“It’s false advertising. You attract the wrong customers.” She nudged his foot back. The tide had dropped lower in the time they’d sat here, and the calm, blue water lapped at the wall nearly two meters below their feet.
“So if I become an unhelpful selfish git, I can meet the perfect woman?”
Millie’s liked the wordsperfect woman, and she liked sitting so close next to him, their bodies touching from knee to shoulder. “What do you consider a perfect woman?”
This time, his foot pushed hers much harder. She looked at his face and found himgrinning.
“Don’t fish.” His eyebrows rose meaningfully.
“I’m not—”
“Millie, I grew up on my grandfather’s boat. I know fishing whenI see it.”
“Don’t I deserve a compliment?”
“Compliments that’re asked for are worthless. You’ll have to wait for one that is offered freely.” He pushed himself up on the wall and offered her his hand to help her up.
It wasn’t a compliment she was after. She wanted a declaration, a commitment. Of course it was early for them, but he was leaving this afternoon, and he was leaving her with no answers. He must know what she wanted to hear, she could see it in his eyes; he just wasn’tsaying it.
“I’m going to walk up to the house. Will you give me a ten-minute head start? I’d rather we didn’t walk intogether.”
“It’s all right. I’ll go to my office. I need to phone London and see about rebooking all my appointments.”
She didn’t ask him how long he would be away, she absolutely refused to sound needy. He said a free compliment was the only kind worth having. By the same token, a free commitment. She would not push him for a return date. Let him tell her when hechose to.
Instead she asked, “What time are you catching the ferry?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
Tomorrow? “Not today?”
“I want more time with you. See, I’m following your advice, being selfish.” He took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “Can you have dinner with me in the villagetonight?”
“You mean something like a date?”
“If you would do me the honour?”
“Didn’t you say we weren’t doingthat yet?”
“It’s dinner. I don’t plan to throw you on the table and ravish you in front of the other diners.” Then he turned her hand over to kiss her palm, and her resolve melted under his warm lips; tremors ran up and downher body.
“Is this why you’re staying an extra night?”
“Hmm,” he said, his lips pressed into her skin for a second. “I wanted a repeat of our dinner a month ago, to make up for interrogating you.”
“So you’ll behave better?”
“If you’ll let me, I’ll do my best to behave worse.” The slow circling thumb on the inside of her wrist didn’t leave much room for thinking. “This time, when your shawl slips and reveals your cleavage, I’m going to look and not feel guilty. I’ll feel lucky and grateful and in awe. And”—he moved half a step, no more, but she could smell his warm skin—“when we walk back, in the dark, under the stars, I’m going to carry you, and you won’t refuse and—”
“I’ll see you at seven.” Millie snatched her hand back and ran up the lawn towards the house. She wouldn’t melt in front of him. Not even if the heat in his voice, his seductive voice, promised everything she’d dreamed and wished for and convinced herself she’d never have.
He hadn’t said the words, but he would. Soon. She knew it because the look in his eyes said it all. George was hers. He reallywas hers.
Millie burst through the side door and into the kitchen to find coffee brewing and Joanie taking a tray of croissants out ofthe oven.
Life sometimes was just toowonderful.
Six days later. La Canette, ferry terminal
