * *
Elizabeth didn’t care that it was Harry holding her. It was simply nice to be held in such a secure comforting way, propping her up when she was down, not asking anything of her, just being another body emanating warmth that took the chill of loneliness from her bones.
She wished she had someone who would always be there for her like this, someone strong who would never let her down. She’d wanted to believe it would be Michael, but it wasn’t. And Harry...oh hell! She could feel him getting hard! No matter that she’d been weeping all over him. He still had sex on his mind.
A flood of embarrassment poured heat into her face as she jerked her head up from his shoulder. She’d been hanging on to him like a limpet. It took a moment to unglue her hands from his back and try shoving them up his chest to make some space between them.
‘Sorry...sorry,’ she gabbled, frantically looking up to beg his understanding that she hadn’t been passively inviting anything!
‘Sorry for what?’ he mocked, his eyes glittering a hard challenge at her.
‘I didn’t mean to...to use you like that.’
‘You needed to...just like I need to do this.’
He whipped up a hand to hold her chin. Elizabeth didn’t have time to protest, nor time to take any action to stop his mouth from swooping on hers. The impact shocked her. It was not a gentle seductive kiss. It was a full-on sensual assault, his lips working over hers, forcing them open with the strong thrust of his tongue that instantly swept over her palate, causing her whole mouth to tingle as though it had been charged with electricity.
Instinctively she used her own tongue to fight the invasion of his, angry at his bold aggression. Whether he took this as encouragement or not, she didn’t know, but his hand moved to the back of her head, fingers thrusting into her hair, holding her so there was no escape from his marauding mouth. His tongue was teasing, goading, enticing hers to tangle erotically with it, resulting in an explosion of sensation that tore any sensible thoughts out of her mind.
The whole physicality of the moment was totally overwhelming. She didn’t care that he pressed her lower body so closely to his that his erection furrowed her stomach. Some primitive part of her revelled in it, revelled in the hot hard wall of his