style="font-size:15px;"> And she would not be acting on it.
Freya wasn’t like that. One boyfriend at the end of school and throughout her nursing training. A gap of two years and then Malcolm.
A fling with a sexy anaesthetist was so not something Freya would do. And it would be a fling, for he’d warned her—was warning her right now—that everything she’d heard about him was true.
So she reached for her water and tried to think of something to say as she peeled her mind away from sex.
Because that was all it would be.
Sex.
Ah, but it would be sex with him.
‘So your mother’s engaged?’ Freya asked. ‘Again?’
He knew she was changing the subject.
Although they were speaking about his family, their minds had just been on sex. He wanted to feel her hair...he wanted to delve into those mixed message eyes.
She almost scalded him with a look, and behind the walls she’d put up there lurked desire.
And he liked her odd sullen moments, interspersed by the brightness of her smile.
But, no, this was not what she needed.
He might have a well-deserved reputation, but he wasn’t an utter bastard.
Freya was by her own admission a little lonely, a touch overwhelmed, and he would not be meddling with that pretty head.
So, back to her question. He had to think for a moment what it was. Ah, yes, the many loves of his mother’s life.
‘My mother is about to enter into her fourth marriage. My father isn’t quite so bad. He’s only been married and divorced twice. I doubt he’ll be taking that step again.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Thank God! It really is hard coming up with a new speech each time.’
‘Her fourth!’
He nodded. ‘She left us when I was fifteen, and I’m now thirty-three, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.’ He saw her wide eyes. ‘Well, maybe it is. My mother is high-end drama and she just wasn’t cut out to be the wife of a country GP. She loathed it. And since she broke up with my father—’
He went quiet, for the first time since they had met. And then...
‘Freya?’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve missed the film.’
‘Oh!’
She looked around the restaurant and noticed the other diners were thinning out, and then she glanced at her phone. It was coming up for eleven.
‘Do you want dessert or coffee?’ he offered.
‘No, no...’ She shook her head.
He walked her to the Underground station and there, she assumed, they would go their separate ways.
‘I’ll see you home,’ he said, when she told him where it was.
‘It’s only four stops,’ Freya protested—but not too much. She still wasn’t quite used to the Tube, and she did feel a bit nervous at night. It would be nice to have company.
Or rather it would be nice to have his company.
‘We’re here,’ Freya said as they arrived at her flat.
‘Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your film.’
Freya wasn’t sorry.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, toying with whether or not to ask him in and deciding that it would be foolish at best. There was a kiss in the air—she could feel it—and as she looked up at him she wondered how that gorgeous unshaven jaw would feel pressed hard against hers.
‘Well, another time, then,’ Richard said, resisting the urge to kiss her against the wall.
She wanted a friend, he reminded himself. No more than that.
‘Thanks for a nice night. It was good to...’ She gave a shrug. ‘Well, it was nice not to be talking about babies.’
‘All work and no play?’ Richard said.
‘Something like that.’
She took out her key and he watched as she put it into the lock. That was the difference with Freya—she didn’t stand there awaiting his kiss. She didn’t seem to want the complication of them either.
And yet there was want.
It was a sultry summer night that deserved to end in bed, but Richard was behaving himself.
‘Night, Freya.’
‘Night, Richard.’
She walked inside, closed the door behind her and leant against it, taking a long breath in.
Had there been a double-lock she would have turned it. Instead she made do with the security chain.
But only to keep herself in.
There was a kiss waiting on the other side of that door—she was sure of it.
And not just a kiss.
Who was she kidding?
It hadn’t been a kiss in the air out there—it had been sex.
But a fling with Richard Lewis would be foolish at best. Freya didn’t do that type of thing. And it would be a fling—she knew that. He’d as good as told her so himself.
She told herself that she could never regret a sensible decision. That in the morning she would wake up and be delighted that she’d avoided the awkwardness that would have surely followed.
Except in the morning Freya didn’t feel delighted.
She only felt regret.
‘HOW WAS THE FILM?’ Stella asked as Freya walked with her from the changing room.
‘Great,’ Freya answered. ‘It’s well worth seeing.’
She was saved from further questioning as the overhead chimes went off, summoning the Trauma Team to Casualty.
She certainly wasn’t about to tell Stella that they’d never actually made it to the cinema, as she knew Stella would just read more into it than there had been.
It was unusually quiet, so Freya took the lull in proceedings as a chance to check
