‘She’s your mother.’ Lily was shocked by the objective analysis. ‘You sound as though you’re talking about a stranger.’
‘We don’t all get given the perfect family, like you had.’
‘My family wasn’t perfect. My dad...’ She stopped, mortified to feel her eyes fill with tears.
‘Sorry. I remember your father.’ From somewhere he retrieved a memory; it was pleasant. ‘One Christmas when we were staying at Warren Court, before I moved in, he taught me to fish.’
‘Did he? I didn’t know that.’
‘He was really one of the good guys.’
‘You sound like my mum. She always talks about the past as though it was perfect, glowing and golden, never a cross word. Truth is they used to fight all the time. I hated it—it made me feel...not safe.’
She stopped before she poured out anything further. Why on earth had she said those things to him of all people? It was not even something she had discussed with her twin.
‘I suppose it is a matter of interpretation. For me it was the silences, the apathy when people can’t be bothered to fight. That’s when a relationship is dead. Conflict can be healthy.’
She gave a snort of disbelief.
‘For what it’s worth your parents always seemed passionately in love to me. They sparked off one another.’ Before she could respond, he reached across and speared a slice of avocado from her plate with his fork, studying her face. ‘But then it’s not a subject I’m an expert on.’
‘Have it if you want,’ she said, pushing her plate towards him when he appropriated some more.
‘I will. I’ve not had time to eat and the only food in the house was a cupboard of tinned peaches.’
‘House?’
‘It turns out I have one here.’
‘Turns out?’
‘I had an uncle who lived here—you know about the Danish connection?’
She nodded. ‘Someone mentioned it.’
‘He died last year.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I never met him. Signe is not big into keeping family connections. Well, I inherited the place and I never got around to putting it on the market. It’s in the old part of town.’
‘The conservation area?’ She had walked past the big old houses and been charmed.
He nodded. ‘I’d invite you over but the dust is inches thick.’
‘So he was all alone?’
‘With a house full of memories.’
‘That’s so sad.’
He was twisting the lid off a bottle of iced water. He had long, elegant fingers, deft and strong. She could remember how strong and how sensitive. Tactile images rushed in, threatening to drag her back. She struggled to banish them, but not before she had relived the moment his hand had closed around one breast, cupping it in his palm.
‘I should have asked if you wanted wine. I’m the designated driver.’ He held her eyes as he poured the water over the chinking ice in his frosted glass, then, lifting it in a silent toast, he looked at her through the glass.
‘I don’t.’ The last thing she needed was her inhibitions loosening.
‘Well, cheers to me.’
She looked at him, her brow furrowed.
‘It’s my birthday.’
‘Seriously?’
He arched a satirical brow. The emotions that lay just below the smile in his eyes sent a deep shiver rippling through her body, like the silver light on the moonlit sea.
‘I’d forgotten.’
‘How can you forget your birthday?’ In her family birthdays were a big deal. Last year was the first one that she and Lara had not celebrated together.
‘A lot of things have been happening.’
‘Well, happy birthday.’ It sounded inane.
He responded with a tilt of his head. ‘It is certainly one I won’t forget.’
‘What did you do on your last birthday?’
‘Actually I do remember that one. I spent it in bed.’
‘YOU WERE ILL?’
There was a moment’s startled silence that was broken by his laughter. It was pitched low but an unexpected lull in the conversation on the tables around them had made the sound travel.
‘Then why were you—?’ she began, then stopped, her eyes flying wide as understanding dawned. The hot mortified colour flew to her cheeks and with it came a breath-catching knife thrust of concentrated corrosive jealousy.
The blush fascinated him... Did it go all over? His eyes dropped, the laughter fading from his face replaced by something much harder as his glance fell and lingered on the upper slopes of her breasts, where they strained against the silky green fabric.
Lily reacted to his glance as if it were a caress. She had zero control over the reaction of her disastrously receptive body to the brush of his eyes and she lifted her hand far too late to hide it from him.
‘Oh.’
The sound that left his throat this time was more growl than laugh. It made the fine downy hairs on her body lift from her sensitised skin. When his eyes lifted and levelled on hers, they were several shades darker.
‘Relax. I’ve never expected a woman to sleep with me for the price of a dinner.’ He lifted his glass with a clink of ice. ‘That’s not to say an evening hasn’t occasionally concluded that way,’ he drawled provocatively.
‘I can imagine,’ she snapped back and lifted her chin, unwittingly drawing his attention to the long, lovely line of her graceful neck. ‘So long as you know that this one isn’t.’ In her head the delivery had been amused but to her frustration when it actually left her lips the comment was throaty...a little breathless.
His thoughts swung back to earlier when he had arrived at the hotel just as she’d emerged. That traffic-stopping dress that hugged the curves of her body and the long, sinuous line of her endless legs.
Unable to control the consequences of the testosterone rush her emergence had produced, he had been forced to remain in his seat and let her climb in with the help of the porter.
For a man who prided himself on his self-control the drive to the harbour restaurant had been new territory. Rather than subside, his painful arousal had become excruciating when she’d slid in beside him. She’d smelled delicious. And he’d itched to touch the silk of her dress and everything beneath...
It had taken the rest of the journey to get his libido in check—not that the hunger had gone away. His lowered heavy lids did not completely hide the gleam in his eyes as he studied her, trying to work out what it was about her. Beyond the blindingly obvious—this was way more than her looking like an advert for sin—what was it that made him feel so out of control?
Just when he needed it, his ability to see beyond his own emotional reaction to a situation and apply clear-headed logic deserted him. He inhaled and dragged his eyes clear of the sensuous soft trembling outline of her lips and growled a soft warning.
‘Be careful, Lily, some men