a pulse beating at the base of her neck. It was almost as if she needed to touch herself to check that she was real—for she felt curiously detached, as though this evening was happening to someone who wasn’t really Sorcha Whittaker, someone who had taken over her body for a while.
Because the real Sorcha Whittaker didn’t have gasping orgasms across the boardroom table from a man she was certain despised her. Nor would the real Sorcha Whittaker have changed her outfit four times this evening until she was sure she had struck just the right balance.
Except that she still wasn’t sure she had made the right choice, and there was no opportunity to try another because the long silver bonnet of Cesare’s car was nosing its way up the long gravel drive.
The bell rang, and she ran downstairs and opened the door to see Cesare standing there, his head slightly to one side. He had taken his tie off, but otherwise he looked the same as he had done at work—save for a hint of dark shadow at his jaw.
With the evening sun behind him his olive skin looked almost luminous, and his thick hair was as darkly glossy as one of the ravens which sometimes strutted across the lawn before being chased away by the peacocks.
‘Hello,’ she said, and suddenly she felt confused. This felt like a date, and yet she was damned sure it wasn’t a date. It was nothing more than a sexual liaison—a settling of old scores. But she felt as shy as a woman might feel on a first date—and that was even more peculiar—because how could any woman in her right mind feel shy after what had happened between them today?
Maybe because she wasn’t in her right mind.
Cesare’s eyes flickered over her. She was wearing some floaty dress in layers of green, with tiny little gold discs sewn into the fabric, her hair was loose down her back and she wore gold strappy sandals to flatter her bare brown legs. ‘Pretty dress,’ he murmured.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re ready?’ He could see the wary expression in her eyes as she followed him out to the car and he told himself that it was inappropriate to ravish her on the doorstep—particularly since her mother and her brother might be around. Of course they might not be—but if he asked, then it would make him sound…
As if he was abusing the hospitality they had offered yesterday—just as they had offered all those years ago?
But it was actually more complex than that—because Cesare realised that he hadn’t taken memories into account. He hadn’t realised that they were such a powerful trigger into feeling things you didn’t want to feel—until you reminded yourself that memories were always distorted by time. They had to be. They weren’t constant—because no two people’s memories were ever the same, were they?
Yet being with Sorcha like this mimicked a time when life had felt so simple and sweet—when he had felt unencumbered by anything other than the long, hot summer and the slow awakening of his senses.
But there was that distortion again—because that hadn’t been part of Sorcha’s agenda, had it? While he had been handling her with kid gloves she had been leading him on—playing with him with the clumsy confidence of a child who had mistaken a tiger-cub for a kitten. And she was just about to discover what it was really like in the jungle…
‘Music?’ he questioned, once they had strapped themselves into the car.
Sorcha sank into the soft leather of the seat. ‘If you like.’
He slid a CD into the player as the car pulled away in a spray of gravel, but Sorcha almost wished she could tell him to turn it off again as the most heartbreakingly beautiful music swelled up and resonated through the air, so that you could hear nothing else but the voice and the song.
It was a man, singing in Italian, and she couldn’t understand a word of it—but maybe she didn’t need to. All she knew was that it was the most beautiful and sad song she had ever heard. It made her think of love and loss—and pain and happiness—and the man beside her. Sorcha closed her eyes.
She had to pull herself together—because it was pointless to feel things which would only be thrown back in her face, to want things which could never be hers.
Cesare glanced down at the hands which were clasped in the lap of her dress—at the way her fingers interlocked, the way they gripped when the music reached a crescendo—and he bit down on his mouth, hard, in an effort to dispel his own frustration.
Because unless he stopped imagining himself pulling over into a lay-by and slipping his fingers between her legs, this was going to be a very long and uncomfortable drive.
The car drew up outside the only hotel in the village—the Urlin Arms, which was run by a slightly dotty ex-admiral who rated eccentricity over efficiency. It was his old family home, which had been converted, and the fact that the place had ‘character’ compensated in a small way for the constant stream of junior staff who were always flouncing out in a huff and leaving the Admiral in the lurch.
‘You know this place?’ asked Cesare as he opened the car door for her.
She clambered out of the low car and stood beside him, looking up at it. ‘Yes. Of course. I remember when it was first converted.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘I love it. It’s just…’
‘Surprising that I’ve chosen to stay here?’ he observed wryly.
‘A bit.’
His black eyes mocked her. ‘You thought I would have rented a glass and chrome extravaganza in London, did you?’
‘Why, Cesare—are you a mind-reader?’
‘No, I’m just good at reading body language,’ he murmured. ‘Especially yours.’
But Sorcha’s poise was in danger of slipping as she followed him inside—where the Admiral was having his customary gin and tonic and regaling a tyre salesman from Humberside with the problems in the modern Navy.
‘Evening, Admiral,’ said Sorcha, forcing a smile and hoping that he was as man-of-the-world as he always claimed and wouldn’t mention to her mother or Rupert that she’d been caught sneaking up to a hotel bedroom with Cesare di Arcangelo.
Why?
Because it felt wrong?
Because he was her boss?
They went upstairs to where he had obviously rented the best room. There were some fine pieces of furniture—a grandfather clock with a sonorous chime, a beautiful sandalwood chest, and faded silk rugs sprawled on polished floorboards.
Sorcha walked in and felt frozen to the spot, not sure what she was expected to do or say as Cesare pushed the door shut and leaned on it, studying her. And then his eyes narrowed and he turned and began walking towards a wooden drinks cabinet. ‘Drink?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Drink?’ she echoed blankly.
He reappeared at the door. ‘Wine? Or did you think I was going to leap on you as soon as you set foot inside the door?’
Sorcha swallowed. ‘How would I know? I’ve never been in this kind of situation before.’
Their
