sweet relief, but instead she felt disappointed.
Stupid, stupid.
They rode in silence to the Dillard building in Mayfair, the night a blur of dark sky and city lights all around them. The air in the back of the limo felt taut with tension, and Mia let out a quiet sigh of relief when the limo finally pulled up in front of the office.
‘I need to get my things,’ she murmured. She’d left her work clothes, coat, and handbag at the office, an oversight she hadn’t even considered when she’d been dazzled by being the belle of the ball. The party was well and truly over now, the clock striking midnight, everything turning back to the way it was. There seemed to be no question of their going anywhere together, as Alessandro had hinted at the ball. All Mia wanted to do was go home.
‘I need to get my things as well,’ Alessandro replied. ‘I’ll let you go up, and the limo can drive you home.’
‘There’s no need…’ Mia began half-heartedly, feeling she should take the tube as a matter of principle, and after giving her a hard look, Alessandro shrugged, supremely indifferent.
‘As you like.’
He swiped his key card and ushered her inside the building, everything now cloaked in darkness and quiet. Mia had been in the office late at night before, when she’d had to work longer hours for one reason or another, but it felt different now, with Alessandro walking right behind her, and gooseflesh rippling over her skin at the knowledge of him being so close.
The lift had never felt so small or suffocating as they rode up in a silence taut not with expectation but the sudden, unsettling lack of it. Then the doors swished open and they stepped onto the top floor of the building, where Henry’s office was located. Mia walked through the dim open-plan space, lit only by the streetlights outside, thankful that this ordeal was almost over.
She’d come so close to losing her mind and heaven knew what else over this man. She could consider herself lucky, she told herself, even if she didn’t feel all that lucky right then.
‘I left my things in Henry’s—I mean your—office,’ she said, and Alessandro merely nodded as he opened the door and ushered her through. He flicked on a table lamp, bathing the room in warm light, while Mia hurriedly hunted for her bag and discarded clothes. She hesitated, knowing she didn’t want to brave the tube home at ten o’clock at night in a floor-length evening gown.
‘Do you mind if I change…?’
Another hard, fathomless look, another shrug. ‘As you like.’ He left the office, and Mia let out another sigh of relief and pent-up tension as the door closed behind him. Her head still felt fuzzy from the champagne, even though the main part of her was stone-cold sober, longing only to be curled up in her bed with a comforting mug of hot chocolate, this whole evening behind her.
Her fingers fumbled as she unclasped the diamond necklace that now felt heavy and cold around her neck. Carefully she replaced it in the black velvet box the stylist had brandished so proudly just a few short hours ago. It felt like another lifetime. Had she really danced with Alessandro? Flirted with him? Felt she had a connection with him, that something important and intimate had pulsed between them when she’d told him she didn’t know who he was? And then she’d twined her arms around his neck and told him she’d go anywhere with him. She’d even believed it.
Her breath came out in a shuddery rush as she acknowledged the folly of her actions. She had done all those things and more, and all she could do now was thank heaven that it hadn’t gone any further, and that Alessandro at least seemed to have had the same second thoughts she had.
The best-case scenario now was that they would both pretend to forget everything that had—and hadn’t—happened. And really, she told herself, it wasn’t as if they’d actually done anything. They hadn’t even kissed.
But she’d wanted to…
Forcing those pointless, treacherous thoughts away, Mia took off the diamond earrings and put them back as well. Then her heels, silver diamanté-decorated stilettos, and her sheer tights, bundling up the tights and putting the shoes back in the box. Now the dress.
She reached behind her to unzip the dress, her fingertips brushing the top of the zipper but unable to pull it down. Mia groaned under her breath, nearly wrenching her arm out of its socket as she tried again, desperately, to unzip her gown. No luck. She couldn’t do it on her own. And she couldn’t go on the tube in this. She was going to have to ask Alessandro to help her, a prospect that filled her with dread as well as a tiny, treacherous flicker of excitement she chose to ignore.
Alessandro rapped sharply on the door. ‘Are you nearly ready?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice wavered and she took a deep breath before going to the door and opening it. Alessandro stood there, frowning at the sight of her.
‘You haven’t changed.’ He sounded disapproving.
‘I know. I can’t manage the zip of the dress.’ She met his gaze even though it took effort. ‘Do you mind helping me?’
‘With the zip?’
Why did he sound so surprised, so scandalised? ‘Yes,’ Mia answered, and then, pointlessly, ‘I’m sorry.’
Wordlessly Alessandro nodded and stepped into the room. Mia took another deep breath as she silently turned around, showing him the zip that ran from the nape of her neck to the small of her back.
Moonlight poured through the windows, bathing everything in silver, as for a hushed moment neither of them moved. A tendril of hair had fallen from her chignon and Alessandro moved it from her neck, making her shudder.
She hadn’t meant to, heaven knew, she hadn’t, but the response rippled through her all the same, visceral and consuming, and more importantly audible.
What was it about this man that made her respond this way? She never had before, not even close. Her romantic and sexual experience was basically nil, and that by her choice. Perhaps that was why she was reacting the way she was now, because she had nothing to compare it to.
And yet Mia knew it wasn’t that. It was the man. The man whose sandalwood aftershave she breathed in, making her senses reel. The man who was now tugging the zipper down her back, slowly, so achingly slowly, inch by tempting, traitorous, lovely inch. Tug. Tug. Mia held her breath as Alessandro’s breath fanned her neck, and then her bare back as the dress began to fall away, leaving her skin exposed.
The air was cool on her bared back, but Alessandro’s breath was warm. Mia tensed, trying to keep herself from shuddering again, but she failed, a ripple of longing trembling over her skin and right through her. She knew Alessandro saw and heard it, felt it even.
And she felt his response in the sudden stilling of his fingers on the small of her back, the zip almost all the way undone. Still he didn’t move, and Mia didn’t either.
The world felt stilled, suspended; everything a hushed, held breath as they both remained where they were, waiting. Mia knew she should step away, just as she knew she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. In fact, she did the opposite, her body betraying her as she swayed slightly towards him.
Slowly, so slowly, Alessandro leaned forward. His breath fanned Mia’s already heated skin as his lips brushed against the knob of her spine and he pressed a lingering kiss to the nape of her neck.
