looked at Ethan in the half light. His beard had grown, dusting his jaw with an even darker haze than had been apparent at dinner. That, and his mussed-up hair, made him look more untamed and approachable than he’d been before. It was as if he was two people. A public, reserved Ethan and a private one. She liked that she’d gotten a chance to spend time with both.
Her fingers itched to reach out and touch him. To awaken him both mentally and physically. But caution stilled her hand. If she was going to leave, best to leave now, while he was still sleeping. That way, they could avoid the awkward goodbye that would come after she told him she’d rather not keep in touch. She wasn’t prepared to invest time into any type of commitment. It wasn’t her way. And this guy, well, he had commitment written all over him. In fact, she didn’t doubt that she’d been an aberration for him.
She slid carefully from the bed and found her dress and shoes on the floor at the end of the bed. Her panties were a lost cause, she decided, after silently scanning the carpet for a minute. Besides, she had clean pairs in her pack. Giving a mental shrug, she held her things to her and carefully made her way to the door, thanking the efficiency of modern maintenance that the door opened and closed silently, allowing her to exit the bedroom without making a sound.
In the main room she located her pack behind the sofa where Ethan had left it last night and quickly got dressed. She’d give just about anything for a hot shower and a toothbrush right now, but she didn’t want the sound of running water to wake Ethan. Now that she’d made her decision to cut and run, she didn’t want anything to stand in her way. Not even the man who’d ensured she’d enjoyed what had unarguably been the best sex of her entire life.
Her inner muscles clenched on the memory of the pleasure he’d wrung from her. No hit and miss with him. She smiled. No, he was hit after hit every time. A girl could get addicted to that, could want to hang around for more of the same. She reminded herself that she wasn’t the hanging-around type. Not for any reason, and certainly not for a man. She was a wanderer through and through, with little to call her own aside from what she could carry in her pack.
Ethan had talked about a family business, relatives that he worked with and spent time with every day. She couldn’t imagine an existence more different from her own. No, there was no room for commitment in her life, and no place for some as impermanent as her in his.
Isobel threaded the straps of her shoes through the fingers of one hand while hoisting her pack over one shoulder with the other. She turned to blow a silent kiss in the direction of Ethan’s bedroom. It had certainly been fun while it lasted.
In the elevator on the way to the ground floor, Isobel slid her sandals onto her feet and smoothed her dress, thanking the good sense she’d learned years ago to only purchase non-crush fabrics. Sometimes it cost a little more, but it was worth it when you lived a transitory life out of a backpack.
The air had a definite autumnal chill to it when she exited the massive glazed doors of the apartment building and she hesitated under the portico, deciding where she should head to next.
She really needed to find somewhere inexpensive to check into so she could shower and change and get her professional head back on her shoulders. Last night had been a sinfully satisfying deviation from her usual behavior but the sooner she put it behind her, the better. Question was, how was she to do that? She waited in the cool morning air for a few minutes and then, as luck would have it, a taxi pulled to the curb to drop off a passenger. Someone returning from overseas, judging by the amount of luggage the driver hefted from the trunk of the car. As he started to get back in, Isobel stepped forward.
“Excuse me, is there any chance you could take me to a low-price hotel near here?”
“Sure, love. Hop in.”
Thanking her lucky stars, Isobel pushed her pack into the backseat and followed it onto the worn upholstery. As the car pulled away, though, she wondered what might have happened if, instead of slinking away, she’d stayed to waken Ethan. Where could they have gone from last night? That they would have made love again was in no doubt. In fact, they could have skipped the potential for morning-after awkwardness and worked their way straight through to afternoon delight.
No, she told herself sternly, forcing her head to remain resolutely facing forward. As good as their night together had been, she had to remember her motto, her very code for living. Never look back.
Besides, she had work to do that would have drawn her out of town soon, anyway. A job that was a cakewalk when it came to it, but that would bring in a tidy paycheck. It was these safe, easy glamour jobs that gave her some much-needed rest after a more trying assignment, and paid enough to subsidize the side of her work that was really important.
She’d allowed herself a month to get the project completed to both her and her client’s satisfaction. One month to recoup funds, to rest and recharge, and then she was heading back to the African continent. Back to what she did best and what spoke to her heart. What she earned in the next few weeks would grease the palms necessary to get her exactly where she needed to be to take the pictures she needed to take.
But even as the tires on the taxi ate the kilometers putting space between her and Ethan, she still felt that tug—that desire to turn back. To explore the vulnerability that lay beneath the face Ethan presented to the world at large. To revel in the strength and capability he exuded. The guy was addictive. Dangerously addictive. It was just as well she’d never see him again because deep down she knew he had the power to make her want to stay with him longer than a night and she couldn’t do that.
No, she’d never do that.
Ethan stretched against the fine cotton of the bedsheets and reached beside him for Isobel’s sleeping form, but his hand came up empty. In fact, the room itself held an emptiness that left him in no doubt that she’d moved on.
Conflicting thoughts plagued him as he rolled out of bed and walked naked into the main living area of the apartment, just to confirm she had indeed gone. Relief that they didn’t have to face any stilted morning-after discussion, tempered with a deep regret that they couldn’t start the day the way they’d finished last night, warred within him.
Relief won out. Especially in light of the discussion they’d had after the first time they’d made love. What on earth had possessed him to open up in such detail to an absolute stranger? He hadn’t even told his sister the news. In fact, he didn’t even know if he would tell her.
Wasn’t it far better that Tamsyn remember their dad the way he’d have wanted to be remembered—not as a man who’d deliberately altered their family history without so much as an explanation left behind when he died? Didn’t she deserve at least that? Ethan didn’t even want to contemplate what it would do to Tamsyn to learn their mother had willingly abandoned them. How it would destabilize the world they’d grown up in.
God, it was all such a mess. No less so than it had been yesterday but, he had to admit as he walked back into the bedroom and headed for a shower, at least he himself felt a little better about it. Somehow, Isobel Fyfe had woven her magic around him from the minute he’d seen her. Just that one chance glimpse of her before she entered the pub, like a butterfly alighting on a leaf, and his day had taken a decided turn for the better. He turned on the shower and stepped in before the water could come up to temperature, yet even the multijet sprays couldn’t shake the lingering sensation of her touch from his body, or his mind. Somehow, she’d inveigled her way into his thoughts so thoroughly, and in so short a time, that he couldn’t fully dislodge her.
She wasn’t his type, he reminded himself. She was only a one-night stand, by her own choice. He hadn’t kicked her out—she was the one who had left. Their night together had
