She had always known that his work in London was temporary, but Paris was only a few hours away by train. They might have had a chance to stay in touch and to stay close. If they worked at it.
If they both wanted it enough.
If he wanted it as much as she did.
He was leaving.
Just as her parents had decided to leave behind the cold, grey British winters and go back to the sunshine and the life that they loved. Just as her friends from catering college had left for jobs all over the world. Just as Josh had gone back to his real girlfriend and left his stand-in, second-best girl standing on the pavement outside his apartment reeling from what the hell had just happened.
She had coped with saying goodbye and managing the shock. And she still had Lottie and Gloria and the girls in the baking club. She could cope with saying goodbye to Sean. She was going to have to; he wasn’t giving her any other choice.
It wasn’t meant to be this hard.
She just wanted him to stay with her so badly.
Sean snuggled up next to her in the silence, the whole left side of his body pressed against her right side. Thigh to thigh, hip to hip and arm to arm.
She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, and her whole body yearned to lean sideways against him for support, but she fought off the temptation.
She had to.
It was almost too much to bear when his fingers meshed with hers, locking them together in the dark.
Slowly, slowly, she found the strength to look up into the most amazing blue-grey eyes. In the bar they had been like clear, blue, fresh tropical seas, alluring, tempting and begging her to dive in. But now they were dark and stormy. Dangerous.
The warmth had been replaced with an intensity and concern that she had never seen before.
It was all there in the hard lines of his handsome face. The face that she had come to love so much over the past week or so, though she did not dare admit that to herself.
The planes of his face were brought into sharp contrast by the light from the room.
She had been so wrong to imagine that the son of Tom Beresford would have an easy office job handed down by his father.
Sean worked so very hard. And she admired him for that. But why now? Why did he have to go tonight?
‘What kind of emergency is it?’ she asked in a voice which was quaking a lot more than she wanted. ‘Not another flood, I hope.’
His lips parted and he took in a long, shuddering breath before replying in a low, hoarse voice which to her ears seemed heavy with regret and concern.
‘No; worse. Food poisoning. Rob thinks that it’s a norovirus, and he is already on site working with the authorities, but the hotel is closed and guests are on lockdown. And I really do not want to talk about kitchen detox at this precise moment.’
His fingers clenched around hers and Dee tried focusing on the flickering lights on the riverbank but she could sense every tiny movement of his body which made vision a little difficult.
Her eyes fluttered closed as he took a tighter hold of her fingers and stepped away and she instantly yearned to have his body next to her again. Instead he gently lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of her knuckles, forcing her to look up into his face.
‘I wanted to be there tomorrow. To share your triumph. Because that is what it is going to be—a triumph.’
His head tilted slightly and one side of his mouth lifted up into a half-smile. ‘You are going to be amazing. I know it. And Prakash has promised me a full report with video and photos.’
‘Video?’ She spluttered. ‘That wasn’t on the list.’
His gaze was focused on her hair and he casually lifted a stray strand of her lop-sided fringe and popped it behind her ear in a gesture so tender and caring that she almost cried at the pleasure of it.
‘I ticked all of the optional extras on the checklist for you. Courtesy of the hotel management.’
‘Wow,’ she whispered and was rewarded with a quick nod of reply and a flash of a smile.
‘Sean?’ she asked in a quiet voice, and she closed the tiny gap between them. ‘How long are you going to be away in Chicago? A week? Two? Then you are going to be in Paris, right?’
‘I don’t know. Weeks, most likely. As for Paris? There is no way I can handle that now. My dad is going to take over the project and find another manager.’
Dee exhaled a long sigh of relief. ‘That’s great. So when are you coming back to London? I will have so much to tell you.’
His head dropped down so that his forehead was almost touching hers and she could feel the heat of his breath on her face.
So that there was nowhere for her to escape to when he formed the words that she had been dreading.
‘You don’t understand, Dee. Paris is cancelled. My next assignment is in Brazil for a couple of months and then back to Australia in the autumn. I’m not coming back to London.’
Tea, glorious tea. A celebration of teas from around the world.
A simple infusion of chamomile flowers can help to relax the nerves and aid in sleep by creating a general feeling of relaxation.
From Flynn’s Phantasmagoria of Tea
‘Not coming back? Then I only want to know the answer to one question—and I don’t want to hear it over the phone or in an email. Don’t treat me like one of your managers. Talk to me. I want to hear your answer here and now. In person. To my face.’
She pressed both hands flat against his shirt so that the racing beat of his heart flittered up through her fingertips.
He was hurting just as much as she was.
‘Do you want to see me again, Sean? Because if you don’t it would be better if you told me now and be done with it, so that...’ She lifted her chin. ‘So that we can both get on with our lives.’
‘Do I want to be with you? Oh, Dee.’
His right hand came up and flicked his suit jacket onto a patio table, exposing her skin to the cold night air, and instantly she could feel her nipples pebble with alertness. His long fingers slid down the whole length of her body from her neck, down the treacherous front of her jacket to her hips and back again.
Without asking for permission or forgiveness he slipped his warm hand up inside her jacket and cupped her breast. His thumb moved over her nipple with the perfect amount of pressure to fire up every nerve in her body.
But Sean had found the perfect distraction, kissing her forehead, temple and throat with such exquisitely gentle kisses that any idea of a question was driven out her mind as her desire for him built with each touch of his lips on hers.
And, just when she thought that her legs were going to buckle, his fingers slid away until her entire breast was being cupped by his hand and her bra was redundant and getting in the way of the exquisite pleasure.
Then slowly, slowly, his hand slid lower onto the bare skin at her waist and rested there for a second before moving away.
Arms wrapped around his head, Dee hung onto Sean as he wrapped both arms around her and held her to him.
She could feel the supressed power of his answer pressing against her hip and his short, fast breaths on her neck, fighting, fighting for control.
‘Oh,