‘So this is very definitely a quid pro quo?’
‘Definitely.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re a hard woman, Skye. OK, I accept. Let’s go.’ Once more he took her hand and led her out.
For the next three months she often cooked him meals, although they never made any prior arrangements. He would simply ring her at work or at home and if she wasn’t free he’d say, ‘Bad luck. Maybe next time?’ And she’d agree without giving any intimation that it was getting harder and harder for her to be just a good friend of Nick Hunter’s.
Harder, also, to live with the thought that the last thing he would respond to was being pinned down in any way. It struck her, too, that the Skye Belmont she was presenting to Nick Hunter was her public persona, not the true girl who lurked beneath the surface and was a more serious, not-necessarily-admiring-of-the-worldliness-of-his-world girl.
Then things changed dramatically one evening. She was cooking roast beef for him. In the act of beating the ingredients for Yorkshire pudding at the same time as she was telling him about her last show, which had been a behind-the-scenes disaster, she realized he was unusually quiet.
‘Am I talking too much?’ she said lightly. ‘I guess you had to be there to see the humour of it. Nothing came out right.’
He was sitting at the kitchen counter twirling a glass of wine in his fingers. The sun was setting, flooding his beautiful apartment and its views of Sydney Harbour with a golden radiance. And he didn’t answer but only allowed his dark gaze to drift over her in a way it had once before. This time there was something darker about it, though.
She stopped beating. ‘Nick—is something wrong?’ she asked uncertainly.
He smiled but with an effort. ‘You could say so.’
‘What? Tell me?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know if this is on your agenda, Skye, but—even watching you make Yorkshire pudding is driving me out of my mind.’
She blinked, her mouth fell open and all she could say hoarsely was, ‘Why?’
‘Because I’d very much like to be kissing you.’
Several reactions hit her. Relief, disbelief and a sudden inner trembling. ‘Oh. I thought it was something serious.’ She stopped and blushed as he looked at her ironically. ‘Well, you know what I mean—’
‘No. I’m not at all sure what you mean, Skye.’
Her hands were all floury and she rubbed her forehead agitatedly, transferring some of the flour to it. ‘I was thinking of an illness or… I didn’t think you saw me like that. That’s what I meant.’
‘Then we shared the same dilemma.’
Skye sat down on a stool rather abruptly. ‘Surely— I wasn’t that good at covering it up?’
A fleeting frown came to his dark eyes. ‘You tried to?’ he hazarded.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said simply. ‘I learnt my lesson the first time you took me to lunch.’
He got up and came round the counter so he was standing in front of her and he put his fingers beneath her chin to tilt it so he could look into her eyes. ‘Didn’t that put you off?’ he asked sombrely, not attempting to deny the charge.
‘Unfortunately, the other thing about you is that you’re such fun to be with and I really enjoy your company.’
‘We’ve never been anywhere or done anything other—than this.’ He glanced around the kitchen.
She shrugged slightly.
‘So—may I kiss you, Skye Belmont?’
A faint smile trembled on her lips. ‘You know, Nick, I didn’t think you were the kind who waited to be asked.’
‘There could be a lot of things you don’t know about me, Skye,’ he said, and took her in his arms.
How true, Skye thought, lying on her bed. Things that he had never intended her to get to know, either. But the sheer magic of being kissed by and intimate with Nick Hunter had claimed all her senses, including her common sense.
It had been a revelation. He’d made love to her with a mixture of laughter and intensity that had been breathtaking. Just to see his hands was enough to make her stop in her tracks and go hot and cold at the memories of how he’d handled her body, how he’d made her feel like silk and velvet, how protective his whipcord strength had been, how much pleasure he’d brought to her. How they’d laughed at the oddest things while they were lying in each other’s arms.
And the way his dark gaze drifted over her, often in public, had the same effect. So that she knew he would take her to his apartment very soon, whatever they were doing, and slide her clothes off, paying meticulous attention to all her most sensitive, erogenous zones until she could barely speak. Then he’d take her to bed and their bodies would unite in a way that spoke for itself.
It struck her that if she’d once thought he was tall, dark and dangerous she now thought he was tall, dark and to die for.
Then, any hidden doubts she might have had had been allayed one day when he’d propped his head on his hand, drawn his other hand across her breasts with a touch so light yet at the same time electrifying, and said, ‘I think we ought to do something to formalize this state of affairs, Ms Belmont.’
‘Oh?’ She’d smiled dreamily. ‘Don’t tell me. You’re thinking of hiring me as your full-time cook?’
‘On the contrary, I’m thinking of asking you to marry me.’
Skye had opened her eyes wide and sat up suddenly. ‘What…?’ She’d had some trouble with her voice. ‘What do you mean?’
He’d eyed her quizzically. ‘What do you think I mean?’
‘But—’ she’d groped for his hand and held it tight between hers ‘—I didn’t know you felt like that…’ She’d trailed off, and the sheer surprise had still been in her eyes.
‘Skye—why do you think I keep doing this?’ He’d freed his hand and pulled her into his arms. ‘For that matter, we keep doing this,’ he’d said into her hair.
She’d trembled in his arms.
‘Don’t tell me—’ he’d raised his head and looked into her eyes quite wickedly, ‘—you’ve only been toying with me, Skye Belmont?’
Because the opposite had sometimes occurred to her, because, while it wasn’t in her to toy with anyone in this way but the same might not be said of him, by reputation anyway, she’d actually gasped and looked so thunderstruck, he’d started to laugh.
‘Are you serious?’ she’d demanded then.
‘Of course. What plans did you have for us?’
It was a question that had suddenly revealed all her hidden fears to her. Fears that she hadn’t been able to look in the face because his effect on her had been so powerful… Would they go on being lovers until the gloss wore off and a new woman replaced her?
How stable could a relationship be when they lived it inside a bubble—their daily lives were not in the slightest altered by it? He came and went, often with little or no explanation. She did the same, often doing the show interstate. They didn’t spend much time together at all that wasn’t spent in passionate lovemaking—or, it struck her with some irony, her cooking for him. Now this.
She’d looked around his bedroom and licked her lips. ‘I…didn’t have any plans, actually.’
‘Then I