‘I feel as though we’ve known one another for ever.’ Ella broke the silence with a dreamy murmur. She held back the thought that followed: that she felt she knew this man after a few days so much better than she’d ever known Steve. Felt that he knewhera thousand times better than Steve had, and yet how was that possible? With Steve, she’d had hopes and plans for a future, yet it seemed restrained and limiting compared to the pure heady freedom she felt with this man, who was practically a stranger.
Wasn’t he? Or was this what areal connectionfelt like—impossibly close, entwined, on the same wavelength? Was this whattrue lovefelt like? Love that wasn’t a slow build but a rush of everything good all at once? Her heart began a steady beatinside her.He was going.He hadn’t said anything at all about prolonging his stay.
‘How so?’
She warmed as he drew her closer. She rested her palm on his chest and felt his heartbeat, and a rush of love swept through her, leaving her weak, warm and giddy.
‘I feel like a different person when I’m with you,’ she confessed truthfully. ‘I feel adventurous and I don’t think I’ve ever felt adventurous in my whole life.’
‘You’ve cocooned yourself here, and I understand. You were grieving for your mother, you were hurt from a broken love affair and it felt safe to be here where there’s nothing to stretch you.’
‘That’s true, but it’s more than that. I’ve always toed the line but this feels…different. You’ve brought out a side to me I never thought existed. Have I…have I done that for you as well?’
Rocco remained silent for a few seconds. He felt lazy and comfortable with her body against his, the smell and feel of her filling him. He shifted so that he was facing her, her breasts against his chest and his thigh tucked between her legs. He was Jose Rivero, here in this cottage with this woman in his arms. If the question might have felt intrusive in another life, inthislife, the one where the weight of duty no longer existed, the answer was yes. He felt a different man.
For just a second, that fleeting thought was enough to send ripples of discomfort through him. But why should it, he asked himself, when he was going to be leaving in a matter of…?
A couple of days.
Rocco frowned at the tug somewhere deep inside him at the prospect of leaving. There’d been times when he’d almost forgotten why he was here in the first place! When he returned to reality, he would laugh at that and shake his head in disbelief.
‘Brought out a side to me I never thought existed? Now, let me think about that. You’ve certainly brought out a sexual side to my nature I never thought could be so powerful.’
‘You know what I mean. I’m not talking about the sex. When it comes to sex, well, that’s a whole new conversation. I barely recognise the woman who’s happy to walk around without any underwear and wants to be touched whenever and wherever.’
‘You’ve led a sheltered life.’ He grinned but actually found that he loathed thinking about her with the guy who’d later let her down. ‘If I’d been around during your formative years, walking around without underwear would have been the least adventurous streak in you.’ He thought of her as a young girl, quiet and thoughtful, making sure never to be the centre of attention. He would like to have been there for her, which was a crazy notion.
‘You have such a big ego, Jose Rivero!’
Rocco winced at the mention of his alter ego. He heard himself say with rough sincerity, ‘I’ve certainly never done anything like this before. A cottage in the middle of nowhere, with a woman walking around barefoot in the kitchen cooking meals for me while I pick apples from the trees in the garden.’
Rocco reflected on his relationships with women, casual and satisfying enough, but nothing like this. Women he courted, wined, dined and slept with, knowing that he would marry someone whom logic dictated would fit the bill: someone from his own class who understood what came with the job of being his wife.
‘So I’m a first?’
‘In many ways.’
Ella sighed with contentment as he stroked her back, his fingers tracing her spine light and ticklish. She liked the sound of him telling her she’d been a first. She wasn’t going to say anything about how she felt; she was going to obey the invisiblelines she thought were in place because, realistically, he hadn’t once talked about a future.
Did he want more from them? He had worked a steady path into her heart but the residue of disillusionment from the way she and Steve had crashed and burned was still there. Yes, she had fallen straight into him, maybe against her better judgement, but part of Ella recognised the danger of letting go of all the barriers she had built up around herself.
But the thought of him walking out of her life in a matter of days made her blood run cold. For better or for worse, she had to find out where things stood between them. She had to know whether there was a chance he had feelings for her which he maybe hadn’t even acknowledged, because it sure wouldn’t have been part of his plan when he’d arrived at Hailey’s.
‘I can’t think of any woman who’s managed to distract me from work the way you have,’ he said and Ella smiled against his chest.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Work is part and parcel of who I am.’
‘Yet here you are.’
‘Yet here I am.’
‘What happens to your store when you want to go on holiday? I know you’ve told me you have people who can take over, but surely you must relax now and again?’
‘I play as hard as I work.’
‘And yet you’ve never taken this sort of time out? Where do you go when you want to unwind? I understand how you’ve had to be focused on your job if you’ve had to build something from nothing. Working for yourself is always going to be a big ask—not much time to relax if you know that a week off might mean less money in the bank.’
