care what people think.’
Hearing her fall back on a defence that was only used by people who did care, Raoul was forced to subdue a surge of protective tenderness.
‘And the virgin thing,’ she continued. ‘I think he thought he’d been sold a...what do they call it...?’
‘False bill of goods?’
She nodded. ‘I said I was going to sleep with the first man I saw. I was almost right.’
‘This boss of yours sounds like a total loser.’
‘I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.’
He raised a sardonic brow. ‘Because I asked.’ Which in itself was not just unusual and totally out of character, it was completely unheard of.
A few murmured nothings that constituted post-coital conversation were normally the precursor to him rolling out of bed and making a practised exit.
Except it was never his bed he was exiting.
From every angle this was a weird situation, almost as weird as finding he wanted to prolong this. He didn’t even have a major objection to hearing her open up more, talk nonsense...maybe even contribute to that nonsense himself...?
He didn’t read anything significant into it, recognising that it was not an emotional connection that was making him behave so out of character, but the knowledge that the world he had escaped from in her body last night would come rushing back the moment she vanished.
‘Look, I should be going before anyone...’
He looked up and saw she was looking at a framed photo on the wall.
‘That’s my mother.’
‘Oh!’ Had she really been that obvious? ‘She doesn’t look Italian.’ Everything about him epitomised Lara’s own version of an idealised Latin male but his English was perfect and she couldn’t detect any accent.
‘I’m Italian on my father’s side. My mother was American with a Spanish mother.’ And you are sharing this information why exactly, Raoul? Maybe the opening-up thing was contagious?
‘Your mother’s dead?’
He nodded. The memory of his mother was influenced by snapshots like that one and a couple of formal portraits, which didn’t match the laugh he remembered or the warm lemony scent he associated with her.
‘A flu epidemic. She ought to have been safe—she wasn’t an infant or elderly, she was fit and young. I was just a kid.’
An image drifted before her eyes of a boy with scratched, long brown legs and big dark eyes. Her eyes drifted of their own accord to his face, their eyes connected and something seemed to pass between them. She found the sensation so uncomfortable that she looked away quickly and changed the subject.
‘Do you have such a thing as a hairdryer?’ She lifted a water-darkened strand of hair. ‘It takes hours to dry on its own.’
‘Bottom drawer,’ he said, pointing to the bathroom.
Inside the room she closed the door and, sighing, leaned back against it. Now that she didn’t have to hold it together and act a version of cool, the images she had fought to banish from her head while in the room with Raoul crowded in. Remembering the exquisite sweetness of their lovemaking was agony.
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. She had been prepared for remote and maybe irritated, but not for him to be so... She shook her head. What did she know? Absolutely nothing when it came to the morning after the night before.
And this might feel awkward but she was leaving here with a lot of positives. Her first time had been with a great lover, and she had not disgraced herself by saying anything terminally stupid like, Last night was special—it must mean something to you.
When Lara emerged from the bathroom, her hair dried to a smooth gloss, the bedroom was filled with the aroma of fresh coffee. She followed the scent downstairs.
Raoul was standing there, coffee cup in hand, wearing a black robe loosely tied around his hips. It showed a wide vee of hard, golden, hair-roughened chest. Lara struggled to keep her eyes on his strong, angular face, which, with its dark shading of stubble, was only fractionally less disturbing.
Hauntingly beautiful. From some corner of her head the description of a hero in a novel she had read recently flashed into her head. At the time she had rolled her eyes and given up on the story midway, unable to imagine a real-life man who could be described this way, and unable to connect with the book’s heroine who had walked away from a perfectly good husband to be with him.
‘I cried at the end,’ the friend who had recommended it had confided.
Lara hadn’t cried. She’d lost patience with the heroine long before. She’d thought, Who walks away from everything for an orgasm, no matter how bone-meltingly incredible?
Lara hadn’t known a lot about orgasms at the time, but she couldn’t imagine anything that would make her give up a stable home.
And then Raoul had come into her life.
And soon he would be out again, which was good. Clean breaks were good when it came to uncomplicated sex. Actually, they were probably essential.
He put down the mug in his hand, his eyes making a sweep up from her feet to the glossy, smooth curls on her head. ‘You found it, then.’
She touched her face, now clear of the last remnants of make-up from the night before. She felt naked without even a smear of lip gloss to protect her from his dark, bone-stripping stare. ‘Thanks, yes.’
‘Help yourself to coffee. I won’t be long.’
‘Thanks but I should be going.’ Last night now seemed like a lifetime ago, and the rejection from Mark was a distant dream.
‘I’ll take you back to your hotel.’
Move on...never, ever see this man again...never touch him...never... ‘No, that’s—’
His voice cut across her. ‘Have you got money for a taxi?’
She flushed and, gnawing on the soft fullness of her under lip, brought her lashes down in a concealing sweep.
‘Exactly.’
With a flash of defiance she lifted her head, tossing back her red curls. ‘I could walk.’
‘And that worked out so well the last time...’
Recognising that this was a battle she wasn’t about to win, Lara managed a superficial attitude of amusement as she arched a brow and asked, ‘Do all your one-night stands rate taxi service?’
She was trying so hard and her pretence was painfully transparent. Raoul hid his reaction to the vulnerability he didn’t want to see under an attitude of brusque impatience, and reminded himself that Lucy had once seemed sweet and vulnerable to him too.
‘They do if they don’t mind hanging around...’
