If the other times had been passionate or rough, now, as he took me in the golden light of morning, he was tender, even gentle. How could we still be so unsatiated, so hungry for more? I grasped his shoulders tight, digging into his skin with my fingertips, holding my breath as he pushed deeper into me, until six thrusts later we were both sweaty and crying out and clutching each other.
He pulled me close, kissing my temple.
“What you do to me...” he whispered against my sweaty skin, and my soul expanded into every inch of my body. I sighed, closing my eyes and pressing my cheek against his warm, hard-muscled chest. It felt so right to be in his arms. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t thinking about the past or the future. I was exactly where I wanted to be.
It was after noon by the time we woke again. “Good afternoon,” he whispered now, smiling as he kissed me.
“Good afternoon.” I sighed, then stretched across the bed. “I hate to get up.”
“So don’t.”
“I’m hungry.” I smiled, then my smile faltered. “And I have a lot to pack.”
“Pack?” He frowned. “For what?”
“For home.”
“You’re leaving?”
He sounded indignant. An unwilling laugh lifted to my lips. “You fired me.”
“Ah.” Relaxing, Edward looked thoughtful. “Fired is such a strong word. Made redundant is more accurate. By your own hard work, I might add.” He tilted his head. “Now, you’re probably asking yourself, what kind of heartless bastard would cut someone out of a job right before Christmas?”
“Um, you?”
He laughed. “You’ve been paid in full. While you were on your walk yesterday, I had my secretary deposit your entire promised salary—the whole year’s worth.”
I stared at him. “What?”
He looked amused. “You really should pay more attention to your bank account.”
“You’re right,” I said. Tell me something I didn’t know. “Well. Um. Thanks. I guess I’ll go pack...”
“Don’t go.” He grabbed my wrist. His voice was low. “I want you to stay with me. Through the New Year, at the very least. Not as my employee, but as my—”
“Yes,” I blurted out.
Snorting, he lifted a dark eyebrow. “I could have said slave.”
I gave him a crooked grin. “Then definitely yes.”
“Thank God,” he said softly, smoothing tendrils of hair off my face. “One last week of holiday,” his lips turned downward, “before I go back to London.”
My stomach growled. Standing up, I walked naked across the room and picked up my silk robe. I tied it around me. “What’s in London?”
“My job.”
“You really have to go?”
“I’ve been gone too long. My cousin Rupert is trying to convince the shareholders he should take my place.”
“Sounds like a jerk.”
“He’s a St. Cyr.”
“Then definitely a jerk,” I said teasingly, but he didn’t smile back. I hesitated. “But why does it matter?”
“What do you mean?”
I motioned around the bedroom. “You seem to have plenty of money. I figured being CEO of the family company was a sort of honorary title, you know....”
“Like a sinecure—getting paid for doing nothing?”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you. But you don’t seem keen to get back there. If you don’t need the money, there’s nothing forcing you to do it, is there?”
He scowled. “St. Cyr Global was started by my great-grandfather. I’m the largest shareholder. I have a responsibility....”
“I get it,” I said, but I didn’t.
Edward looked away. “Come on. Let’s see about breakfast.”
Mrs. MacWhirter was making bread in the kitchen, and it smelled heavenly. The housekeeper’s eyebrows rose almost all the way to her white hair when she saw me still in my robe, with Edward looking tousled in a T-shirt and sweatpants that clung to his chiseled body. There could be no doubt about what we’d been up to. But she recovered quickly when Edward meekly asked if we’d missed any chance of breakfast.
“Missed? I’ll say not! With everything?”
“Black tea for me, if you please, Mrs. MacWhirter. And extra tomatoes.”
“Of course. And Miss Maywood?”
I found it impossible to return her gaze without blushing. “Everything, please. With extra toast and jam. Coffee with cream and sugar. Please, thank you, if you don’t mind, you’re so very kind....”
Edward grabbed my hand, stopping me before I could babble any further.
“We’ll be in the tea room,” he said firmly, and drew me away. A moment later, we were in a bright room with big windows facing the garden and beyond that, the sea. A brisk fire was going. I blinked when I saw the rose-colored carpet, the chintz pattern of the wallpaper.
“Whose room is this? You can’t have designed this.”
His jaw tightened. “It was my mother’s.”
He’d never mentioned her before. “Does she visit often?”
“She died last year,” he said shortly.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t be. As far as I’m concerned, she died long ago. She left when I was a child. Ran off with an Argentinian polo player when I was ten.”
“Oh,” I breathed.
It was a good reminder of the lesson I learned as a child, he’d said. Never depend on anyone.
He shrugged. “Dad worked all the time, and traveled overseas. Even when he was home, he had a mean streak a mile wide.” He gave me a humorless smile. “The St. Cyr trait, as you said.”
My heart ached for the ten-year-old boy who’d been abandoned by his mother. Even though both my parents had died, I never had any doubt of their love for me. My heart twisted. And then I suddenly felt furious. “Your parents were selfish.”
His expression froze. Turning away, he threw himself into in an overstuffed chintz chair in front of the fire. “I was fine.”
I sank into the matching chair on the other side of the tea table. “Fine? To run off and leave you? Abandon you with a mean, neglectful father?”
“Well.” He gave me a wry smile. “I do wish Mum had told me the truth from the start. The day she left for Buenos Aires, she cried and said she was breaking up with Dad, not me. She promised she’d always be my mother and that the two of us would still be a family.” He looked away. “But within a year, her letters and calls began to dwindle. She stopped asking me to Argentina for Christmas. Not that Dad would have let me....”
“He wanted to spend Christmas with you?”
Edward shook his head. “He went to Mustique at Christmas with his mistress du jour. He just hated Mum and didn’t want to do anything nice for her. It wasn’t just that. Antonio didn’t want me at his house, really. He just wanted Mum.”
“That must have been hard....”
He shrugged.