The sound of a footfall on the stones of the pathway made Eliza’s heart give a little kick behind her ribcage. She stood up from the seat just as Leo came into view. He looked just as surprised to see her. She saw the camera-shutter flinch of his features in that nanosecond before he got control and assumed one of his inscrutable expressions.
‘Eliza.’
‘Marella told me to take a break. She’s listening out for Alessandra. She’s got the monitor. I didn’t know you had one; otherwise—’ she knew she was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop ‘—she told me it would be all right and—’
‘You’re not under lock and key.’
Eliza tried to read his expression but it was like trying to read one of the marble statues she had walked past earlier in the long wide gallery in the villa. She wondered if he had come down here to be alone. Perhaps it was his private place for handling the difficulties of his life. No wonder he resented her presence. She was intruding on his only chance at solitude.
‘I’d better head back.’ She turned to pick up her cardigan that she’d left on the seat.
‘What have you done to your arms?’
‘Um—nothing.’ She bunched the cardigan against her chest. It was too late to put it back on.
His frown brought his brows to a deep V above his eyes. ‘Did I…?’ He seemed momentarily lost for words. ‘Did I do that to you?’
‘It’s nothing…really.’ She began to turn away but he anchored her with a gentle band of his broad fingers around her wrist.
His touch was like a circle of flame. She felt the shockwave of it right to the secret heart of her. Her skin danced with jittery sensations. Her heart fluttered like a hummingbird and her breath halted in her throat like a horse refusing a jump.
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was a deep bass—deeper than organ pipes. It made her spine loosen and quiver. It spoke to the primal woman in her, especially when he ever so gently ran one of his fingers over the marks he had made on her flesh. ‘Do they hurt?’
‘No, of course not.’ She was struggling to deal with her spiralling emotions. Why did he have to stand so close to her? How could she resist him when he was close enough for her to sense his arrantly male reaction to her? If she moved so much as an inch she would feel him.
Oh, how she wanted to feel him!
Could he see how much she ached for him? How desperate she was to have it taken out of her control, to be swept away to a world where nothing mattered but the senses he awakened and satisfied.
‘I’d forgotten how very sensitive your skin is.’ His fingers danced over her left forearm, leaving every pore screaming for more of his tantalising touch.
Eliza swallowed convulsively. This was going to get out of hand rather rapidly if he kept on with this softly-softly assault on her senses. She could fend him off when he was angry and bitter. She could withstand him—only just—when he was brooding and resentful.
But in this mood he was far more dangerous.
Her need of him was dangerous.
She pulled back from his loose hold but it tightened a mere fraction, keeping her tethered to him—to temptation. ‘I…I have to go…’ Her words sounded desperate, her breathing even more so. She fought to control herself. She didn’t want him to see how close to being undone she was. ‘Please…let me go…’
‘That was my mistake four years ago.’ He brought her even closer, his hands going to the small of her back, pressing her to his need. ‘I should never have let you go.’
‘It wasn’t a mistake.’ She tried to push against his chest but he wouldn’t budge. ‘I had to go. I didn’t belong with you. I don’t belong with you.’
His hands gripped her wrists, gently but firmly. ‘You keep fighting me but you want this as much as I do. I know you do. I know you want me. I feel it every time you look at me.’
‘It’s wrong.’ Eliza was close to breaking. She couldn’t allow herself to fold emotionally. She had to be strong. She had to think of poor Ewan. It was her fault he had been robbed of everything. He would never feel love again. He would never feel passion or desire.
Why should she feel it when he no longer could?
‘Tell your fiancé you want a break.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘He wouldn’t understand.’
‘Make him understand. Tell him you want a month to have a think about things. Is that so much to ask? For God’s sake, you’re giving him the rest of your life. What is one measly month in the scheme of things?’
Eliza tried to control her trembling bottom lip. ‘Relationships can’t be turned on and off like that. I’ve made a commitment. I can’t opt out of it.’
His dark eyes glittered. ‘Are saying you can’t or you won’t?’
She forced herself to hold his challenging look. ‘I won’t be used by you, Leo.’
One of his hands burned like a brand in the small of her back as he drew her closer. ‘What’s all this talk of me using you?’ His voice was still low and deep, making her resolve fall over like a precariously assembled house of cards. ‘You want the same thing I want. There doesn’t have to be a winner or a loser in this. We can both have what we want.’
Eliza could feel the slow melt of her bones. She could feel that sharp dart of longing deep inside her body, the need that longed to be assuaged. Was it wrong to want to feel his passionate possession one more time? To explore the intense heat that continued to flare between them? But would one month be enough? How could it ever be enough? Experiencing that earth-shattering pleasure again would only leave her frustrated and miserable for the rest of her life. She would always be thinking of him, aching for him, missing him. It had been hard enough four years ago. He had lived in her body for all this time, making her even more restless and unhappy with her lot in life.
But it was her lot in life.
There was no escaping the fact that Ewan’s life had been destroyed and that she had been the one to do it. How could she carry on with her life as if it didn’t matter?
Of course it mattered.
It would always matter.
With a strength Eliza had no idea she possessed, she pushed back from him. ‘I’m sorry…’ She moved away from him until she was almost standing in the shrubbery. ‘You’re asking too much. It’s all been too much. Finding out about your daughter’s blindness…seeing how hard it is for her and for you. I can’t think straight…I’m confused and upset…’
‘You need more time.’
She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment as if that would make all of this go away. But when she opened them again he was still standing there,
