‘Have a seat.’ He pulled out a chair and motioned her to sit as he lit the candle he had produced from somewhere.
Soft music and it would be the classic seduction scene.
Even the faintest possibility should have had her running for the door, but she wasn’t running. Her heart was beating faster, she felt breathless, almost light-headed.
Anyone would think I wanted to be seduced.
She rejected the idea with a tiny shake of her head. She had never been tempted by casual relationships; the idea of intimacy without love left her cold.
So why was her skin crackling with heat?
‘You really didn’t have to go to so much trouble on my account,’ she said, staring into the flickering flame worriedly.
‘It was my pleasure.’
She turned her head and saw he was watching her, his mouth curved into a sardonic smile. She had the horrible feeling he knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘But as I have gone to so much trouble, it would be churlish of you not to eat the results of my hard labour,’ he chided softly.
Not quite meeting his eyes, Dervla shivered inside, flashed him a half-smile and took her seat.
She would eat and leave. She was in danger, she told herself, of overcomplicating this, making way too much of a casual glance or an ambiguous comment. She had to stop seeing things that weren’t there.
Gianfranco took the seat opposite. He bent forward to top up her glass, but she shook her head and murmured quickly. ‘Not for me.’
She noticed he didn’t replenish his own glass either. He made no effort to pick up his fork, but waited, elbows pressed on the table, his chin resting on his hands, for her to try the food.
‘Well?’
‘It’s delicious,’ she admitted truthfully. ‘Are you going back to the hospital tonight?’
He shook his head. ‘No, Alberto has asserted his independence and thrown me out.’
‘He has more guts than the rest of us.’
While they ate the subjects of conversation remained similar safe, desultory topics and Dervla began to—relax was too strong a word, but her defences lowered slightly and the tension slipped out of her rigid spine. But all the time they spoke and said little she was still very conscious that this was Gianfranco Bruni who was a dangerous man accustomed to getting what he wanted.
And if he wants me?
Dervla took a jittery gasp and got to her feet so quickly that she almost knocked her chair over.
‘That was lovely, but it is late.’ Late to pretend she wasn’t attracted to him and hadn’t been from the moment she had laid eyes on him. ‘I really should be going.’ I really should never have come.
Gianfranco set aside his napkin and rose with the fluid grace that typified all his actions.
‘It’s early,’ he protested, walking around to her side of the table.
Dervla stood there, her heart hammering, twisting the white linen napkin in her hands, her feet nailed to the ground as he came to stand beside her, close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his body.
She kept her eyes trained on her half-full glass on the table. ‘I really should …’
He touched his thumb to the full outline of her lower lip and she started violently, her questioning sea-green eyes lifting.
‘Your mouth—it looks so soft and lush.’
Their eyes connected and the heat and hunger Dervla saw reflected in the dark surface of his sent a sensual shock wave along her tingling nerve endings.
‘This evening isn’t going where you seem to think it is,’ she blurted, pressing a hand to her breastbone. Behind it her heart was trying to batter its way to freedom.
He arched a sardonic brow. ‘Where would that be?’
She shook her head, finding it hard to catch her breath. ‘I’m not really a one-night stand sort of person.’
‘One night would not be nearly enough.’
The throaty observation drew a faint whimper from her throat that she tried to cover with a brittle laugh. ‘I really don’t think being seen in the right places with me would do your reputation any good.’
‘I’m not interested in my reputation and the only place I am interested in seeing you is in my bed.’
His head tilted to one side, he studied her burning face. ‘I’ve shocked you? You are not comfortable with discussing sex.’
‘I find this entire conversation very uncomfortable.’
‘You would prefer we discuss the weather? We could do but we would both be thinking about sex.’
She lifted her chin and fixed him with a defiant stare. ‘Speak for yourself.’
‘You disappoint me. You did not strike me as a hypocrite.’
The charge drew an angry grunt from Dervla, who stood rigidly upright beside him, her fingers busy pleating the napkin. ‘I’m not a hypocrite, but neither am I oversexed.’
The opposite was in fact true … at least it had been until now. Right now her libido had gone global. She had her hands clasped because she couldn’t trust herself not to rip off his clothes.
He bent his head, his breath stirring the soft downy hair on her cheek. ‘You want me,’ he said, his voice low and thick. ‘And you know I want you and you like that. It excites you. I excite you.’
She shook her head, knowing that if she spoke she might give the impression she wanted him to carry on saying these things, that she wanted him to do a lot of things.
And didn’t she?
She shook her head again, scared rigid by the intensity of the feelings crowding in.
‘I’ve wanted to kiss you for the past week. I’m going to do it now if that’s all right with you …?’
His seductive voice made things shudder deep inside her. He wasn’t asking permission, he was just igniting the sparks and expertly feeding the escalating sexual tension another few notches with his honied voice. He didn’t actually expect her to say no because women had been saying yes to him all his life.
And it looks like I’m no different.
And she wasn’t different—for him this was sex with no obligations. Recognising it didn’t make her feel any the less desperate for him. She made a last-ditch attempt to walk away.
‘It really is very late.’ Even she could hear the lack of conviction in her whispered protest.
‘What’s the hurry? You’re not on duty in the morning.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I checked.’
‘Why would you do that?’
One corner of his fascinating mouth lifted in a lazy smile as he touched his forefinger to her cheek. ‘Information is power, Dervla.’ His hand fell away but the dark itch under her skin didn’t.
She wanted him to touch her.
She lifted her chin and tried to look amused. ‘You’ve got no power over me.’ Shame her hormones were not equally autonomous.
‘Pity, you’ve got me in the palm of your lovely little hand.’ He took her wrist and peeled back her clenched fingers like the petals of a flower. His