was shaking, she was nervous and excited too, but that had more to do with the fact that in ten minutes she’d be facing Leo. And then there was the question of dancing with him …
Stop.
She didn’t need an evening bag, she needed a table-tennis bat to flick away the thoughts about dancing with him. Even spraying on her perfume, she imagined his face in her neck, inhaling it …
No.
Again she said it to herself.
This week had been awkward enough and it had just been a kiss. Imagine if they …
The buzz of her intercom had her heart beating faster and Lizzie didn’t know whether she should say she was on her way down or invite him up.
‘I hope I’m getting asked in?’ Leo said, making the decision for her.
‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘After all, you’re my landlord.’
She opened the door and Leo rather wished she’d settled for her usual black dress—it would have certainly been safer.
‘Oh, my!’ he said, and Lizzie squirmed at the approval in his eyes.
‘Oh, my, to you too!’ He was wearing a tux and he was so clean-shaven she wanted to put her hand to his jaw, or run her fingers through his silken black hair, or just smother his collar in her lipstick.
‘Come through …’ Lizzie settled for that instead.
He passed the coat and boots that she wore for walking to work and followed her, getting the sight of her bare back, and she could feel the tingle the length of her spine as it blistered under his gaze.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Lizzie had splurged and bought some decent whisky, just in case he wanted one, but Leo declined.
‘Not for me.’ He stood by the fireplace and saw the pictures of her family and friends, and small talk was supremely difficult when all he wanted was to pull her into his arms.
‘I’m ready whenever …’
‘No rush,’ Leo said. ‘We’ll be in plenty of time.’ He tried again. ‘Your dress is lovely.’
‘Thank you,’ Lizzie said. ‘And thank you for …’ She stopped when Leo gave a brief shake of his head. ‘I’m not sure if it’s beige or pink.’
He didn’t answer.
‘Look at my shoes.’ She lifted her dress a fraction and Leo looked at her ankles and the smooth skin of her calves rather than the shoes, and he couldn’t manage small talk. If he did it would be something like, ‘Fancy a quickie before we go?’ She was wiggling her feet and he wanted the shoes off, he wanted that foot in his mouth and, before he put his own in his, he glanced at his watch. ‘Actually, I think we should get going.’
He helped Lizzie on with her coat as much as he could without touching her, smelling her, turning her round or just taking her against the wall, and then there was the agony of the lift and he couldn’t not touch her.
‘Rapunzel,’ Leo said, gently lifting a curl.
‘She had long blonde hair,’ Lizzie corrected him. His fingers weren’t even touching her skin but she could feel their energy and warmth and she tried to joke her way out of it. ‘You need to go on a fairy-tale workshop.’
She did feel like something out of a fairy-tale, though, as the driver came round and she climbed into the back and then sat with Leo as the car swished through the London streets. Never had she looked more beautiful and neither had Lizzie.
‘The Christmas lights are gone,’ Lizzie said. ‘If I’m still living here next year, I’ll be able to—’
‘Why wouldn’t you still be living here?’ Leo asked, and she just kept on looking out of the window because the answer was an impossible one to give.
‘Lizzie?’
She was aware of the glitter of tears in her eyes, a combination of tension and passion and the absolute unfairness of it all. God, she wished she’d met him in a bar or something—why did he have to be her boss? But, then, she didn’t frequent the type of bars that Leo Hunter did, and if she had, Lizzie frantically thought, she’d still have run a mile if someone as drop-dead gorgeous as Leo had approached her.
‘Are you okay?’
‘A bit nervous,’ Lizzie said, which was a lie. His presence meant she’d forgotten her nerves about the ball.
‘You’ll be fine.’
She was more than fine, Leo soon realised. Heads turned for all the right reasons. Lizzie was as in demand as he was because, as soon as he introduced her as a work colleague, you could see male smiles widen.
‘Bit of a scare for you this week.’ A woman who’d introduced herself as Matilda batted her eyelashes at Leo.
‘A scare?’ Leo frowned, pretending he had no idea what Matilda was referring to.
‘Of course it all turned out well.’
But Leo remained noncommittal and, as the conversation progressed, Lizzie realised Matilda was, in fact, a journalist and of course Leo would never talk about his patients. He did, though, Lizzie noticed, give a subtle nod for Lexi to come over. She saw too his tight smile as a friend patted him on the back and said he’d never doubted him for a moment.
‘His name should be Janus,’ Leo said when they were briefly alone. ‘He was one of the experts that chose not to be named but were only too happy to talk to the press.’ Though he did smile a little while later when Janus asked Lizzie to dance and she politely but rather publicly declined him.
She didn’t decline everyone, though.
‘So you’re not …?’ one particular rake checked with Leo, before taking Lizzie off to dance.
Unfortunately not, Leo thought as he did duty dances with the women he must.
Lizzie danced and danced, just not with the man she wanted to be with.
It was work, Lizzie reminded herself, making her way over to the bar, where she sat on a stool and watched the room, though her eyes were drawn all too often to Leo.
He worked the room so well and, Lizzie realised, apart from a very occasional sip, more often than not he replaced his full glass and got a fresh one. Lizzie glanced over and saw Kara and Declan. Kara looked amazing in a long gold dress, her blonde hair in curls and worn loose. Declan was stunning in the requisite tuxedo. They were doing tequila shots at the bar and Lizzie was about to go over and say hi but, almost as soon as she thought it, Lizzie realised that they didn’t look as if they’d appreciate being disturbed!
She had never noticed anything between Kara and Declan till now.
She watched as they headed to the dance floor and just as she was starting to feel like a wallflower an astonishingly good-looking man asked her to dance.
It was
