And he loved it even more when she kissed him spontaneously, cupping his face and nibbling at his lower lip to deepen the kiss. He loved the silky feel of her hair against his skin, her sweet floral scent, the warmth of her body against his.
He tipped her back on the sofa and was halfway through undoing her shirt when she groaned. ‘Dragan. You should’ve been born in Sparta.’
‘What?’ He frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’
‘Your sofa. It’s like a bed of nails.’
It wasn’t the most comfortable in the world, true, but it did him. He didn’t actually spend much time on it anyway—he was either out walking with the dog or somewhere with Melinda or sitting at the little table, working on some notes on his laptop. He smiled and stroked her hair back from her face. ‘Don’t be such a princess.’
She stiffened, then pushed him away and sat up, buttoning her shirt again.
He frowned. ‘Melinda? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ Her face shuttered. ‘I ought to be going.’
What? A few seconds ago they’d been kissing. Undressing each other—she’d completely unbuttoned his own shirt. And now she’d gone all frosty on him. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. ‘What? Why? Neither of us is on call. I thought we were spending time together?’ Then the penny dropped. He’d accused her of being princessy. ‘This princess business—I was teasing, tesoro. You know the story of the princess who can still feel the tiny pea through fifty mattresses—that’s like the way you complain about my sofa.’
‘Uh-huh.’
He didn’t understand why she was reacting so badly—Melinda had a great sense of humour usually, and it was rare for her not to have a smile on her face—but he hated the idea of her being hurt and him being the cause. He slid his arm round her and hugged her. ‘You’re not like that at all—you don’t have any airs and graces, and your four-by-four isn’t like that dreadful woman’s next door.’
‘What woman?’
‘I didn’t catch her name—I wasn’t paying attention,’ he admitted. ‘Natalie or Natasha or Na…I don’t know. It’s not important.’ He flapped a dismissive hand. ‘She’s staying next door in the holiday cottage. Hopefully not for too long. Now, she’s the princessy type. Hair cut in the latest fashion, designer clothes and shoes, a four-by-four that’s probably never been within a mile of an untarmacked track in its life. Whereas yours is covered in mud outside and animal hair inside.’
Her mouth tightened. ‘So now you’re saying I look a mess.’
‘No. I’m saying you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, you don’t need make-up to emphasise how lovely you are and you’d manage to look stylish in a…oh, in a potato sack.’ He made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘I don’t have a clue why we’re fighting—I don’t want to argue with you, Melinda.’ He sighed. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something tonight.’
‘What?’
‘When you look as if you want to slap me?’ He shook his head. ‘No way.’ There was no point in asking her. She’d reject him straight out, and then their relationship would slowly start to fall apart.
‘I don’t want to slap you. But I don’t like what you said.’
‘Then I apologise. Without reservation.’ Clearly he’d touched a raw nerve. He had no idea why his throw-away comment had upset her so badly; or maybe he’d accidentally repeated something that an ex had once said to hurt her. ‘I really didn’t mean to hurt you, Melinda. I’d never do that. You mean too much to me.’
She remained perfectly still for a moment, then she nodded, as if reassured, slid her arm round his waist and leaned into him. ‘Apology accepted. So what did you want to talk about?’
‘The idea was to go for a walk. Up on the cliffs, or barefoot on the sand. In the moonlight or maybe watching the sun rise.’
She pulled a face. ‘You want me to get up before dawn?’
‘Yes—No.’ He raked a hand through his hair distractedly. ‘Melinda. Today, when you called me zlato—did you mean it?’
She frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I asked first.’
‘Yes. And it upset you.’
‘Only because it’s been a long, long time since anyone used that word to me. Remember, I’ve lived in England for half my life now.’
‘Didn’t you ever want to go back to Croatia?’
‘There’s nothing there for me any more.’
His face and voice were both expressionless. And Melinda knew without a doubt that this was what haunted Dragan. What caused the shadows in his eyes. And that night she’d stayed here last month and had woken up in the middle of the night to find him standing by the window, staring out at the sea with such a bleak expression that it had almost broken her heart…He’d refused to talk about it, but she had a feeling this was to do with the same thing.
And she also had the feeling that this was the last tiny barrier between them.
Ha. As if she had the right to push him to talk, when she never talked about what had driven her to England. But how could she talk about it? She knew from experience that the minute people knew about her family, they started treating her differently. Either they withdrew from her because they secretly thought that she was just slumming it and didn’t really want their friendship, or they started seeing her as a passport to high society.
Except she didn’t hang out with high society. She’d never fitted in—and although her parents hadn’t actually taken the step of disowning her, they didn’t approve of her life here. On the rare occasions she went back to Contarini they never talked about her job, almost as if ignoring it meant that it wasn’t really happening. To listen to her parents, anyone would think that she was merely living abroad for a while to broaden her life experience, and spent her days shopping and sightseeing.
Most of the time Melinda managed to put it to the back of her mind and get on with her life. And she was happy: she’d never been particularly close to her parents, she loathed her brother Raffi’s playboy friends, and she had nothing in common with her sister Serena’s Sloaney mates, so it didn’t worry her that she was pretty much on her own here.
Whereas Dragan, she thought, was different. Like her, he felt there was nothing for him in his old home but, unlike her, he missed it and it hurt so much that it was like a fracture right across his heart—a fracture she wanted to heal.
She took his hand and pressed a kiss into it. ‘Why not?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘Keeping things bottled up inside isn’t good for you,’ she said quietly. Even though she knew she was being a hypocrite. The longer she went without telling him the secret she’d been keeping ever since she’d first come to England, the harder it was to bring up the subject—and the more scared she was about his reaction. He wasn’t the social-climber type, but she really didn’t want him to reject
