oh, why should that feel like a far greater achievement than quadrupling sales?
Because she had missed him like mad, in spite of all the things he’d said to her in bed that afternoon in the hotel? Because she couldn’t sleep at nights for thinking about him and he was still obsessing her waking hours, no matter how much she tried?
Had she thought that he might come in here this morning and brush her lips with his when there was a quiet moment, murmur that he’d like to see her alone in his office? And what would she have said? Well, yes, obviously.
But she couldn’t have been more wrong.
He hadn’t made a single indication that he still wanted her. Not one. No accidental brushing against her arm. No manoeuvring to get them alone together. Nothing. Had he decided while he’d been away that it was better if the affair ended?
‘Well, I think that’s everything,’ Cesare was saying. ‘Enjoy Berlin, Rupert.’ He looked up as Sorcha stood up. ‘Would you mind staying behind for a moment, Sorcha?’
Her heart slammed against her ribcage and a wave of dizziness swept over her. ‘Of course.’ She waited until everyone had trooped out of the room and looked at him expectantly, wondering if her face hid her terrible fear that it was all over. ‘What is it?’
‘No ideas about what might be on my mind?’
She was about to say, I’m not really in the mood for riddles, when something in his eyes stopped her. ‘This is a…well, it’s a bizarre situation, isn’t it? You coming back after everything that’s—’
He cut across her words with a ruthless statement. ‘You still want me.’
It was not a question.
There was a pause as she looked at him.
‘Yes.’
‘And yet you do not take the initiative?’ He walked over to the window and leaned against it, his legs slightly apart, hands resting on his narrow hips. ‘You do not ring me while I am away, or send me a text. Or even come into work early this morning, knowing that I am back.’ Waiting for you.
His lips curved into a mocking smile. ‘What’s the matter, Sorcha? For all your professed love of equality and independence are you really one of those little-girl lovers who have to be seduced? Perhaps to absolve them from any guilt that they might feel?’ His black eyes glittered. ‘So that if a man starts to kiss them and touch them they feign a little resistance—and when they can resist no more and give in…Well.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then they have no one to blame but the man.’
‘Who’s talking about blame?’ Sorcha shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not me.’
‘So how long are we going to keep up this ridiculous charade of pretending that we don’t want something when we’re dying to give in to it? You want me, Sorcha. So why the hell don’t you come over here and have me, before time runs out?’
‘Before time runs out?’ she echoed. ‘What do you mean?’
He laughed. ‘Are you crazy? Do you think that I’m going to carry on staying at that…hotel, keeping an eye on your little company, when I have plenty of my own to run? Do you think I’m here for keeps—to be your lover whenever the whim takes you?’
Sorcha winced. It was funny the games that your mind could play on you. She had always known he would go, and yet some part of her had imagined him staying here, frozen in some kind of time warp, until some kind of resolution had been made. Except that there wasn’t going to be a resolution. They were just two very different people who happened to be overwhelmingly attracted to each other.
The best sex he’d never had.
For Sorcha it was different, because she had grown to realise that Cesare meant more to her than that. He always had done. The love she had felt at eighteen had been real enough, but as fragile and as tender as her age. He had frightened her then, with his lack of emotion, and that was why she had hit out blindly and rejected him. Deep-down she had known that it had been the right thing to do—but hadn’t she always regretted that it had ended the way it had?
She knew that she had wounded his pride, and maybe he would never forgive her for that, and yet she wanted to get closer to him and didn’t know if that was possible. No one was saying they could go back—but couldn’t they build on the huge and obvious attraction between them? Didn’t men relax their guard when they had sex with a woman? Even a man as formidable as Cesare?
And now he had told her that his time here was limited—it was down to that old thing of choice again. Should she live for the moment and remain his lover? Or should she opt for her own kind of pride and withdraw gracefully while she still had the opportunity to do so?
She turned her back on him and Cesare felt the sharp tang of disappointment. But he would get over it. There was no way he was going to beg. Until he saw her walk over to the door and lock it, and then come back towards him, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so.
His eyes narrowed in question. ‘Sorcha?’ He swallowed with difficulty.
‘What?’ The final button freed, she took the blouse off and hung it carefully over the back of a chair. ‘Can’t have it creased for my meeting this afternoon, now, can I?’ she questioned innocently.
‘Sorcha—’
He made to move, but she stayed him exactly where he was with an imperious gesture. Her hand reached round to unclip her skirt and then to slide the zip down. She stepped out of it, folded it, and hung it next to the blouse.
She turned to face him wearing nothing but a lacy bra, panties, silk stockings and a suspender belt. And high heels. Cesare swallowed. Oh, those heels! Briefly, he closed his eyes.
‘Have you missed me?’ she questioned.
‘Yes.’
‘Then come away from the window,’ she told him, ‘and show me how much.’
For a moment he honestly wasn’t sure whether he could move, but somehow he managed it. Loosening his tie, he began walking towards her, and something in his eyes made hers widen.
‘Cesare?’ she questioned uncertainly.
He gave a low laugh. ‘What’s the matter, Sorcha?’ he murmured as he stood in front of her. ‘Bitten off more than you can chew?’ And he took her unprotesting hand and ran it along the hard ridge of his erection, shuddering as he did so.
‘Feel in my back pocket,’ he suggested silkily.
She did, kneading his buttock as she extracted a condom. ‘Do you always come prepared?’ she questioned unsteadily.
‘I don’t always come,’ he murmured, wryly remembering their first rather one-sided encounter on the boardroom table.
‘Then I’d better make sure you do today,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, Sorcha.’
The way he said her name made her want to dissolve. She wanted to kiss him—tiny, tender kisses on every centimetre of his silky olive skin—but she suspected that kissing wasn’t
