Carter turned from listening to Caleb’s assurances he’d be primed for the next point of contact to give Elena a dazzling smile. ‘It was wonderful to meet you too, Elena. Caleb here’s a lucky man.’ He slapped Caleb on the back again and Elena had to hide her frown of concern when she noticed him wincing in pain from his injured rib.
‘Thank you for preventing my wife from dying of boredom with all our business talk,’ Carter went on, not seeming to notice Caleb’s physical discomfort. ‘It looked like the two of you had a lot in common, no doubt swapping tales about the two of us!’ he boomed, gesturing between himself and Caleb, then sliding his arm around his wife’s waist and giving her a hard squeeze which made her gasp and slap him gently on the chest in retaliation.
Elena’s breath caught in her throat as she felt Caleb slide his arm around her waist and pull her closer to him, as if wanting to mirror the American’s loving behaviour.
As part of the act, Elena reminded herself fuzzily.
Heart thumping in her throat, she watched the couple as they weaved away through the tables towards the stairs leading to the ground floor, then carefully extricated herself from Caleb’s hold on the pretence of grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair.
‘Well, that went well, I think,’ she said, looking up into Caleb’s face to find him frowning, as if perplexed about something.
Because she’d moved away from him so deliberately?
Probably.
She felt pretty sure he wasn’t used to women rejecting his touch.
It made her wonder again whether he’d heard her gushing praise of him.
‘You did a great job, Caleb; it sounds like a partnership is in the bag,’ she said, shrugging her jacket on awkwardly. She couldn’t quite look him in the eye now. Not after she’d seen the way he was looking at her a moment ago.
As much as she wanted him to know she was sorry for the way she’d treated him in the past and wanted to make amends, she also didn’t want to give him the wrong impression here tonight.
She needed to be more careful.
‘Yes, he seemed to be on board,’ Caleb said, his voice a low, seductive rumble that sent a shiver of unwelcome longing down her spine.
‘Shall we go?’ she asked, her voice sounding prim and strained as she overcompensated for her body’s inappropriate reaction.
‘Sure. Lead the way,’ he said, gesturing for her to leave first, with a somewhat unnerving glint in his eyes.
* * *
As they walked away from the Gothic quarter, Caleb finally allowed himself to think about what he’d overheard Elena saying to Carter’s wife about him.
She could have just been playing the game of being his lover, of course, but there had been something in the way she’d said it that had made his breath catch in his throat. Clearly she’d thought he wasn’t listening because when he’d turned to catch her eye she’d looked almost—shifty.
So there was something more than friendship between them, just as he’d suspected. But if that was the case, why was she pretending that there wasn’t?
He had no idea.
What he did know was that he was going to make sure to find out before she left for England and do everything in his power to smooth things over with her.
The kiss they’d shared before Carter and his wife had arrived had made his body hum with tension all evening. When he’d seen the look of concern on her face he’d wanted to do something to reassure her he was going to do whatever it took to win the Americans over, but as soon as his mouth had met hers he’d been lost in a great surge of hunger for her. The sounds and sights of the restaurant had faded away until all he was aware of was the gentle sway and press of Elena’s body against his and the sweet, exotic fragrance of her. Her mouth had felt so good against his it had taken a monumental effort to drag himself away from her and not grab her hand and run with her out of the restaurant and jump into the next cab to take them home.
After that, watching her charming Carter’s wife and dazzling the couple with her wit, intelligence and profound beauty—he’d found it almost impossible to keep his mind solely on the business conversation.
Throughout the entire evening he’d been intensely aware of the connection between them, taut and alive, as if it was a tangible thing drawing them ever closer together.
He wanted to know more about what was going on between them—had to know, for the sake of his sanity.
Yes, he assured himself, he wasn’t going to let her go until he’d got the full measure of Elena Jones.
THE CAR PICKED them up a couple of streets away from the restaurant and took them straight home to Caleb’s apartment, the two of them sitting in a buzzing, tension-filled silence as they looked out at the wide city streets flashing by.
‘You were great tonight,’ Caleb said after his driver had pulled up outside his building and he’d helped Elena out of the car, feeling her cool, small hand in his and marvelling at how good it felt to have it there. ‘Carter’s wife really seemed to like you.’
She flashed him an equable smile as she straightened up. ‘I liked her; she was a really lovely woman, very focused on her family.’
‘Well, I owe you big for what you did for me tonight.’
There was a loaded moment where they stood and looked at each other, the gentle, far-off sounds of the city at night making him feel as though they were trapped in a bubble together. Caleb broke the strange energy by smiling and saying, ‘Anyway, thanks, Elena. I really appreciate your help.’
She shuffled a little on the spot and nodded, her bright eyes gleaming in the light thrown out from the streetlight above them.
‘It was my pleasure. Anything for a friend.’
The emphasis she put on the word ‘friend’ made him bristle.
It suddenly struck him that by tomorrow her forty-eight hours of observation of him would be up and she might well leave and return to England.
And he found he really didn’t want her to go.
He wondered where this intense need to keep her here longer had sprung from. Okay, he found her really attractive and was impressed with her business acumen and how smart and savvy she was, but he never normally felt this sort of draw to a woman.
There was something different about her, something compulsive.
He had to explore what this thing was between them, or it would haunt him for ever.
Turning back to look into her hooded eyes, he was intrigued to see she seemed to be having her own non-verbal debate with herself. Was she only holding back because she thought he was still incapacitated? Weak? Frustration surged through him. Well, he wasn’t. He was completely in his right mind and he knew damn well what he wanted—her,
