Lynne with the catering for her engagement party on Saturday night. Pie was on the dessert menu. The problem could easily be solved by asking Declan for the pie dish. But she didn’t want it to look like a pathetic excuse to see him.
He did not want to see her; that was obvious. But he was here in the house. Last night she had seen the light on in the window high on the second floor she assumed was his office. With that preternatural awareness of his presence she had developed, she knew he was there even without the light as proof.
She picked up the key again. It turned easily in the lock.
Still in her pyjamas, heart in her mouth, she crept into the kitchen of the big house. It was silent, it was creepy, it was almost dark—with only the faint lights on the stove and the computer-controlled fridge to lead her way. She searched for the pie dish in drawers that glided out silently. She found her dish in the third drawer she tried, quite possibly put there by the cleaners.
Mission accomplished.
She eased the plate of muffins down onto the marble countertop so it wouldn’t clatter. Then immediately berated herself for such an idiotic move—and blamed it on her lack of sleep. She doubted Declan would notice the absence of the pie dish. But the sudden appearance of a plate of freshly baked muffins? There would be no doubt who had left them there and that she had trespassed.
She picked them up again, and then the pie dish, and made to tiptoe back to her door and then to her rightful side of it. Then she heard the music. A faint pulsing, driving rhythm coming, it sounded like, from somewhere on this floor.
Curiosity killed the cat—remember that, Shelley.
Another of her grandmother’s sayings flashed through her mind. Advice that in this case she really should take. But the house was otherwise dark and deserted. She’d been wondering about Declan’s secret life inside this house since the day she’d first met him. She could not resist this particular temptation.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, she tiptoed out of the kitchen and down a very short corridor. She guessed that in the old days this might have led to a scullery or cellar. Just a few silent steps from the kitchen she saw a door with a glass pane at the top—it was only the dim light coming through the glass that let her recognise it.
The music was coming from downstairs. Was Declan there? What would happen if he saw her prowling around where she had no right to prowl?
She could not resist sidling up to the glass panel and looking through.
Not a cellar but a full-size basement gym filled with serious-looking workout equipment.
And Declan was working out.
She nearly dropped her pie dish at the sight of him.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart started hammering so loudly she could hear it.
Declan, wearing only tight black gym shorts, his upper body completely bare save for a pair of grip gloves. Declan, doing pull-ups on a terrifyingly high multi-step pull-up bar. Declan doing ‘salmon pull-ups’, so called because they involved not just pulling himself up to the bar but pushing the actual bar up with him to the next step, like salmon swimming upstream against the current. It took incredible strength in both upper body and abs to master. Strength and willpower and endurance. And courage. One slip and he’d crash to the ground taking the metal bar with him.
Shelley went to the gym when she could. But she had never seen anyone actually do salmon pull-ups.
She watched in awe as, muscles straining, he pulled both himself and the bar to the very top step without pausing. Then, again without pausing, he hooked his legs over the bar and executed a series of sit-ups punching the air as he jack-knifed his body into a sitting position—upside down.
His cut, defined muscles gleamed with sweat as he grimaced with the effort of the unbelievably tough workout he was forcing his body through.
So that was where the muscles came from.
Mesmerised, she could not tear her eyes away from him, even though she knew she risked discovery. This was a guy who described himself as a geek?
Declan working out was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. She was getting turned on just watching. Her whole body was taut with hunger for him. With pure and simple lust. She nearly fainted as he turned in mid-air to show his tight, powerful butt, the straining muscles of his broad back.
‘I don’t do meaningless flings.’
Her words of three days ago came back to haunt her.
She wanted him more than she had ever imagined she could want a man.
If she could stumble down those stairs and push herself against all that hot, hard muscle she wouldn’t be thinking about meaning. She had to cross her legs at the thought of it.
The force of her desire for him made her tremble and her knees go suddenly weak. She leaned against the door to support herself just as Declan dropped to the ground from the top of the bar to land with total control on a thick, foam mat. He looked up and her breath stopped but he immediately rolled into a series of alternating one-arm push-ups. He hadn’t seen her.
But she knew the longer she stayed there, the greater the risk of discovery.
Her heart started an even more furious pounding and she found it difficult to breathe. Not just with her overwhelming longing for him but with terror at the prospect of him catching her spying on him.
With one last look at his incredible body, she turned as quietly and as cautiously as she could and tiptoed back to the door that would send her through to her very short-term leased part of the mansion. The staff downstairs to his billionaire upstairs.
Once safely back in her kitchen, she stood with her back to the connecting door and braced herself against it, urging her heart to slow down, her breath to steady from short, urgent gasps to a more regular pattern.
How could she ever forget how Declan looked working out in that gym? How much she wanted him? Wanted this man who had made it so very clear he had nothing to give her.
Actually, when she thought back, even a meaningless fling was not on offer. He had kissed her. That was all. But it had been such a wonderful kiss, of course she had thought further to what that kind of kiss could lead to. Making love with Declan. If that one kiss had given her so much pleasure, what would—?
She could not go there. That would be dreaming an impossible dream. Declan was still deeply entrenched in his marriage—even though his wife had passed away two years ago, Declan had not moved on. The only outcome of letting herself fall for him would be heartbreak. And she had had more than enough of that. She had to keep reminding herself of that.
The grey light of dawn was starting to filter through the blinds of the apartment. She knew there was zero chance of getting back to sleep now. A quick, very cold shower and then get out into the garden.
She had a big day planned—and a surprise for Declan that he might like, or hate so much she’d never be able to face him again.
* * *
Mid-afternoon and Declan was surprised to get a text from Shelley asking him
