you,’ she blurted, mortified when his gaze flicked to her lips before meeting hers again, filled with heat and longing that took her breath away.
‘Yes, you did, and I can’t tell you how impressed I am.’
Enjoying his lighthearted flirtation more than she could’ve imagined, she screwed up her eyes, pretending to think.
‘With my technique? My impulsiveness? My—’
‘All of it.’
This time his gaze started at her lips and swept over her and, while he couldn’t see much beneath the voluminous grey robe, the smoulder told her he remembered every curve.
‘You know I don’t usually go around kissing strangers, right?’
‘We’re not strangers any more.’
He caressed her cheek, his finger starting at her temple and slowly stroking downwards towards her jaw, lingering under her chin to tip it up and when she looked into his eyes her temperature spiked.
Raw passion, the type of passion she’d read about in romance novels she’d hidden beneath her mattress as a teenager, a passion she secretly craved yet had never experienced, a passion she didn’t believe in.
Until now.
For Roman didn’t have to touch her to make her weak-kneed and hot. He didn’t have to sweet-talk her or use lines or do anything other than look at her.
When those darker-than-chocolate eyes looked at her, really looked at her, every female cell in her body snapped to attention, a subliminal reaction she had no hope of controlling. Totally, irrationally crazy.
Increasingly flustered under his burning stare, she aimed for flippant.
‘You should be safe from my randomly-lip-locking-strangers affliction, now we’re properly introduced and all.’
‘Pity.’
His thumb brushed her lower lip before his hand dropped away along with her belly and she floundered for a safe change of topic. There were only so many flirty comments and loaded stares a novice could handle.
‘Are you here on business?’
‘Of sorts.’
‘Sounds cryptic.’
He shrugged, the action emphasising the tension in his shoulders. ‘Time for new challenges so here I am.’
‘Trying to find a higher mountain to jump off than the ones you’ve already conquered around the world?’
‘Something like that.’
His smile didn’t reach his eyes and she wondered why he was really here.
‘What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Are you up for new challenges? The writing idea?’
He’d subtly moved the focus back onto her. Interesting, as most of the guys in the social circles she’d moved in loved to talk about themselves but Roman seemed strangely reticent to discuss anything beyond here and now.
‘Is it something you could go for?’
If he only knew. She’d loved writing as a kid, had penned her first full-blown dragon-and-princess fantasy at eight, had won a short story comp run by a Melbourne newspaper at eleven and got top marks in English every year at the private girls’ school she’d attended.
Then her father had been elected Prime Minister and a starry-eyed fifteen year old with dreams of being a journalist-cum-fiction-writer had been indoctrinated into the expectations of a PM’s daughter, sending her dreams along with the many vivid plots dancing in her mind straight down the toilet.
She’d followed a career path deemed more suitable, giving up her ‘impulsive, flaky writing’ to enter economics.
Oh, she’d done well, both at university and the merchant bank she’d worked for—not that she ever had an option for failure—but getting creative with figures wasn’t a patch on getting creative with words and as her resentment had steadily built so had her frustration.
It had spilled over into all areas of her life, including her marriage, and while Leon had been amicable to the split she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been the major cause of the inevitable breakdown of their relationship.
‘Yeah, writing for a living would be great.’
‘What kind?’
‘Probably freelance for a start.’
Give her a chance to free the muse and get the words flowing again, then see if anyone would truly employ her with zilch experience in the field.
‘You should do it.’
Buoyed by his enthusiasm, she squared her shoulders. ‘Maybe I will.’
‘Good for you.’
He winked and her heart stuttered and stalled. ‘Go ahead, paint a picture in words for me.’
‘Now?’
‘Yeah, no time like the present to get you started on your new career path.’
He leaned closer and she sucked in a breath of heady male tinged with chlorine. ‘Describe your favourite holiday destination.’
‘Lizard Island,’ she blurted, needing to deflect those hypnotic dark eyes before she did something foolish, such as kiss him again. Though if her two-word answer was all she could come up with description-wise, she’d better ditch the writing idea now.
‘Whitsunday Islands?’
She nodded. ‘Not as well known as Hayman or Hamilton. Coastline’s more rugged, beaches more isolated. Off the beaten track.’
‘Unspoilt beauty can be more appealing than commercialised tourist traps.’
She silently chalked up another brownie point to him, in total agreement. She’d spent enough time traipsing around the world’s hot spots with Leon: from Monte Carlo to New York, London to Tokyo, playing a diplomat’s wife to perfection. Dining at Michelin-starred establishments, staying at exclusive spa resorts, mingling with the upper echelons of society, living the high life.
She would’ve rather camped in the Pyrenees and eaten hawker food and gone without pedicures than have her every move watched and scrutinised by people who almost wanted her to slip up so they could spread gossip or leak it to the press. Just as they had during her divorce.
She’d grown oblivious to the constant watching after a while, had pretended it hadn’t bothered her, but it had taken its toll.
She’d spent the bulk of her life under a microscope and the fact that she was here, staying in a funky hotel under a pseudonym, flirting with an adventurous guy so far removed from the men in her social circle, was so freaking fantastic she wanted to shout it to the world.
